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A re-telling of King Lear as only Christopher Moore could write it, as told by the fool, Pocket.
I don’t know if I actually needed to know something about King Lear to really get this, but somehow it fell flat. Maybe it’s due to my ignorance of the original. I don’t know. But I never had a very good idea of what was going on, what the devious plots involved, and who was trying to take over the kingdom and how. I was just confused. So maybe my confusion dampened my sense of humor, but I really didn’t even find it all that funny. It definitely had its moments, but they were pretty few and far between.
I hate footnotes. There weren’t a lot of them, and some of them were actually pretty funny, but most of them were just straight up definitions of medieval terms. Maybe I’ve read too much historical fiction, but a footnote definition of portcullis just irritated me to no end. Why break the flow of the story for that?
My favorite parts involved the servants behind the scenes in the castles. They were light-hearted, normal people, who added most of the humor to the book. That was a nice change from how they’re normally portrayed as boring, scared mice that hide in the background.
I enjoyed A Dirty Job much more, but die-hard Moore fans will like this one. Definitely stay away if you’re easily offended. By anything. He skewers pretty much everything in this book.
Reviewed May 10, 2009
Read an excerpt.
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Friday Flashback Reviews are a weekly feature here on The Introverted Reader. These are old reviews I wrote on GoodReads. Thanks to Angieville and her Retro Friday Reviews for the inspiration and encouragement!
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