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Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography (Memoir #1)

by Stephen Fry

4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 · rating details · 13,639 ratings · 714 reviews

A number one bestseller in Britain that topped the lists there for months, Stephen Fry's astonishingly frank, funny, wise memoir is the book that his fans everywhere have been waiting for. Since his PBS television debut in the Blackadder series, the American profile of this multitalented writer, actor and comedian has grown steadily, especially in the wake of his title rol ...more

Hardcover , 366 pages

Published May 25th 1999 by Random House (first published 1997)

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Sep 27, 2008 Trevor rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography , literature

In Foucault’s The History of Sexuality there is a chapter where (and I’m simplifying and summarising, possibly far too much) he compares Eastern and Western ways of sex. Basically in the East people are ‘initiated’ into sex – they are taught sex as one might be taught to dance. No one is expected to just know – it is something you need to learn. In the West we don’t bother with that sort of thing. What we do is turn sex into a science. We feel the need to talk endlessly about sex – Kinsy and Hit In Foucault’s The History of Sexuality there is a chapter where (and I’m simplifying and summarising, possibly far too much) he compares Eastern and Western ways of sex. Basically in the East people are ‘initiated’ into sex – they are taught sex as one might be taught to dance. No one is expected to just know – it is something you need to learn. In the West we don’t bother with that sort of thing. What we do is turn sex into a science. We feel the need to talk endlessly about sex – Kinsy and Hite as much as Freud. And most of all, we do love to confess. There is a sense in which a good autobiography is really little more than a good confession. How we ever stopped all being Catholic is quite beyond me – but I never have understood religion. In short then, in the East they like to dance, in the West we like to get the sex over as quick as we can so we can all head down to the pub to tell our mates.

In a review of another of Fry’s books I wrote at the start of the week and before I had started reading this one I said, “The thing I like most about Fry’s writing is that it is disarmingly honest.” Now, you would have thought I would have been primed for a good dose of honesty here – this being his autobiography. But no, this book was infinitely more honest than I had a right to expect.

I enjoyed this book so much – so much that it may become a Christmas present for mum, hard to say. This takes his life up until he was about 20. He is the last person I could imagine ever being in gaol. The idea of him being a thief is even harder to reconcile.

There is a constant air of foreboding about this book. There are dark, dark thunder clouds – virtually always near enough to be heard, but for the most part still on the horizon. The storms never prove to be quite as horrible as they are in anticipation, but the anticipation is beautifully crafted.

I’ve long believed that we are only the vague acquaintances of our former selves – sometimes not even that. Fry brings this point out forcefully in a poem he wrote at 15 to his 25 year old self – the sell out he knew his 25 year old self would have to become. We are obsessed with the myth of the continuity of our ‘self’ – Fry plays with this idea in a fascinating way in the latter parts of this book.

There is remarkably little sex. I would have expected more, to be honest, but prefer that there is not more. If you believe all homosexuals are rampant sex manics you might be a bit disappointed with this book. Fry is perhaps the best known and best loved homosexual in Britain – or maybe that is Alan Bennett? – anyway, I’d have thought that this book would do as much as any to help dispel the eternal evil that is homophobia. I loved his ‘explanation’ of how he knew he was gay – that he never fantasised about having sex with women, only ever with men. This is about the only way anyone can tell their sexuality, I’d have thought.

People might find the swearing more challenging than the sex, though. There are four letter words that begin with F and even with C and both used repeatedly. Because of the frequent use of the C word I’m in the curious position of being able to buy this book for my mother, but not for Lorena. What a funny world we live in.

I’m particularly fond of people holding forth – and Fry does this throughout the book, and then undercuts it all nicely with typically British self-deprecation.

This was a good autobiography, at times quite amusing and at other times quite painful – a bit like life itself really.
...more

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Oct 17, 2010 Lindz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: EVERYONE

Shelves: 20th-century , read-2010 , favorites , self-musings , lol , british-stiff-upper-lip , just-good-writing

I am not English
I am not Jewish
I am not Gay
I am not Male
I did not go through an English public school system or prison.

I understood and related to every single beautiful syllable of this beautiful, beautiful memoir.

Stephen Fry's first autobiography was an absolute pleasure from start to finish. He is a true master of words. This 'celebrity tell all' is heavy and pungent with words. Nice sweaty words filled with flavour and colour.

I loved the large rants, tangents, separated by these wonderful ...more

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Dec 03, 2013 Tony Johnston rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I would find it tough to fully explain why I dislike this book because to do so would require a long essay and frankly, it doesn't deserve that.

