Fool - Christopher Moore

   2009; 305 pages.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the “Fool” series.  Full Title: Fool: A Novel.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Dark Comedy; Shakespearean Spoofery; Humor.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Could there be anyone in the world more foolish than a king’s Royal Fool?  He even has to dress the part with that silly hat with little tinkle bells attached (it’s called a coxcomb) and carry around a jester’s scepter, a miniature mockery of the King’s royal wand, with a silly image of himself at the top.

 

    Welcome to Pocket’s world, and as far as he’s concerned that’s not a bad life.  He lives in the royal palace, is usually in the company of King Lear himself, is responsible for keeping everyone amused, and is allowed to make snarky gibes about any and all those around him.

 

    Admittedly, the job is risky.  Heap enough insults on some visiting noble, and the Fool runs the danger of being stabbed in a hallway or poisoned at a meal.  And of course, if the king finds your remarks slanderous instead of witty, your only choice may be decapitation or the hangman's noose.

 

    But Pocket is nobody’s fool (well yes, he is, the King’s, but bear with me), and nobody in the royal court views him as a threat.  Glib speech and persuasive reasoning will keep him out of trouble most of the time, and when it doesn’t, he can always play one highborn simpleton against another.

 

    As long as Pocket sticks to that strategy, there’s no telling what he can get away with.

 

What’s To Like...

    Fool is the opening book in Christopher Moore’s trilogy retelling the plays of Shakespeare, in this case being a satire of the bard's King Lear, and although I was forced to read a half-dozen or so of Shakespeare’s plays in high school, this wasn’t one of them.  I *thought* somebody got stabbed behind an arras and someone else threw themselves in a river and drowned in King Lear, but it turns out that was Hamlet.

 

    Thanks to Wikipedia, I can say that events in Fool follow the bard’s script fairly closely, even to the point of the Royal Fool being an important companion of King Lear.  But Christopher Moore tells to tale from Pocket’s point of view, adds a slew of new plot tangents, and rewrites the ending.  He also adds scenes, quotes, and characters from other Shakespearean plays, including my favorite trio: the three witches in Macbeth.  “Double double, toil and trouble”, and all that.

 

    The text contains both old English words and some modern Britishisms, but fear not, there are easy-to-use footnotes to enlighten you about these, bubbling over with Moore’s wit, and not to be skipped.  It is advisable to bookmark the “Cast of Characters” section at the very beginning; I referred to it a lot.

 

    The tale is told in the first-person POV – Pocket’s, of course.  The chapters are of moderate length: 25 of them covering 305 pages, for an average of about 12 pages per chapter, and grouped into five acts (same number as Shakespeare’s play had), plus a short Intermission.  I liked the nod to Druidism early in the book, and chuckled at the mention of the well-known Dr. Seuss children’s book, Green Eggs and Hamlet, with its famous soliloquy quote: “Green eggs, or not green eggs!”

 

    The ending is decent and logical, and similar to the way a Shakespearean tragedy finishes, albeit not particularly exciting or twisty, but that’s okay.  Everyone gets their just desserts (or “deserts”, let’s not argue the point), which for many of the characters means they die. The final act serves as an Epilogue, giving “whatever happened to” ends to various plot threads.  I’ve already read the sequel to this, The Serpent of Venice (reviewed here), and have the most recent (final?) book in the series, Shakespeare for Squirrels, waiting for me on my Kindle.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Boffnacity (n., made-up) : an expression of shagnatiousness (from the Latin “boffusnatious”).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 871 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.96*/5, based on 52,606 ratings and 3,616 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Pocket, you have traveled the land, tell me, what is it like to be a peasant?”

    “Well, milady, I’ve never been a peasant, strictly speaking, but for the most part, I’m told it’s wake early, work hard, suffer hunger, catch the plague, and die.  Then get up the next morning and do it all again.”

    “Every day?”

    “Well, if you’re a Christian – on Sunday you get up early, go to church, suffer hunger until you have a big meal of barley and swill, then catch the plague and die.”  (loc. 1416)

 

    “Here to be murdered then, are you?”

