| Product: |
Moab Is My Washpot - Stephen Fry |
| Date: |
12/08/08 (189 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Well written
Disadvantages: Boring school days book
Waver...
Now, the more observant of you will know the man in the dooyoo pic (look up and left...) is not the articulate and rather wordy homosexual that bought us the brilliant Fry & Laurie and Blackadder TV series but Barry Fry, the rotund and gobby Peterborough FC manager, the latter neither of the above (and owner of the only entertaining autobiography here). But as Bazza knows what a wash pot is and Stephen Fry, a Moab, we may as well call it quits and crash on...
Stephen Fry is one of those reluctant stars that have been born with a big talent that the public demands, and of which he makes a nice living off, but suffers terrible over the bag of flesh and bones he sees in the mirror that has to drag it around. Tracey Emin and Amy Winehouse share that same sort of conflict, people who don't like seeing their ugly mugs on TV and in magazines, a flawed beauty that doesn't fit with their celebrity, resulting in their art being self-deprecating and their downfall very public, as is Emins dreadful modern art and Fry's rather self-indulgent and somewhat therapeutic autobiography here. This type of star can't really grasp the fact that they are more famous than those insular vacuous celebrities because, unlike the big brother winner, they have a genuine blue-chip talent that doesn't demand they be gorgeous, slim and able to revel in being stupid to make more money, and that means they may look like normal people, not famous for just their image. They have to back it up with genius and that means pressure. I think that's the contradiction here and why these guys self-destruct the way they do. Fry continual puts himself down in the book and I think it's those imperfections in the likes of Fry, Emin and horse face Winehouse that will eventually destroy them. Emin has a great figure that's 'corked' by this grotesque head, her face seemingly snared by a meat hook! I think that really irritates them. Why do I have these imperfections like normal people? The other school of thought is they push their talent to spite those imperfections.
When you read about celebs that interest you in life you want to know about how and why they got to be famous and what its like. You also want the dirt and info on other celebs they mix with, the inside track that others that don't read don't get to hear about. It's a kind of trade off between star and the punter who pays the £6.99. But like Peter Kay's recent biography the book abruptly stops just as it's getting going. Whether these two are being shrewd and want to cash in with another more commercial book at a later date, part two if you like, and talk about the stuff we really want to hear about is fair enough, but there isn't enough here to entertain me, the book just about his childhood. But I feel they are quite simply not interesting in talking about celebrity that made them who they are, claiming talent is the real driver, and so sticking to their early years for now. When the work drys up for the likes of Kay and Fry you can bet your life they will write a tell all!
If you are expecting that revelatory celebrity stuff-which I was-then this is not the book for you, and I'm afraid the rating suffers for that. There's only so much public school b***ing, beatings and poetry writing a man can take, and apparently that's a lot at the obligatory English upper middle-class public school Fry attended and detailed every day at here. This book really is Stephen Fry's school days. Be warned.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
"We had run well and run hard, the vapor steaming from the hot mystery of this his mouth and throat...the delights to come"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
The early days for Stephen were a very comfortable upbringing in rural Norfolk, his father an inventor or repute, their huge country house in Booton evidence of his success and status. Soon young Stephen was steamed off to prep school in the Hogwarts Express, following in the tracks of his older brother Roger. 90% of the parents of public school boarders live within one hour of their kids, the experience not about being unable to care for their kids but what they have also gone through, presumably so the kids repeat what they do in life. We also learn very early on that Fry has a hidden deviancy to him, confessing to enjoying watching other boys do poo-poos and wee-wees in the forest before his teens arrived.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
"If this boy could play ordinary poker then he could play strip poker. I was quickly a naked fool"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
It's about here in the book you can feels Fry's guilt of being born Jewish and homosexual, two crosses he has clearly had to bear. It also about now in the book he realized he was gay and the stigma that came with that, even though gay frolics are the norm in all boy's public school. Once he got to Uppingham School, the education establishment that would supposedly take him through to A-levels and Oxbridge, he had no choice but to declare his sexuality, his love of a boy called Mathew taking over the middle of the book. It was also here that Fry confesses to being a wretched thief , a nasty habit that would see him get expelled from two schools and eventually go to prison for credit card fraud, something I wasn't aware of.
- - - - - - - - - - -
"I was well spoken, but not well spoken of".
- - - - - - - - - - -
-Conclusion-
If you want a thorough and hilarious gay mans exposes of celebrity and a raucous upbringing in public school then Rupert Everett's autobiography,' Red Carpets and other Banana Skins', is the one you go for. After reading that beautifully written book I was hoping I would get more of the same in this, but it just wasn't the case. The sprawling long chapters of between over 50-100 pages each, one for each school, make this very hard work. And if you don't particularly want to hear about the nuance and minutia of public school life then don't even consider buying this.
I also feel Fry wants to emulate his big hero Oscar Wilde throughout this book, writings and actions, prison an example of, Fry claiming incarceration was easy and a breeze as he was prepared for it by a rather brutal public school life. Stephen quotes Wilde a lot in the book and also feels his torment, the actor playing Wilde in the film of the same name. I hardly feel Fry is brave enough to pioneer gay rights here. Fry is merely a spoilt kid in his early life.
Fry's irritating use of big words in his novels to confuse and show off has always been my gripe with his work - and there's one or two here to keep mere mortals like me at bay and keep distancing me. It's almost as if he only wants to talk to his own social class. In the book he uses the word 'pleonastic', the act of using too many words in a sentence than is necessary, which sums up his rather pedantically honest biography to me. His school days were clearly traumatic and gauche for him, as was his relationship with his father, and he wants to tell just that. That's great for you and I suppose the essence of a true autobiography but I fear no one is listening dear boy until its get entertaining.
Summary: If you went to public school you will love it!
|
|
