We return to the late 13th Century and to see how
Pocket of Dog Snogging is getting on since the events of 2009’s Fool. And as
much as that book was a skewering of Shakespeare’s King Lear, this one takes on both
The Merchant of Venice and Othello by the legendary writer and adds a bit of Edgar Allen
Poe’s short story The Cask of Amontillado.
I like Christopher Moore, but I kind of wish he not do
sequels to his books. I mean, I loved his 1995 bestseller, Bloodsucking Fiends,
but his 2007 follow-up You Suck and 2010 follow-up of that, Bite Me, never achieved
the same sort of hilarity of the first. And while I kind of wish he do a follow
up to 2006’s A Dirty Job, I’m now hoping he doesn’t -but I think he is. I saw
him in 2012 for the tour of Sacré Bleu in Pasadena and he mentioned he was working on one.
Pocket has been sent to Venice by his queen, Cordelia, to
stop a war, and he quickly finds himself caught in multiple revenge schemes. The
cast of characters is drawn from both of these famous plays, but also adds a
disappointingly brief cameo of Marco Polo (which made me pine once again for
the long-lost Doctor Who serial of the same name). The problem here, Polo’s
appearance seems wedged in just to move the plot along. It’s a bit contrived
and to be honest, now reflecting on it hours after finishing the book, Polo
would’ve made for a much more interesting story without all the theatrics of
Shakespeare added in.
Yet.
Yet, even a sub-par Christopher Moore book is still better
than most. While this story is not fully narrated by Pocket (which it should’ve),
Moore still shows why he’s a genius at what he does, as the book does some great
and snappy dialogue with a lot of self-referential comments. The bawdy jokes
remain as well (there is not a four-letter word Pocket cannot use), and Moore’s
marvelous prose remains as his greatest trademark (the Pound-of-Flesh trial shines
with his abundant wit and cleverness).
Not as astute or as amusing as Fool, but Moore’s The Serpent
of Venice reads like an old friend you’ve out grown -it’s still nice to see them every once in a while.
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