Fool: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: smashing knockers, humble fool, puppet stick, White Tower, Mother Basil, King Lear (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Here's the Cliff Notes you wished you'd had for King Lear—the mad royal, his devious daughters, rhyming ghosts and a castle full of hot intrigue—in a cheeky and ribald romp that both channels and chides the Bard and all Fate's bastards. It's 1288, and the king's fool, Pocket, and his dimwit apprentice, Drool, set out to clean up the mess Lear has made of his kingdom, his family and his fortune—only to discover the truth about their own heritage. There's more murder, mayhem, mistaken identities and scene changes than you can remember, but bestselling Moore (You Suck) turns things on their head with an edgy 21st-century perspective that makes the story line as sharp, surly and slick as a game of Grand Theft Auto. Moore confesses he borrows from at least a dozen of the Bard's plays for this buffet of tragedy, comedy and medieval porn action. It's a manic, masterly mix—winning, wild and something today's groundlings will applaud. (Feb.)
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From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Michael Dirda In "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," Tom Stoppard had the clever idea of retelling "Hamlet" from the point of view of two of its minor characters. Even before that, James Thurber addressed the problem of "The Macbeth Murder Mystery," treating Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy as if it were an Agatha Christie whodunit. It turns out that Macbeth and his good lady were falsely blamed for the death of King Duncan, the real murderer being absolutely the least likely character. Similarly, the 1950s film "Forbidden Planet" gave a science-fiction twist to "The Tempest," even as the musical "West Side Story" copied and updated the plot of "Romeo and Juliet." As the king of dramatists, Shakespeare has long invited every form of pastiche, parody and general lèse-majesté. But to turn the darkly depressing "King Lear" into a comedy requires more than ordinary chutzpah. Yet who better to give it a try than Christopher Moore, author of the famously outrageous and funny Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal? As Moore's prefatorial "Warning" to Fool explicitly states, the result is "a bawdy tale." Very bawdy. We're talking country matters here, the beast with two backs, coxcombs and poxes, scullions and cullions, all the most intimate body fluids and exudations. In truth, Fool is exuberantly, tirelessly, brazenly profane, vulgar, crude, sexist, blasphemous and obscene. Compared to Moore's novel, even Mel Brooks's hilariously tasteless film "Blazing Saddles" appears a model of stately 18th-century decorousness. To quote carelessly from Fool would strain the forbearance of this family newspaper. Suffice it to say that variants of the f-word and its English cousins -- the marginally more acceptable, because less familiar "shag" and "bonk" -- appear on every page, not only as intensifiers and expletives but also as apt descriptions for what is happening right before our eyes on the tapestried divan with Princess Goneril or behind the arras with her sister Regan. Virtually every woman in this novel -- from the cook and the laundress to a holy anchoress and three witches -- demonstrates what Moore calls, in one of his rare euphemisms, "a generous spirit in the dark." Our narrator and hero is Pocket, King Lear's jester or fool. Originally a foundling reared by nuns and once a traveling mummer (actor/acrobat/clown), he is a young man of multiple talents: Pocket can forge letters, throw knives with deadly accuracy, caper with equal ease among the high and the low and, most of important all, make the melancholy Cordelia laugh. He even boasts an apprentice named Drool, a man-mountain of limited intelligence but spaniel-like loyalty and a not-too-distant cousin of Mongo from "Blazing Saddles." As the novel opens, old Lear has been persuaded to divvy up his kingdom among his three daughters and in return expects arias of impassioned devotion and gratitude, which the hypocritical (but very sexy) Goneril and Regan enthusiastically deliver. Cordelia refuses to exaggerate her affection for her father and is duly sent packing, married off without a dowry to the king of France. Ye Olde Britain is then divided between the two lying-through-their-teeth sisters, the medieval equivalents of Vampirella and Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. Before long, Lear's darling daughters are cuckolding their ducal husbands while conspiring against each other and with the sleekly wicked Edmund, the bastard son of the Duke of Gloucester. Once fully heart-broken and divested of his retainers, the now howling-mad Lear is driven from his castle into the raging storm, with only Pocket left to set matters right. Can he do it? So many things are rotten in the state of Britain, and a fair number of them involve cold-blooded murder, madness, sexual frenzy and rape and, of course, torture (up to and including the plucking out of eyes), not that one should