Title: Fool
Author: Christopher Moore
Finished: March 30, 2009
Pages: 311
Published: 2009
A new spin on Shakespeare’s King Lear, told by the fool’s prospective.
I was immediately intrigued when I was given this book as a gift because King Lear is one play I am very familiar with having done a production of it in high school. Knowing the story so well helped me fully understand and grasp this idea of telling the story all over again, but through Lear’s fool’s eyes.
For those who don’t know, King Lear, is about a king who decides to divide his land between his three daughters, based on how much they love him. His youngest, Cordelia, refuses to be like her sisters and is banished from the family. Throughout the story we find Lear going mad at his decision, wishing he had made a different decision as he watches his other daughters fight for all the land.
There are clear differences between King Lear and Fool, but at some point Moore needed to take creative license and he did an amazing job creating a character we hardly know and making him center stage.
You don’t have to know the story of King Lear, to read this book, if fact, you may find it even more enjoyable if you are less familiar. It’s a satyrical piece of work containing vulgar and crude language that you would never hear so expressly pointed out in Shakespeare’s original work.
*Challenges – 2009 Pub Challenge, 999 Challenge, 50/100+ Challenge, Countdown Challenge, New Authors Challenge, RYOB Challenge, What’s in a Name?, Spring Reading Thing
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