I am listening to: Maurine by Say Hi To Your Mom.
"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." From Publishers Weekly - Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
What's not to love about the majestic tragedy of King Lear with extra naughty bits thrown in? If you're a purist, stay away from Christopher Moore's anachronistic re-telling of Shakespear's King Lear. In fact, if you are a purist, stay away from any Christopher Moore book because the man is a mash-up artist. There are references wrapped up in references, jokes and one-liners that go by so quickly that you sometimes have to say, wait a minute, did he just say that Goneril likes to be spanked, or am I imagining it?"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." From Publishers Weekly - Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Moore's humor is earthy and loose and silly and very very funny. Along the lines of Douglas Adams or Terry Prachett, or Tom Robbins, highly absurd and irreverent. I first started reading Moore when I came across A Dirty Job, still my favorite book by him. And that's where my one complaint about Fool comes in. A Dirty Job had boobs and knobs and all sorts of blood and guts, but it had heart, something I thought was a little lacking in the story of Pocket, the court jester in Lear's disintegrating kingdom. There are glimpses of it, but ultimately, though a fun, witty romp, it left me a little - watch out kids, this is a literary term used in the high echelons of academia - meh.
Here's my system on reviewing, based on the old nursery rhyme about magpies:
Fool - Three Magpies
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