Shakespeare and Pratchett are not worried.
Well, fuckstockings indeed.
That’s my new favorite word, I must admit.
Ah King Lear, Moore’s right, sometimes we do just want to kill you when you go bonkers in the storm.
Moore’s retelling of Lear, set in a Britain that never was and never will be, is good but suffers from what I see as the quintessential Moore problem.
It goes on for too long.
And Pratchett is still the king of footnotes. He has nothing to worry about. Sometimes, rarely, the footnotes were funny. Most of the time my response was – why did you need to footnote that.
Told from the viewpoint of Pocket, the Black Fool, Lear’s story spins out in the somewhat familiar way that the Restoration readers will be familiar with. If you disregard all that weird stuff about the popes and what not. There are guest appearances by other Shakespearean characters and discussions about rhyme. Pocket’s past or lack of one is revealed, and it isn’t a bit surprising to be honest. It would have been a little more interesting if Moore had made use of possible Fool/Cordelia doubling.
The book, however, is not totally without merit. The use of Pocket allows Moore to explore the possible reasons for the daughter’s reaction to Lear, and in this, there is some logical invention. The biggest test is of course, whether the retelling will get you to consider the original in a slightly different light, and this Moore does, at least in terms of the family structure of the royal family. Though the girls are basically true to type. A more cynical feminist will also wonder why the two evil ladies are still the most sexual ones.
The ghost was funny, I must admit. At times, the Pocket does make one think of Monty Python. I can see John Cleese doing Pocket with Terry Jones as Lear. Palin would be Cordy of course.
But fuckstockings the ending does kind of make one wonder about the ick factor.
Perhaps better as a movie?
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