12. Fool

by Christopher Moore

Whenever I pick up a Christopher Moore novel and show it to my husband, he invariably says, "Haven't you read that before?" In fact, of his dozen or so novels, I had previously read only two. Apparently I am always so enthusiastic when reading a Moore novel that Ryan got the idea I was a big Moore fan (Moorian? Moorista? Mooron? hmmmmm.) I do like Moore's sense of humor and his novels are full to the brim with it. I also like that he tends to pick interesting projects. When vampire books were in vogue, for example, he wrote You Suck which was a tongue in cheek version of a vampire novel.

Fool, on the other hand, is an adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear" told from the point of view of Lear's Fool, Pocket. The very first page is a content warning written by the author himself cautioning the reader that the contents are full of explicit language and bawdiness. The contents live up to the warning, but not in a gratuitous way. A constant stream of lewd innuendo interspersed with witty sarcastic dialog and painfully tragic moments. I spent a large portion of the recent trip to Mississippi in the passenger seat giggling. I don't know how close Moore's tale is to the original Shakespeare since I've never read it. However, this was great fun despite the tragic events throughout and became more of a tragi-comedy. I heartily recommend this for Shakespeare buffs, as long as they have a sense of humor.