In summary, I am very disappointed. Like a lot of people, I had got used to Stephen Fry the "national treasure" and I looked forward to understanding and appreciating a little more of this enigma. The man with millions of Twitter followers.

The problem is, I ended up wishing I hadn't bothered.

On the one hand I found myself disliking the author in a way I would find it tough to fully explain why I dislike this book because to do so would require a long essay and frankly, it doesn't deserve that.

In summary, I am very disappointed. Like a lot of people, I had got used to Stephen Fry the "national treasure" and I looked forward to understanding and appreciating a little more of this enigma. The man with millions of Twitter followers.

The problem is, I ended up wishing I hadn't bothered.

On the one hand I found myself disliking the author in a way I hadn't anticipated. This in itself is not a reason to dislike a book although in the case of an autobiography it doesn't help.

Clearly you should judge his character for yourself; his use (and abuse) of privilege, his dishonesty (not just in terms of thieving), his problems with bipolar disorder and his own achievements in TV and other areas are all things that are matters of personal opinion. All I will say is that this book has somewhat spoiled my enjoyment of his fantastic portrayal of the Jeeves character and that is a crime the author himself might understand. I do feel obliged to appreciate anyone who manages to make a half-decent mark in the world and so I'll get over it.

For the book itself, I found the writing variable. Sometimes there are glimpses of good prose and you kid yourself that this man is actually living up to the hype. However, the sum of the parts left me feeling that this is a hollow book written by a hollow man.

It seems to me that he justifies everything by clouding your mind with words. In between the descriptions of his amazingly well appointed schools are passionate apologies, heartfelt splurges of polemic and hints of mental eccentricity.

I think most of this is an act. He dismisses his own intelligence but then spends a lot of effort creating the impression that he is a victim of his own superlative brain and character. This is privileged man who uses words and quotations to create an aura of erudition around himself when on close inspection there is little to justify this view.

"Oh I am not so very bright and even if I were, I wouldn't care" said the dull boy to the judge. Sure.

Clearing away this cloud, I realised that I found his thoughts overblown and poorly presented. About a third of the way in I remembered that I had read "The Liar" and that it was, frankly, trash. Here, underneath the excessive verbiage and constant reference to his extensive literary knowledge, his own thoughts come through as a mishmash of gimcrack (his word) ideas, self-aggrandising and egotistical nonsense covered at appropriate times by the aforementioned passionate apologies.

Finally, it occurred to me that this book tells us a lot about our society. Surface over substance. We see Stephen Fry the genius say a few smart things on TV and ergo he is amazingly talented in the eyes of the people.

We don't look underneath; we tag, we label, we assume. ...more

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Feb 12, 2011 Emily May rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs-or-bios , non-fiction

Look, it's no secret to anyone who knows me in the slightest: I love this man. He is my inspiration and my hero, I love his attitude to life, his sense of humour and unflinching ability to stand up and speak out for what he believes in.

He here tells a brutally honest account of his growing up and how he first came to realise that he was gay. He takes the reader through his days in a boarding school where he struggled to fit in and constantly rebelled against, without knowing quite why. He tells ...more

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Jan 23, 2011 Briar Rose rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks , humour , memoir

Reading this book was much like listening to an interesting but self-important guest at a dinner party, who buttonholes you at the hors d'oeuvres and talks to you all night on a wide range of subjects. It's funny and endearing when Fry actually tells stories from his childhood, but he frequently goes off on tangents, which mostly involve long opinionated rants about random subjects, which add nothing to the story. For someone who is such a navel-gazer, he also seems strangely to lack self-awaren ...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Donna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-read , audiobook , memoir

Sometimes I like to daydream about who I would invite to my ideal dinner party, and Stephen Fry is always at the top of my list. He's funny, erudite, active, and kind. Basically he's my idea of a perfect man, and of course, he's gay as a Christmas tree. Ah well, you can't get everything in life, and I would settle for a conversation with him.

After hearing Fry read this book, his own autobiography covering the first 20 years or so of his life, I feel like I've had that conversation. I feel like I ...more

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Dec 22, 2008 Rory rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: fans of his

Shelves: memoirs-and-bios

There's no denying that Stephen Fry is absurdly smart, and veddy, veddy funny. I've adored him since he was Jeeves to Hugh Laurie's Wooster. He could annotate a shopping list from 1986 and I'd be enthralled. Of course, his early life was full of much more interesting things--private English schools in the 1970s (a couple of which he was asked to leave), a suicide attempt, early explorations of his homosexuality, earnest struggles to find just where his genius might lie.

