That old devil called revenge! (The Stars' Tennis Balls - Stephen Fry)

Member Name: KingHerrod

Product:	The Stars' Tennis Balls - Stephen Fry
Date:	18/02/02 (347 review reads)
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The Count of Monte Cristo, one of literatures classic and timeless offerings of redemption, revenge and love. Many a book and film has drawn on it as its inspiration and many a book has ripped off this legacy of writing. You must have seen the Shawshank Redemption, one of those films that everybody likes, well that in part is The Count of Monte Cristo. Hang on you may think, this chap is supposed to be reviewing The Stars' Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry. Well I am, this novel from Stephen Fry is another in a long line of artistic works inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo. In fact, The Stars' Tennis Balls is almost a re-write of The Count of Monte Cristo, set in the modern age of electronic communication, but this fact does not mean that it is not worth the read. Fry of course realised this and as I read the book, my mind cast back to a rather interesting interview between Parkinson and Fry, where Stephen Fry was talking about the writing process and exclaimed that as he was halfway through writing his latest book (The Stars' Tennis Balls) he suddenly realised that he was re-writing The Count of Monte Cristo. I think Fry knew what he was doing and was just being his usual self depreciating self.

Stephen Fry needs little introduction, one time comedian, film actor, author and one of those people that can just speak intelligently on almost any subject. When he speaks, I listen; I listen with more attention than I would normally give anybody else. I find him charming, intelligent, witty, modest and endearing. As an author he has not had great critical acclaim. People like his books, but they are of the intelligent best-seller variety, rather than the serious fiction that wins prizes. I have previously read a couple of his other novels, The Liar and The Hippopotamus; I enjoyed them, they made me laugh, they made a few serious points about society, but they were the type of book that you read, enjoyed and then did not really remember with a
ny distinct clarity one year after you had read them, but back to The Stars' Tennis Balls.

Ned Maddstone is just beginning to experience life, he is ready to sit the Oxford entrance examinations, falling in love with a beautiful girl (Portia), sailing the Scottish coast, finding himself and loving those first tastes of independence. Ned is a charmer, born into an old aristocratic family, with an ex military and current MP father, he has talent, he has enough intelligence to succeed, his life seems bliss. However, as so often is this case with youth, he is unaware that good looks, good at sport, good with the girls and good at your schoolwork, lead to hatred amongst certain people. There are people that do not like Ned and they are determined to set him up, little do they know that a malicious prank and an apparently harmless letter are going to alter the course of Ned Maddstone's life forever.

As to what happens to Ned, well you will have to read the book to find out, this is one of those book whose plot needs to remain a mystery in order not to give the game away. However, those who have read The Count of Monte Cristo will have a fair idea as the direction things take for Ned.

Fry writes in a fluid style, the prose flows; it is easy on the eye and certainly not cumbersome to read. There is a real wit to the book, Fry's powers of observation that were so beautifully used in his TV shows are just as apparent in his literary work. He makes you chuckle as teenagers fret over their embarrassing parents and raise a wry smile as he examines some of the institutions of our country. The plot is gripping, it races along and keeps you glued to the pages, not wanting to put the book down and desperate to know what happens next.

But what raises this above his previous work for me, was the dash of philosophy, the critical eye turned to our society that craves instant gratification. The opening paragraph of the book, sums up
the wit, the observation and the Fry's obvious dislike for all that is instant:

"It all began some time in the last century, in an age when lovers wrote letters to each other sealed up in envelopes. Sometimes they used coloured inks to show their love, or they perfumed their paper with scent." As Fry goes on to open the book with an exchange of love letters between Ned and Portia.

A whole section of the book is given over to philosophical musings as Ned encounters a teacher of real depth in the most humbling of circumstances. Life is broken down to those things that really matter and the thought process examined so that complex ideas from impenetrable philosophers are presented in an easy to digest fashion.

""You don't believe that. You believe in will. You told me so."
"Like anyone with a sliver of honesty in them, I believe what I find I believe when I wake up each morning. Sometimes I can only think we are determined by the writing in our genes, sometimes it seems to me that we are made or unmade by our upbringings. On better days, it is true that I hope with some conviction that we and we alone make ourselves everything that we are."
"Nature, Nurture or Nietzsche in fact.""

This is not a complete modern set re-write of The Count of Monte Cristo, there are changes to the basic plot line, some for the better and some for the bleaker; what shines through is that Fry believes that in the modern world we do not have enough time to think, we rush, we don't ponder, in fact we have no time at all. Fry seems to suggest that certain people, who just love to think, would be better off in modern day society locked away in their own cocooned world, free to ponder and away from the wickedness that is life. I don't think life is wicked, but it can be and I think Fry has a point. As I read the book, I often found myself pondering whether Fry was trying to t
ell us, that this is how he would like to live, who can tell, but the thought crossed my mind.

The Stars' Tennis Balls is easy to read, thought provoking, witty and a damn good read. In The Count of Monte Cristo inspired genre it is the best that I have read. My main criticism is the ending, I was disappointed, but then ending any novel in a satisfactory way is, in my opinion the hardest thing for any writer to do.

Published by Arrow and available in paperback at £6.99, this is a highly enjoyable 484 page read. Not as good as The Count of Monte Cristo, but then not many books are.

I did chuckle at the female love interests name though, Portia, in The Count of Monte Cristo it is Mercedes.

Oh and can you tell me what a heap is, define it, see if you can say what makes a heap and what doesn't?

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