On Sunday morning, I had my long run scheduled for 9 miles, which is the longest that I have attempted to run in over 16 months. I had two days of cross-training and strength workouts prior to Sunday, so I felt confident I would be able to complete my goal. With one minor setback of having to calibrate my iPod nana, I was able to run those 9 miles without any issues.
All of this to say that the remainder of my Sunday was devoted to complete one novel and starting another.
A student gave me Christopher Moore’s Fool when his English III class began to read “King Lear” two weeks ago. I normally enjoy Moore’s writing style, but this adaptation of the bard’s great piece didn’t pique my interest as much as I had hoped.
(Via Goodreads)“This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as nontraditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank . . . If that’s the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!”
Verily speaks Christopher Moore, much beloved scrivener and peerless literary jester, who hath writteneth much that is of grand wit and belly-busting mirth, including such laurelled bestsellers of the Times of Olde Newe Yorke as Lamb, A Dirty Job, and You Suck (no offense). Now he takes on no less than the legendary Bard himself (with the utmost humility and respect) in a twisted and insanely funny tale of a moronic monarch and his deceitful daughters—a rousing story of plots, subplots, counterplots, betrayals, war, revenge, bared bosoms, unbridled lust . . . and a ghost (there’s always a bloody ghost), as seen through the eyes of a man wearing a codpiece and bells on his head.
Fool
A man of infinite jest, Pocket has been Lear’s cherished fool for years, from the time the king’s grown daughters—selfish, scheming Goneril, sadistic (but erotic-fantasy-grade-hot) Regan, and sweet, loyal Cordelia—were mere girls. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege’s side when Lear—at the insidious urging of Edmund, the bastard (in every way imaginable) son of the Earl of Gloucester—demands that his kids swear their undying love and devotion before a collection of assembled guests. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father’s request is kind of . . . well . . . stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot.
Well, now the bangers and mash have really hit the fan. The whole damn country’s about to go to hell in a handbasket because of a stubborn old fart’s wounded pride. And the only person who can possibly make things right . . . is Pocket, a small and slight clown with a biting sense of humor. He’s already managed to sidestep catastrophe (and the vengeful blades of many an offended nobleman) on numerous occasions, using his razor-sharp mind, rapier wit . . . and the equally well-honed daggers he keeps conveniently hidden behind his back. Now he’s going to have to do some very fancy maneuvering—cast some spells, incite a few assassinations, start a war or two (the usual stuff)—to get Cordelia back into Daddy Lear’s good graces, to derail the fiendish power plays of Cordelia’s twisted sisters, to rescue his gigantic, gigantically dim, and always randy friend and apprentice fool, Drool, from repeated beatings . . . and to shag every lusciously shaggable wench who’s amenable to shagging along the way.
Pocket may be a fool . . . but he’s definitely not an idiot.
My Review: 3/5 Stars
I started reading a new-to-me book quickly after for a local book club, Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.
(Via Goodreads) Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.
Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.
To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.
I’m enjoying the quasi epistolary style that Semple has chosen to tell this tale, and I was intrigued to find out how this web of emails and direct narration comes together.
I will admit that I enjoyed reading The Scarlet Letter more than Where’d You Go, Bernadette. I have found myself being drawn more into the classics than contemporary literature, at least more than I have been in the past. I don’t know if Semple’s book was sub part of a victim of my transition, but I gave it a 3/5 stars because I found the book to be about 50 pages too long and completely too far fetched. I didn’t sympathize with either Bernadette, her husband nor Hester Prynne or Reverend Dimmesdale. All four characters are setup to be sympathized with because of their personal choices and response to social norms neutralize their morals and integrity, yet I found it hard to find much within their personalities to empathize with. Ultimately, I enjoyed the writing styles over the substance in both novels.
Forever Within the Numbered Pages 