I was a tiny bit anguishe ...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Zorena rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography , memoir , autobiography , non-fiction , favorites

How can you not love a man, that in the middle of why he kept his crooked nose veers off to discourse on how the monarchy is the crooked nose of Great Britain. Brilliant stuff!

Stephen has such a command of language and the written word that I felt his pains and triumphs. He agonizes over his lack of musical ability yet in the next breath he's soaring with his first tale of love. His love of words. His toys as he calls them. Strengthening my own love of language.

Unlike others, I knew a few things ...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Lithium rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bio-and-autobiography , non-fiction , favourites , made-me-think

Whatever your expectations for this book, it will outstrip them. No, that's an understatement. It will take those expectations, multiply them with a factor of 10 or so, take you through 60s England, through the land of schoolboy mischief and lies and heartbreak, show you kindness and compassion along the way, go off on tangents about music and madness and philosophy,and leave you with mad props and respect and love for one Mr. Fry.

For that is the heart of it, of this book and of the writing and ...more

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Oct 22, 2012 Lachlan Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Can you imagine being sent to a boarding school 200 miles from where you lived? Well, Stephen Fry doesn’t have to.

Fry’s autobiography, intriguingly entitled Moab is my Washpot, tells of how he managed to live through beatings, expulsion, imprisonment, probation and suicide attempts – all before he was eighteen! He states in the novel that he promised himself he would never write an autobiography unless he was honest throughout and did not try to make himself out as the good guy. Well, he certain Can you imagine being sent to a boarding school 200 miles from where you lived? Well, Stephen Fry doesn’t have to.

Fry’s autobiography, intriguingly entitled Moab is my Washpot, tells of how he managed to live through beatings, expulsion, imprisonment, probation and suicide attempts – all before he was eighteen! He states in the novel that he promised himself he would never write an autobiography unless he was honest throughout and did not try to make himself out as the good guy. Well, he certainly didn’t paint himself as the good guy in Moab is my Washpot. He is brutally honest about his school and post-school life, but sometimes to almost an intolerable extent. Some passages leave you wishing you had skipped a few paragraphs, because of the thoughts that were once passing through Fry’s head at the time and the actions of older students at his boarding school – namely “Derwent”.
The tone changes in the middle if the book as he goes deeper into his problems (of which there were many) and shows the very, very dark and troublesome childhood of this otherwise seemingly funny and cheery comedian. He often uses false names for people in his book, to save them much embarrassment.
The last third of the book returns to relative sanity, or at least becomes so interesting that it is hard to put the book down. It explains how and why he turned eighteen (came of age) in a rotten diner, many thousands of miles away from his family.
But despite his criminal activities, Fry emerged a year or so later to be accepted into Cambridge University.
Before you read this you have to know that you will never read another autobiography the same way, if ever. Once you have read his brutally frank book, you will realise that a lot of autobiographies (but by no means all) really do paint the author as the “good guy”. Either that or Stephen Fry was very odd, which you have to ask when you read this excerpt. This was from a letter he wrote to himself at the age of fifteen, not be opened until he was twenty-five:

“Well I tell you now that everything I feel now, everything I am now is truer and better than anything I shall ever be. Ever. This is me now, the real me. Every day that I grow away from the me that is writing this now is a betrayal and a defeat”
...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Heather rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction , 2012

I love Stephen Fry. No matter what one may think of him (and I personally think he's brilliant), the man's command of the English language is wonderful, and he uses it to his full advantage in this memoir of his childhood years. The book is made up of a few large chapters detailing various periods in his early life (his move across schools, the realisation of his sexuality, his first love, his arrest/incarceration) and ends with his acceptance into Cambridge. This book reminded me an awful lot o ...more

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May 01, 2008 Trin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography , queerlit , filmtv , english-lit

In which Stephen Fry gives a frank and funny recounting of the first twenty years of his life. Dude’s got balls, man: I could never be this honest about myself or my life. And I’m saying that as someone who has not emerged semi-intact from the truly insane-sounding English public school system. It really is an entirely different world, and Fry makes for a straightforward, yet sensitive, guide. Everything he says about not fitting in just makes me ache, especially his discussion about his inabili ...more

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Jan 12, 2015 Kevin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lookit, I'll call it quits around page 300. A big disappointment from a man that I hold a passionate and undying love for. It just never caught me as it was a dry and uneventful retelling of what might be called a remarkable youth. I think it is proof that Fry's spirit is best shown by his actual presence and voice rather than words on a page. Really he is to be experienced rather than studied.

