Brandon’s Reviews > Fool by Moore, Christopher (2010) Paperback > Status Update

There’s a ratio between magical plot devices and credulity. Importing a half dozen such devices from other plays and listing them does not diminish the toxic effects of so many devices (342).

So Moore does do the Dover Cliffs feels scene, which requires the exposition—unmotivated because it has everything to do with Moore getting in Shakespeare’s good bits and nothing to do with Gloucester, Edgar or Pocket (299).

The variation on Dover Cliffs feels like an attempt to put Pocket in a scene he was not.

Regan finishes Cornwall, Moore’s variation based on Shakespeare’s characterization.

In tragedies is the hero’s pain of his or her “own making,” as the girl ghost tells pocket (248)

The chess motif continues with Pocket’s supposition of Albany hanging Edmund: “[Oswald’s] whole life he had carried messages and run errands for Goneril, but at last he could see reward in sight for being intrigue’s pawn“ (219). A pawn one space from promotion.

Kent asks Pocket if he knows “that there’s no fool piece on the chessboard,” and Pocket says, “the fool is the player, the mind above the moves” (215), which is to say the fool is an aspect of all the pieces or visa versa, yet the fool is inextricably connected to his responsibility to the king.

The Fool’s concern for Drool’s safety becomes a major motivator for the title character. The Fool and Drool make an interesting doppelgänger.

The fool’s question about Oswald, “Would he ever understand that he found favor with Goneril not because of his groveling or devotion, but because he was so easily humiliated?” is an insightful character analysis (130).

The backstory of Pocket and Thalia The Anchoress of Dog Snogging seems to be more of a reason for Moore to write the book than anything left unsaid by Shakespeare.