Fool

I have enjoyed much of Christopher Moore's work in the past, but something felt missing in this book. It had several moments that were laugh-out-loud funny, but on the whole the humor felt much weaker than it is in his other books.

I am keeping this short because usually Moore's works are an easy three to four stars for me, but I feel compelled, without a clear understanding why, to place this somewhere between two and three stars. Perhaps it is just the time in which I read it, but it did not feel as strong as his other books. Alternatively, could it be that the issue is that Moore allowed himself to get too confined by the source material and the admittedly intimidating position of retelling Shakespeare?

Regardless, I still enjoyed the book, but I was disappointed with it in a way that I have not encountered before in his work.

'Fool' is a re-telling of the King Lear as a farce, from the point of view of the King's fool. Moore cheerfully adds in good bits from other Shakespeare plays, which I think is just fine. It's a fun book � at the very beginning, I laughed out loud reading the cast of characters, and again looking at the map � but not as good as his best. I did read it in one day, so maybe I'm kidding myself. I think there were two difficulties with it for me: [return]1. I had not idea what the plot was. The Fool was messing with people, apparently in order to help Lear, but I really couldn't tell how/why any of it would help. I didn't worry about that too much, just rolled along on his efforts to survive.[return]2. Sometimes Moore writes in modern English, and sometimes it is pure Elizabethan insult-o-rama. Fun stuff that he probably couldn't resist, but gave me a bit of Style Whiplash. If you've never read Moore, I recommend starting with 'Practical Demonkeeping' or 'Bloodsucking Fiends'.