    “Not immediately.  Uh, Edmund, if you don’t mind my saying, you’re being offputtingly pleasant today.”

    “Thank you.  I’ve adopted a strategy of pleasantness.  It turns out that one can perpetrate all manner of heinous villainy under a cloak of courtesy and good cheer.”  Edmund leaned over the desk now, as if to take me into his most intimate confidence.  “It seems a man will forfeit all sensible self-interest if he finds you affable enough to share your company over a flagon of ale.”

    “So you’re being pleasant?”

    “Yes.”  (loc. 2545)

 

Kindle Details…

    Right now, Fool costs $9.99 at Amazon.  The other two books in the series go for $7.49 (The Serpent of Venice) and $11.99 (Shakespeare for Squirrels).  Christopher Moore has about 15 other e-books to offer, most of which I’ve read; they’re priced in the range of $5.99-$13.99.

 

 

“My people burn a virgin every autumn – one can’t be too careful.”  (loc. 1265 )

    There’s not much to quibble about in Fool, although if you’re looking for a YA book suitable for little Tommy or Susie, this isn’t it.  Cusswords abound, particularly the F-bomb in all its varied usages.  There’s a rape, and a fair amount of violence, including a pair of eyes getting plucked out.  Although to be fair, that eye-gouging is also in Shakespeare’s version.

    Then there are the references to sex, oodles of them, although in most cases it is described in tasteful terms, and precisely what you’d expect from a court jester.  That seemed to be the number one complaint in the one-star reviews.  

    Last, and least, there were more typos than I’d expect in a book put out by a major publishing house (HarperCollins).  “Parsely” instead of “parsley”, “free lance” instead of “freelance”, and so forth.  It wasn’t excessive, but still, what do those professional editors get paid for?

 

    That’s about it.  In summary, if you’re looking for a well-written novel with interesting characters, an abundance of wit, no slow spots, and an adult target audience, any Christopher Moore novel is a great choice.  And if you’re in the mood for something with a Shakespearean twist, Fool is perfect for you.

 

    9 Stars.  One last note: there's a section at the end titled “You Cheeky Git – An Author’s Note”, wherein the author gives you some background to both Fool and King Lear.  The latter, it turns out, is based on a mostly-mythical figure in English history named King Leir, who, if he has any historical basis at all, lived around 400 BC.  Hats off to Shakespeare for plucking him out of the myths and plopping him into a medieval setting, and to Christopher Moore for spoofing him.

A Midsummer Tempest - Poul Anderson

    1974; 240 pages.  New Author? : No.  Laurels: Nebula Award Nominee (1975); World Fantasy Award Nominee (1975); Mythopoiec Fantasy Award Winner (1975).  Genre : Mythopoeic Fiction; Shakespearean Lit; Fantasy; Romance; Alt-History; Steampunk; Time Travel.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

    The year is 1644.  The English civil war rages, with Oliver Cromwell’s Roundheads (aka, the Parliamentarians) engaged in a bitter struggle with Prince Rupert’s Cavaliers (aka, the Royalists).  At the moment, things are going badly for Prince Rupert, who is also our main protagonist.  The battle is lost, and he is about to come under house-arrest (well, technically, we’d call it “castle-arrest”) courtesy of one of Cromwell’s devoted supporters, Sir Malachi Shelgrave.

    For Rupert, the future is grim.  It’s only a matter of time before he’s hauled off to London and beheaded.  He’s not above trying to escape from Shelgrave’s castle, but four armed guardsmen watch him whenever he leaves the tower in which he’s imprisoned.  And without young Rupert, his dashing military leader, the days of the king, Charles I, are numbered as well.

    All of this sounds like a fascinating book of 15^th-century Historical Non-Fiction.  That is, until a 19^th-century steam-powered locomotive comes chugging out of its storage shed.

    And when the King and Queen of the Faeries make an appearance.

What’s To Like...

    A Midsummer Tempest is an ambitious effort by Poul Anderson to merge five or six different genres into a coherent storyline.  Sure, Alt-History and Sci-Fi go together like peanut butter and jelly, and so do Fantasy and Steampunk.  But seamlessly blending all four of those, then tossing in Romance and Shakespearean Literature to boot?  That’s impressive.

