Almost all the characters in Shakespeare’s masterpiece King’s Lear had life in it; there was something about them that could only be felt by heart. Thought insignificant in terms of the story progress but still an important character was the fool named Pocket. It was Pocket who saw the whole thing with his eyes because he was present when King Lear made a dumb request from his daughter. Lear asked his daughters to show their love to him if they wanted a share in the family’s legacy.
Goneril and Regan were the clever ladies who with their oily tongue took all the property and power from their father. Cordelia failed to prove her love for her father and thus failed in big way as compared to her sisters. Christopher Moore no highlights Pocket and makes him the main character who starts an attempt to save the king.
Pocket was with the king in King Lear but his role was not told in this pattern. Here ironically the fool of the court is planning and plotting against and for the royalties. Pocket tries his best to bring the right daughter close to her father once again so that the king gets back what he has lost.
Situational irony is at its best here because the fool is not actually a fool in the story he is always thinking in a wise manner. On the other hand the king known for his wise decisions makes the biggest blunder of his life.
Euan Morton gives the almost original British style to the narration, though it is not like that in the Shakespearean era but matches fine. This is not the first book related to Shakespeare that the author has altered Shakespeare for Squirrels and The Serpent of Venice also reminds us the England of the eighteenth century. Big change in these books is that they are written in fun mode and thus not tragedies at all.