discount the occasional ghostly visitation, a bit of sorcery and witchcraft, and all-out war. Needless to say, Pocket turns out to be much more than just your ordinary fool in motley. All comedies approach the tragic, avoiding it at the last minute through some fateful revelation or convenient deus ex machina. In Fool Moore takes a tragedy -- after all, "Lear" ends with almost everybody dead -- and plays it for laughs, largely through the exuberance of the novel's shaggy, slangy diction. Pocket spiels like a music-hall comedian, with a relentless spate of winking and blatant sexual banter and a constant patter of quips, japes and backtalk. Take this confrontation with the satinly evil Edmund: "I said, 'Thou scaly scalawag of a corpse-gorged carrion worm, cease your feast on the bodies of your betters and receive the Black Fool before vengeful spirits come to wrench the twisted soul from your body and drag it into the darkest depths of hell for your treachery.' " 'Oh, well spoken, fool,' said Edmund. " 'You think so?' " 'Oh yes, I'm cut to the quick. I may never recover.' " 'Completely impromptu,' said I. 'With time and polish -- well, I could go out and return with a keener edge on it.' " 'Perish the thought,' said the bastard." I suspect that such deadly politeness owes more than a little to the similarly elegant sarcasm found in films like "The Princess Bride" and comparable fractured fairytales. While much of the humor of Fool is Rabelaisian and full of priapic gusto, Moore will stoop to any form of joking. Virtually every geographical location is a bad pun of the groan-inducing variety, my favorite being the city of Lint-upon-Tweed. The three witches are named Parsley, Sage and Rosemary, and when the old knight Kent naturally asks, "What, no Thyme?" witch Rosemary answers with a badabing: "Oh, we've the time if you've the inclination, handsome." An ambitious troupe of traveling mummers hopes to stage the classic but ever-fresh "Green Eggs and Hamlet." The king of France is named Jeff. There are, naturally, more than a few pokes at modern-day politics and religion. On the very first page we are told that a thousand years ago "George II, idiot king of Merica, destroyed the world." We also learn that "after the Thirteenth Holy Crusade," it was decided that to avoid future strife "the birthplace of Jesus would be moved to a different city every four years." Less welcome, indeed an artistic misjudgment, is the steady dog-trot of word-notes and definitions at the bottom of the page. These interrupt the narrative flow for no discernibly good reason. They're not funny, so they can't be sending up the kind of annotation found in scholarly editions of Shakespeare, but neither are they particularly useful. Does it really matter to tell the reader, without even a glint of humor, that a chamberlain is "usually a servant in charge of running a castle or household" and that an iamb is "a metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable"? While usually a merry prankster, at times Pocket grows as melancholy as Jaques in "As You Like It" and then speaks with a somber, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, Shakespearean majesty: "Oh, we are but soft and squishy bags of mortality rolling in a bin of sharp circumstance, leaking life until we collapse, flaccid, into our own despair." Sometimes our hero even grows sentimental: "Ah, Goneril, Goneril, Goneril -- like a distant love chant is her name. Not that it doesn't summon memories of burning urination and putrid discharge, but what romance worth the memory is devoid of the bittersweet?" But before long, Pocket shucks off such unprofessional wistfulness and is back to his usual self, as in this typical riposte: " 'Shall I disrobe for my punishment?' I offered. 'Flagellation? Fellation? Whatever. I am your willing penitent, lady.' " While Fool is certainly amusing -- especially when read while snowbound in Ohio during late January -- its blithe crudity can grow a little tiresome at times, no matter how much one generally admires Moore's copious and almost Bard-like razzmatazz. I also wondered if anybody, except Drool, could fail to guess the identities of the various mysterious or ghostly personages, let alone have any trouble in foreseeing Pocket's eventual destiny. No matter. If you like Benny Hill's leering music-hall routines or Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld novels, or George MacDonald Fraser's rumbustious Flashman adventures, not to overlook the less well known comic fiction of, say, Tom Holt and Tom Sharpe, you're almost certain to enjoy Christopher Moore's latest romp. Besides, its hero prances around with bells on. No fooling.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 311 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition, First Printing edition (February 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060590319
• ISBN-13: 978-0060590314
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (149 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,215 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When we are born, we cry, that we are come to this great stage of fools, September 29, 2008