    There are Multiverses present, but even they are done with a new twist.  You can jump from one dimension to the next, and from one point in time to another as well.  But Poul Anderson’s novelty is to allow literary universes to participate.  So characters from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream jump in and interact with characters from other “real” worlds.

    The story starts out as Historical Fiction; Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Oliver Cromwell, and King Charles I were all historical figures.  The pacing is initially slow, but when the first bit of Fantasy shows up at 17%, things pick up nicely.  If you like anachronisms (and Shakespeare did), you’ll love this book.  Besides the aforementioned  multiverses and steam locomotives, there are other out-of-place things such as semaphore towers, diving bells, and hot air balloons.

    There are some neat phrases from at least five different foreign languages: German, French, Danish, Latin, and Spanish.  The malapropisms, many of which are misquotes from Shakespeare, were a hoot.  One example: "Abstinence makes the font grow harder”.  Occam’s Razor shows up; so does the magical herb Thistledown, the latter for the second book in a row that I've read.  I want to go to my local used-book store in hopes of finding “Introduction to Paratemporal Mathematics” and “Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics” and I’d also love to stop in at “The Oald Phoenix” tavern for some suds and socializing.

     The ending is predictable but adequate.  A major case of deus-ex-machina occurs, but I suspect that was deliberate.  The Epilogue was my favorite part of the finale, nicely resolving the elves-in-a-human-world paradox.  Those who read this book for the Romance will not be disappointed.  A Midsummer Tempest is a standalone story, with no ties AFAIK to any other Poul Anderson stories or settings.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Dumbledores (n., plural) : Bumblebees.

Others : Descry (v.); Wadmal (n.); Postilion (n.).

Excerpts...

    “Ye mortals do have powers, do know things, which are for aye denied the Faerie race,” she said.  “Among them is the strength of mortal love.”  Wistfulness tinged her speech: “Mine ageless, flighty kind knows love … of sorts … but simply pleasantly, like songs or sweets.  True human love is not a comedy; time makes it tragic.  In those heights and deeps rise dawns and storms beyond our understanding, the awe and the abidingness of death.”  (loc. 865)

    “Ha, ha, I’m not the only freak around!” he hooted.  “Who’rt thou that walkest thin as sparrowgrass behind yon red cucumber of a nose?”

    “Well, not a mildew-spotted calabash,” drawled the Englishman.  “I think I know thee from my maester’s taele.  Now come an’ sniff mine own.”

    Caliban edged toward him, stiff-legged and bristling.  “Be careful, cur.  I’ll haul thy bowels forth to make thy leash.”  (loc. 2948)

Kindle Details...

    A Midsummer Tempest presently sells for $4.80 at Amazon.  Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was a prolific science fiction and fantasy writer, and a couple dozen of his works  are available as e-books.  They range in price from $4.53 to $8.99.  There are also a couple of bundles available, priced from $7.80 to $9.99.  A tip: another good place to find Poul Anderson novels is at your local used-book store.

“I hope (…) you’ve got the wit to grasp the fundamental ideas of the transcendental calculus.”  (loc. 1564)

    The writing is great, the genre-blending is impressive, and the historical setting is fascinating.  But there are also some weaknesses, the most salient of which is a rather humdrum storyline.

    The romantic angle is obvious, yet the two lovers are allowed to meet and hatch an escape plan.  Indeed, there are two escapes, both of which proceed with a yawning lack of snags.  The key artifact is surprisingly easy to retrieve, and the Faerie folk’s largesse with magical gifts solves any challenge that our heroes might face.  In short, no tension ever builds.

    Then there’s the dialogue.  Rupert speaks in a Shakespearean lingo, and his sidekick, Will Fairweather, uses some sort of ersatz Scottish dialect that got old in a very short time.  Imagine reading paragraph-after-paragraph filled with words like: thic, backzide, loard, zaddle, caere, zuppoased, etc.   Yuck.

