BOOK REVIEW: "Fool" by Christopher Moore

“This is a bawdy tale…”

Gross understatement, indeed. Trust me.
“Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity…””

So continues Christopher Moore’s much-appreciated warning…right before he takes his audience through the literary equivalent of Amsterdam’s Red Light District. Well, a gladiator movie set in the Red Light District, to be exact.

Fool parodies several of William Shakespeare’s plays from the viewpoint of King Lear’s court jester, Pocket, or the Black Fool, as he is better known. Pocket does his job well, which is namely to keep his boss sufficiently amused so that the king would return the favor and spare him a hanging. True to this function in a Shakespeare work, his acerbic wit reflects the license court jesters were given…although one gets the feeling that Moore exaggerates just a bit. How so? It might be safe to say that calling Lear’s oldest daughter, Goneril, for example, an “insane tart” and advising his master to “get the girls some teachers who aren’t nuns” for “fuck’s sake,” would surely have led to a real jester (or anyone else) losing his life. But under Moore’s Lear’s protection Pocket runs amok, hurling well-crafted insults at all who tick him off. For his tenacity and creativity he earns ample heaps of wrath as well as the constant threat of finding his severed head on a stick. Much like his scepter sidekick, Joke.

For those of you who may have forgotten the plot, allow me: King Lear, faced with the daunting task of dividing his kingdom among his female heirs, instructs his three daughters to profess their love for him. No, a simple “I love you” won’t do; the pronouncement Lear expects is to be verbose, grandiose, befitting the pomposity of his station. The size of each girl’s property, then, will depend on her ability to make him swoon.

With her father’s court looking on, Goneril launches into a syrupy-sweet declaration of her unrelenting affection: “Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter/Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty/Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare/No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour/As much as child e'er loved, or father found/A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable/Beyond all manner of so much I love you.” Exactly what Lear’s ego wants to hear.

Next up is his middle daughter, Regan, who, not to be outdone, lavishes praise upon her father’s thirsty ears: Sir, I am made/Of the self-same metal that my sister is/And prize me at her worth. In my true heart/I find she names my very deed of love/Only she comes too short/that I profess/Myself an enemy to all other joys/Which the most precious square of sense possesses/And find I am alone felicitate/In your dear highness' love.”

Lear, drunk off the attention, immediately turns to Cordelia, his youngest daughter and obvious favorite: “What can you say to draw/A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.”

“Nothing, my lord.”

Although she does expound on the pointlessness of the exercise by explaining her love is indeed sufficient and genuine, Cordelia’s simple statement—also meant to expose the silliness of this charade—greatly offends Lear. Her honesty, in turn, gets her banished from the kingdom, and she is sent away empty-handed.

Where Pocket comes in—aside from holding court as the narrator—is as the mastermind of a plan to exact revenge on Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester obsessed with undoing Edgar, his legitimate heir half-brother. He includes in this nefarious plan Goneril and Regan for not only double-crossing the king but also for treating Lear and Cordelia poorly. One senses, though, that he mostly wants to stick it to them for the hell of it. “I’m not built for these dark dealings—I’m better suited for laughter, children’s birthdays, baby animals, and friendly bonking.” (189)

The genius in Fool, however, is the painstaking detail that Moore invests in this very central character. Pocket’s back story—as absurd as it is (he was raised in a convent by a Mother Superior who shaved her beard daily and was blessed with an Adam’s apple)—exists not so much to inform who and what he is at the present—Moore’s not that sentimental—but to give credence to his role as the king’s confidante. Once we learn that Lear [NOT GIVING IT AWAY!] because he [STILL NOT GIVING IT AWAY!], we understand why Pocket loves the old man so much. Even though he calls him a “decrepit old looney” and an “arrogant old tosser.” To his face.

Moore also allows Pocket a cast of characters equally inane—from a well-hung apprentice named Drool who mimics voices to randy wenches who conveniently fall out of their dresses while doing the laundry to villains who must be coached through their villainous, um, -ness to a potty-mouthed king whose stature diminishes by the second to whoring princesses who sleep with Spaniards that speak no English to rhyming ghosts who enjoy a good shag.

There’s always a bloody ghost.

Yes, Fool is bawdy, and just how so continues to make me blush. Moore’s tome is very definitely replete with “gratuitous shagging, murder, maiming…” etc. If you are of a delicate sensibility and need your Shakespeare fix to follow strict tradition, I would implore you to take a pass. Err on the side of caution, you might say. You would, however, be missing out on something special. Fool is delightful—in a sadistic kind of way—and I, as a former English major, appreciate the intelligent, goofy take on the ostentatious elements of The Bard.


---Dianha Simpson
imagineatrium.com

Fool is out now.
Buy your copy at your local independent. Visit Indiebound.org
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