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Sep 26, 2009 Zack rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

Stephen Fry, despite his imperturbable demeanor as Wodehouse's Jeeves and his jovial, I've-got-all-the-answers persona on Q.I., really doesn't have it all sorted out like you'd expect him to. This has had dramatic consequences for his personal life since childhood (read the book and you'll know what I mean) but makes for a fascinating autobiography. Funny thing is (and yes, the book really is quite funny), you can hear Fry's voice, that mellifluous, British lilt, narrating it, but the events tha ...more

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Apr 08, 2008 Ruth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book wasn't quite what I expected, although I'm not sure exactly what I did expect! It meanders a lot, almost like a Ronnie Corbett armchair sketch - one minute he's telling you about what happened on a certain day during his childhood, and then he starts wandering off, telling you all about his opinions on the subject matter of that day's school lesson, or the way certain people behave. I found it an enjoyable read, and I want to know "what happened next" - the book deals with the first 20 ...more

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Feb 15, 2015 Ulysses Dietz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Moab is my Washpot

By Stephen Fry

Five stars

The basic reaction I had as I finished Stephen Fry’s autobiographical “Moab is my Washpot” was: Would Stephen Fry like me?

I’m not usually quite this narcissistic, but I couldn’t help but feel that Fry was someone I wished I knew, someone quite remarkable, and yet palpably flawed and human in ways that provoked forgiveness.

Against all better judgment, I rather fell in love with him.

This should be honestly described as a partial-autobiography, since it on Moab is my Washpot

By Stephen Fry

Five stars

The basic reaction I had as I finished Stephen Fry’s autobiographical “Moab is my Washpot” was: Would Stephen Fry like me?

I’m not usually quite this narcissistic, but I couldn’t help but feel that Fry was someone I wished I knew, someone quite remarkable, and yet palpably flawed and human in ways that provoked forgiveness.

Against all better judgment, I rather fell in love with him.

This should be honestly described as a partial-autobiography, since it only takes the famous British comic actor from birth to about the age of twenty. Given that he’s just two years younger than I am, there’s a lot of his life left undiscovered at the end of this book. But the part he writes is in equal parts hilarious and hair-raising.

Apologetic and unrepentant, Fry’s helter-skelter narrative describes to us exactly how he managed to bugger up his life without any help from his parents (who, if eccentric and quirky, were adoring and as patient as saints). Much better, from my point of view, than the fictionalized version of his early life offered in “The Liar,” “Moab is my Washpot” is a wry confessional in which the author admits freely what a twat he is while at the same time making the reader (at least this one) want to hold him tightly and promise that everything will turn out all right.

As an American, I barely knew who Stephen Fry was, since the larger part of his most celebrated comedy never appeared on American television (unlike his best friend and comic partner Hugh Laurie, who became a household word through the television drama series “House”). As a gay man, I know rather more about him, both for his outspoken support of LGBT rights and more recently for his pending nuptials to a far younger man.

There is a certain perverse David Copperfield quality to this book, Oliver Twist with a twist. It is an epic saga of a life lived in desperation; desperation probably caused by an awareness of his homosexuality and inability to deal with it in healthy ways. This in itself points to the difficulty of growing up gay in the world of the 1950s, 60s and 70s (whether British or American) with very little support of any kind. Adorably, Fry does not point the finger of blame—he insists, amusingly and convincingly, that getting caned at boarding school did nothing to damage his psyche. All the stereotypical nightmarishness of the British public school system is carefully shunted aside as possible cause for Fry’s ill-behavior. He blames only himself, but in doing so embraces the general darkness of the world in his youth as the root cause of his excesses and his disastrous spiral into thievery and prison.

He even makes prison sound sort of amusing.

Writing honestly is difficult. Being funny about writing honestly is near miraculous. I loved this book and admire Fry deeply for unleashing it on the world.
...more

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Sep 18, 2015 Sabah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To Myself: Not To Be Read Until I Am Twenty-Five
I know what you will think when you read this. You will be embarrassed. You will scoff and sneer. Well I tell you now that everything I feel now, everything I am now is truer and better than anything I shall ever be.Ever. This is me now, the real me. Every day that I grow away from the me that is writing this now is a betrayal and a defeat. I expect that you will screw this up into a ball with sophisticated disgust, or at best with tolerant amuseme ...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Emily rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Maybe it's just too British for me, and possibly a bit pleonastic, but most of this book just went right around my head. I wouldn't say over my head because I'm sure I have the capacity to understand what the devil "Cambridge Blue" means and how exactly the British school system is structured, but having very rarely come into contact with it before, I have to say it's just beyond me.
Fry's rambling memoir also devolves into long non-chronological rants upon such things as Authors he has Loved (m ...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-on-kobo