    The critics certainly loved A Midsummer Tempest, judging from the 1975 laurels listed in the header of this review.  Their reasons are valid – this really was an innovative approach to writing a Fantasy tale.  But personally, I found it to be all form, and very little substance.

    6½ Stars.  My favorite parts of A Midsummer Tempest were the spellbinding set of characters at The Oald Phoenix Inn and those times when the Faerie folk were present.  Unfortunately, those instances were few and far between, lying in the shadows behind the spotlighted (shouldn’t that be “spotlit”?) life and loves of Prince Rupert.  Fantasy yields to Drama and Romance, and more’s the pity for that, methinks.

The Serpent of Venice - Christopher Moore

   2014; 326 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Humor; Spoofery.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

    Start by blending Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado with two of Shakespeare’s plays, Othello and The Merchant of Venice.  Keep the story set (primarily) in Venice, but move the time back 300 years to the 1300’s. 

    Add one court jester, and his entourage of a monkey, a village idiot, and a dummy.  The latter two are not synonymous.  Top off with a sea serpent; after all, there’s one in the title.  Let simmer for a year or so in Christopher Moore’s fertile and demented brain.  And voila!  You have The Serpent of Venice.

    Oh yeah.  Garnish with a ghost.  There’s always a bloody ghost.

What’s To Like...

    There’s a Cast of Characters at the front of the book; this came in handy since of the three literary classics being blended here, I’ve only read The Merchant of Venice.  The “mixing” is not complete – The Cask of Amontillado dominates the opening chapters; then Othello, then TMoV.  Christopher Moore stays pretty true to the basic premise of each literary classic, but resolves each one in his own, and quite entertaining, way.

    I liked the characters, especially those that weren’t “lifted” from the three classics.  Pocket, our main protagonist, is a hoot, as are Jeff and Drool.  You’ll love the “Chorus” and their interaction with the characters.  There are occasional footnotes, which are as fun as the ones in Discworld.  And Immurement shows up again, courtesy of the Poe tale.  After a lifetime of never encountering it in my readings, it’s now crossed my path twice in a month.  The other October book with Immurement in it is reviewed here.

    Christopher Moore’s wit and writing mastery once again take center stage, and he is still in top-notch form here.  However, there is abundant use of cusswords, and quite a few sexual references.  I don’t remember his previous books being this full of R-rated stuff, but I’m way behind on reading his works, and perhaps his writing has evolved in this direction over the last 5 years or so.

    For all the humor, the book also touches on some serious issues – most notably racism and anti-Semitism.  But as Moore points out in a worth-your-while Afterword, this is primarily because those topics played prominent roles in the two Shakespearean plays.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Berk (n.) : a fool.  A Britishism derived from the cockney rhyming scheme “Berkshire hunt”.  I’ll let you figure out what it means in Cockney.

Others : Chundered (v.); Walleys (n.).  I never did figure out what “walleys” were.

Excerpts...

    “Morning, love,” said my Cordelia.

    She wore the polished black-and-gold breastplate of her armor with frilly knickers, which tipped me off that all was not in order.

    “Are you a dream, or a ghost?” said I, reaching out to her, then catching myself before tumbling off the bed.

    “Which would better suit you?”

    “Dream, I think.  Less annoying rhyming.”

    “But then, there’s always a bloody ghost.”  (pg. 140)

    I nodded, then approached the sentry.  “Beggin’ pardon, yeoman, would you happen to know if there’s an enormous simpleton with a monkey being held in here?”

    “Might be, what’s it to you?”

    “Well, the nitwit is this poor boy’s father, and we’re hoping to bring him home.”

    “What’s the monkey, his little brover?”

    “Half.  We’re a poor family, and – “  (pg. 197)

 “Cry havoc, and let slip the trousers of most outrageous bonkilation1”  (pg. 23)

    To be honest, the first part of The Serpent of Venice dragged a bit for me.  In all fairness, Moore had a slew of characters to introduce and a setting to establish.  But it was a challenge to find the plotline in all the tomfoolery.