By	Susan Tunis (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Christopher Moore is at his best when he stretches himself. He can keep cranking out amusing books set in Pine Cove and San Francisco, and I will joyfully continue reading them. But it is the rarer and more challenging works (such as his prior novel LAMB) that I really look forward to with relish.

Fool is Moore's take on Shakespeare in general and King Lear in particular. Once again, Moore has set himself the challenge of finding the comedy in an epic tragedy. In Fool, now that I think of it, he uses a device similar to the one he used in LAMB--a charming and ridiculous narrator. This is Lear told from the point of view of the court jester, Pocket, a character as endearing as any that Moore has written. Through Pocket's eyes we learn more about the goings on in Castle Lear than we have been privy to in the past. And, we learn the fool's own fascinating life story. It is possible that devotees of the Shakespearean original did not realize that the Lear household actually revolved around the fool?

I don't know that there's much point in giving you a Cliff's Notes version of the plot. Lear was the elderly king of all Britain. As the play/novel opens, he has decided to divide his kingdom among his three adult daughters. The division will be determined by who loves him the most. (That's fair, right?) The two eldest, Goneril and Regan flatter him mightily. Only the youngest, Cordelia, speaks truthfully and modestly of her love for her father. But her sincerity is lost on Lear. He flies into a rage. He disinherits Cordelia and divides the kingdom between Goneril and Regan and their respective husbands. Lear's best friend Kent says, "Hey, this is crazy. What are you doing?" and gets banished for his trouble. And so it begins, eventually leading to murder, war, madness, and so forth. This ringing any bells?

You may be asking, "Where's the fool?" That's just it. Pocket is everywhere. He's telling the story. He is the witness to it all. He knows the entire back story, has all the family secrets, knows how those three girls lost their virginity, etc. And you know that's going to come up, because this is a Christopher Moore novel, after all. Shakespeare may be hallowed ground to some, but Chris Moore isn't above throwing in a little bathroom humor, some gratuitous sex, and a joke or two that'll make you groan. Actually, I don't think Will Shakespeare was above any of those devices himself. Some of the humor is terribly erudite and sophisticated and some is well, idiotic. (Literally, as it happens.) Say what you will, this novel is laugh-out-loud funny!

I'll be honest, there were times when the mixture of comedy and tragedy clashed a little uncomfortably for me. It's a freakin' depressing story, y'all! But Moore's twisted take on Shakespeare and his obvious love and respect for the Bard are all but brilliant. Bravo, Chris! Do keep stretching those literary and creative muscles. This is your best work in years.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moore's prose, by any other name ...., February 13, 2009

By	Nicole Del Sesto (Northern Cal) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In the "spirit" of the book:

Bawdy, audacious and wry
Moore's Shakespeare is really quite fly
With Lear's way cool fool
and a sidekick named Drool
You really should give it a try

Ribald laughs galore
and of course there's a wh*re
If the Bard aint your bag, then
Read for the shaggin'
'Cuz nobody does it like Moore*

*You know, in writing.

When Christopher Moore announced his next book would be Shakespearean, my first reaction was "Oh no!" Let's put it this way, I don't go out of my way to encounter Shakespeare.

However, I am a huge fan of Moore's and I knew in his very capable hands, I would probably be OK. When I read the word "bung" on the second page, I knew that it would be more than OK!

Unfortunately for me, I didn't know Lear's story at all so I did feel a bit at a disadvantage. The book totally works as a story in and of its own, but I would have enjoyed "getting" all the references. This book is extremely clever, and even without knowledge of Lear I surprised myself by recognizing many Shakespearean references.

All in all, a VERY enjoyable romp through middle-ageish England.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Shakespearean parody that is better than pie!, February 22, 2009

By	J. Huskins (Dahlonega, Ga USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fool, Christopher Moore's most recent novel to hit the shelves, is a bawdy and perplexing tragic comedy based upon the Shakespearean play King Lear. If you are not a literary expert or Shakespeare enthusiast fear not, Moore will take even the most ignorant along for his crazed ride of "gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity."

If you are familiar with King Lear, do not expect Moore to use this play as a brace, yet merely as an outline. While working through the pages of Fool, you will find a cornucopia of plots, characters, and underlying ideas from close to a dozen of other Shakespeare works thrown into a blender with a generous does of Moore's own wit, and enough Elizabethan wordplay that will have you quoting his writing for weeks.

The story unfolds from the point of view of the King's fool, Pocket. He is a tauntingly contemptuous, straightforward bard, who is not afraid of offending every nobleman, shagging every wench, and encouraging every death threat that happens upon his path (not necessarily in that order of course). Pocket completely immerges himself in a twisted and ever unfolding plot after the elderly, senseless King Lear divides his kingdom between his two lying and deceitful daughters Goneril and the "shagnatious" Regan. Lear then banishes his formerly most favorite and loyal daughter, Cordelia, along with his trusted friend and advisor Kent for merely speaking the truth. With the help of his gigantically dim, yet always randy apprentice Drool; Pocket sets forth to set things right armed with nothing more than his throwing daggers, acute wit, and the occasional witch or wench.

I highly recommend Fool to anyone who is need of a good laugh and doesn't mind an abundance of hilariously written bawdy humor that has become Moore's forte. I found myself the literally laughing out loud countless times throughout this novel. If you find yourself amused by this book, then I highly recommend Lamb, another equally sacrilegious and utterly irrelevant parody from the comical mind of Christopher Moore.