Deja Fu

Author: Christopher Moore
Pages: 336
Year Published: 2009

It’s probably bad form to begin a revew asking if you’ve read another of the author’s works, but sod it all, I’m asking. Have you read Lamb yet? No? Go. Click the link. Get the book. I’ll wait.

So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, Christopher Moore returns with his latest novel – Fool. Like Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, John Gardner’s Grendel and Tom Stoppard’s venerated Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Fool takes a well-known story and inverts it by switching the focus to another character, in this case the Fool from King Lear.

Somehow, along the way, Moore manages to work in characters and situations from other Shakespeare plays (the witches from Macbeth make an appearance), and turn the entire thing into a comedy. A blacker-than-the-devil’s-soul kind of comedy, but a comedy nonetheless. It even follows the dramatic definitions which are usually applied to distinguish between comedy and tragedy.

If you haven’t read Lear, or it’s just been a couple of centuries, the basic plot is this: Lear wishes to retire and divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters. He will keep some knights for himself and sort of shuttle between his daughter’s families and their castles, enjoying his last days. It all goes downhill from there. About as far as it can go and not feature the Devil himself in a cameo. King Lear almost makes Hamlet look like family theater.

That Moore was able to take this play and make it comedic says a lot about his talents as a writer. That so many people seem to enjoy it says a lot about us as a society (and some of it not very nice.) However, it you do enjoy Shakespeare and don’t mind when people create a clever derivative (and hate West Side Story), then you’re sure to enjoy Moore’s latest book. Don’t worry if you don’t get all of the references. The story alone is worth the read. Everything else is just lagniappe.

-K