    This was undoubtedly due in part to my not having ever read The Cask of Amontillado and Othello. Moore adheres to their storylines rather faithfully, but that was lost on me, at least until The Merchant of Venice took over.  However, once all the world-building was done, the Moore's innovative tale took center stage, and I warmed rapidly to this book.

    The persistent use of cusswords and sexual innuendos got old.  I wasn’t offended, just bored by the repetition.  Yet who knows, if William Shakespeare was alive today, maybe he’d be writing in this style.  Edgar Allan Poe most certainly would.  His style was cutting edge in the 1800’s; there’s no reason he’d be a mainstream author today.

    8 Stars.  Add ½ star for each of the three classics employed here that you have read and/or been forced to memorize passages from.  Parts like “the quality of mercy is not strained…” and “if you prick us, do we not bleed…”.  Reading this brought back some old memories of high school English class for me.  Not necessarily fond ones; just old.

Ruled Britannia - Harry Turtledove

Overall Rating : B.

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It's 1597. England seethes under a long Spanish occupation, following the success of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Queen Elizabeth is in the Tower of London. The state religion is once again Roman Catholic. The Inquisition is rooting out all Protestant die-hards and other heretics.

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Will Shakespeare couldn't care less. All he wants to do is write and stage plays, and get paid for them. But karmic forces are in motion. The English insurgents hire him to write a nationalistic play ("Boudicca"), while the Spanish oppressors hire him to write a eulogistic drama to memorialize their dying monarch (Philip V). The tension mounts as Will reluctantly finds himself forced to play both ends against the middle, but becoming unexpectedly wealthy as he does.

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What's To Like...

Shakespearophiles will love this book. Turtledove cribs freely from various plays of the the Bard himself, as well as some bits of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine. The result is a fine piece of drama that will appeal to even those of us who weren't thrilled about having to read one of Shakespeare's plays every cotton-pickin' year in High School.

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The author serves up a delightful cast of characters. There's the witty and punning Wil Kemp who will keep you groaning & chuckling. His counterfoil is the bombastic fellow-actor Richard Burbage. There's the Mitonesque detective Constable Strawberry, who can take a simple statement and embellish until not even the Queen herself can make out what he just said. And the lovable-but-lazy manservant Diego, employed by the womanizing Spanish soldier and wannabee-writer, Lope de Vega. And finally, at center-stage throughout, we have the but-I-never-wanted-to-be-a-hero Will Shakespeare.

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What's Not To Like...

Did I mention it's a drama? Therefore, don't expect much action. The book starts promisingly, with a pleasant public burning-at-the-stake, but that's pretty much it for blood-spilling until around page 500. (Yawn)

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Turtledove takes great pains to immerse you in 1590's England. But that includes that dreadful renaissance English that made reading The Merchant of Venice such a royal PITA. You will find yourself getting tired of being repeatedly subjected to words like fain, liefer, gramercy, certes, 'swounds, bethinks, belikes, and a whole slew of other verbs prefixed by that annoying "be-". Forsooth, it besucks.

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Finally, if you're English and Protestant, you will probably find this to be an uplifting tale. But if you're Spanish and Catholic, you may take umbrage at the stereotyping of all the occupiers as being either stupid or evil.

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To Be Free, or Not To Be Free...

Plotwise, the story ambles to a predictable conclusion. Spoiler Alert : The oppressors are ousted, the Queen is freed, and like Robert Asprin's Skeeve, Turtledove's Shakespeare somehow bumbles his way into becoming a hero.

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Yet there is a subtle undertone to the story. In the end, as Shakespeare wanders through London observing the joyous celebrations of long-awaited liberty, he also notes that the English citizenry are treating the unfortunate remaining Spanish (and anyone perceived - justly or unjustly - as being a collaborator) with just as much brutality as the Spanish had doled out for nine years. Even the likable Diego, who has never done any harm to the English, and who only wants to sleep his way through life, ends up dead-as-a-doornail, a casualty in the name of Freedom.

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But I digress. As a drama, Ruled Britannia rates an "A". As an action novel (hey, Mr. Turtledove! You at least cooda included the Armada's successful campaign against England in the story), it only rates a "C". That averages out to a "B", so that's what we'll give it.