Wednesday, June 17, 2009

A quick book review- Fool

I have been a fan of Christopher Moore for a while, his books tend to be quick, easy reads for me. But he is very hit and miss for me. I loved Coyote Blue which is the first book I read by him and Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love story was also quite enjoyable. I absolutely love Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff and his two most recent novels, You Suck: A love story (the sequel to Bloodsucking fiends) and A Dirty Job were also both really good. The rest of his novels were good in most cases, nothing really great, but light and airy and that is nice to read sometimes. So when I heard he was doing a novel based upon the Shakespearean play King Lear, I was intrigued. Well, in this novel, Fool, he did not disappoint. It is loosely based upon King Lear, but Moore acknowledges that he takes from like 12 other works of The Bard and so it does not follow King Lear directly. I also do not know King Lear very well, but I was able to recognize it somewhat and elements of other Shakespearean plays in the book, Fool. I find it at least sort of helpful to be aware of Shakespeare's work if you are going to read Fool, but I am sure that is not totally necessary. The best part, IMHO, is the bawdiness of this book. There is a warning at the beginning of the novel that it is bawdy and it does not disappoint in that area. The whole book is full of double entendres, sexual behavior and other bawdiness. It reminds me a lot of the Renaissance Faire when I used to go when I was in high school. (GG and I went to the Faire last year and it is now not as entertaining or as bawdy as I recall.) There may be times in which the humor is sophomoric and infantile, but when I am laughing within the first few pages, I know I will enjoy the book. It may not follow King Lear accurately, but it is a fun romp nonetheless.

1 comment:

Tengrain said...

I loved Fool -- I keep foisting it on others, demanding that they read it.

Regards,

Tengrain