As I’ve mentioned before, I love Christopher Moore for his ability to make me forget the troubles of the world. If he has to do that by making me laugh at the most sophomoric humor imaginable, so be it. With Serpent of Venice, though, Moore surpasses this admittedly low bar by adding two other components that I dearly love: Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe.
At a book signing I attended, Moore explained that he got the idea for setting a monster story in Venice while visiting the city. He researched stories that took place in and around Venice and came up with three that formed the foundation for his novel: The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, and The Merchant of Venice and Othello by William Shakespeare. His fool Pocket, from the novel Fool, fills the role of Fortunato, the ironically unfortunate fellow who gets walled up and left to die in Poe’s tale of insanity and revenge. In Serpent, the fool manages to survive with the help of a sea creature (the aforementioned monster) and goes on to uncover a plot to start another Crusade and seek revenge for his murdered love. There are also penis jokes and a monkey.
While this novel contains plenty of the silliness for which Christopher Moore is known, I was impressed by Moore’s ability to weave together three separate works of fiction (four if you are counting King Lear, from which Pocket originally sprung) without completely cannibalizing the original stories and remaining relatively true to their key plot points. While Moore is never one for giving lessons, he doesn’t shy away from the anti-semitism present in The Merchant of Venice, something I appreciated given the mixed feelings I have about the play. (Remember the 2004 film starring Al Pacino as Shylock? It addressed anti-semitism and resulted in the dreariest comedy ever filmed. Making prejudice funny ain’t easy, that’s for sure.) Mix in Iago, Marco Polo, and some pirates, and you’ve got the silliest mash up since the “Christopher Walken dancing” video hit YouTube.
As Moore aptly demonstrated in Lamb, he is capable of thoughtful reflection on weighty topics; he’s irreverent but never arrogant. Readers with delicate sensibilities may be offended by his language (if the title of this review bothered you, then Moore is not for you). But if clever plotting with a high dose of blasphemy is your thing, then what are you waiting for?
Sophomoric humor is correct. It’s all I read Christopher Moore for to be honest, and it’s about all he aspires to write, I feel. Lamb satirizes religion, and there are moments in his other works where he writes something that verges on real social commentary, but I prefer the Moore seen in this and Fool, AKA the one that’s winkingly vulgar and absurd. It doesn’t always work (see You Suck, Bite Me, Practical Demonkeeping, Island of the Sequined Nun, Sacre Bleu; you know, he certainly has written his share of stinkers), but that’s a worthy trade-off for how brilliant it can be when it really does, as it does in The Serpent of Venice. It’s not his tightest work, just as Fool wasn’t, but it’s too damned funny for that to drag it down much at all.
Part of me wishes it were him writing the William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series, or at the very least Gideon Defoe of the Pirates! series. Just as he’s at his best with sophomoric humor, he’s also at his best when he’s parodying something, whether it be Shakespeare, Poe, or religion. And he seems to actually recapture the feel and spirit of Shakespeare more than Ian Doescher, somehow, despite Fool and The Serpent of Venice being written in prose.
Interesting observations! I agree that he can be sketchy (Island of the Sequined Love Nun and Fluke are actually my least favorites; haven’t read Practical Demonkeeping yet), but even when he is “off” I feel like I still get my money’s worth. I pretty much know what I’m getting into, and it’s good escapist fun for me. Coyote Blue is next on my list. I keep hearing my husband chuckle as he’s reading so I have high hopes.
Coyote Blue was fun. One of his more middle-of-the-road works. What haven’t you read by him? If the answer is either of the following, you should change that immediately: A Dirty Job (my personal favorite) and The Stupidest Angel.
A Dirty Job was the first book I ever read by Moore, and it remains one of my favorites! And The Stupidest Angel lives alongside A Christmas Carol as something I like to revisit every holiday season to get myself in the Christmas spirit. :)
“There are also penis jokes and a monkey” is A: a hilarious sentence and B: completely representative of Moore. Great review!
Why thank you!
I JUST took this out from the library.