During a recent bout of post-surgical insomnia I whiled away my middle-of-the-night hours watching episode after episode of QI, hosted by Stephen Fry, on Youtube. Its combination of wit and trivia made the sleeplessness bearable. Eventually, however, I ran out of new episodes to watch and at that point downloaded this first volume of Fry's autobiography, which covers his life from first leaving for boarding school to his acceptance to university. He writes about the difficulties inherent in grow ...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Na rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved reading every page of it…

I received this book as one of my Christmas present from my husband. He used to mention him to me now and again. I have caught my husband watching his BBC show QI a few times and when I watched one of OI series with him, I have quite became obsessed with the program. It is a show where Stephen Fry and 4 guests have a kind of quiz game. Stephen Fry is the quiz master in this program and they talk about some very interesting topics. This program clearly gives us an ...more

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Nov 30, 2010 Helen (Helena/Nell) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fry has so much charisma, even on the page, that one preserves a certain reticence. He oozes charm, and therefore the natural response is to turn put an anti-charm cloak. Even so, he got me.

For a start, he's so intensely readable, so easy to read that there's pleasure just in that. And then for me -- well he's my decade, a couple of years younger than me -- and so many of his references were my references, his life is my life.

I even know a bit about the sort of background he thrived in, the who Fry has so much charisma, even on the page, that one preserves a certain reticence. He oozes charm, and therefore the natural response is to turn put an anti-charm cloak. Even so, he got me.

For a start, he's so intensely readable, so easy to read that there's pleasure just in that. And then for me -- well he's my decade, a couple of years younger than me -- and so many of his references were my references, his life is my life.

I even know a bit about the sort of background he thrived in, the whole public school thing, because although I didn't go to one, I did grow up in a private primary school that prepared wee boys for the Common Entrance exam. Later I even tutored one or two myself.

I like the way he stops and examines things minutely -- like the whole corporal punishment thing, for example. His argument is really interesting, the idea that when a thing is 'normal' -- i.e. everybody is doing it, it can be less damaging somehow. And he's good on sex, really. And he's enormously clever at creating the sense that he's actually conducting a conversation with you, and with himself, and that he's worrying away at stuff until he works it through. Sometimes you even get the sense that you just SAID something to which he's obviously replying.

I wouldn't want to be Stephen Fry. Not ever. He couldn't help being a scene stealer throughout his childhood, and he's still doing it. His public persona is who he is. The honesty about his own impulse to steal -- that thing which must have been a product of acute unhappiness -- even that becomes a disclosure which is part of the personal drama. It must be so difficult to take off your clothes in public. And then so difficult, if you're Stephen Fry, not to.

He talks about how much he still hates not being able to sing, because it means not being able to join in. That took me back to a lovely little film -- Peter's Friends -- in which Fry plays the central role. My favourite scene, which moves me to tears even to think about it, is the bit where the entire cast assembles round the piano and sings. And Imelda Staunton turns out to have such a beautiful voice -- and the whole point of the scene, as I remember it, is the way the singing lifts him, the way Peter's friends are a kind of glory of which he is a part, though he isn't partnered. It's almost a rejoinder to the bits in this book about not being able to join in.

I must send for that film on DVD and watch it again. ...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Billy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen Fry is a once-in-a-generation intellectual talent that, thank god, dedicated his life to show business rather than government, business, or the academy. Perhaps owing to the TV show Bones (which I have not seen), you're maybe a little more likely to have heard of him in America than a few years ago; you probably have heard of his long-time comedic partner Hugh Laurie, now better known as Gregory House, MD. My first encounter with Stephen was unwitting on my part - turns out he had writte Stephen Fry is a once-in-a-generation intellectual talent that, thank god, dedicated his life to show business rather than government, business, or the academy. Perhaps owing to the TV show Bones (which I have not seen), you're maybe a little more likely to have heard of him in America than a few years ago; you probably have heard of his long-time comedic partner Hugh Laurie, now better known as Gregory House, MD. My first encounter with Stephen was unwitting on my part - turns out he had written the book for the updated 'Me and My Girl' that my high school put on as a musical my sophomore year, the jokes of which I found genuinely funny unlike the hee-haw corniness of the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows that were otherwise on the menu. My next encounter was sometime in the early aughts, when one of the Manhattan public television networks (or was it NJN?) for some reason replayed the British series Absolute Power, which I thought was wicked and wonderful, and then later came the genius of 'A Bit of Fry and Laurie' and of course Blackadder, followed more recently by his wholly-excusable-for-how-amusing-it-is turn as a game show host for the British panel quiz QI (short for "quite interesting", as you probably guessed). He and Hugh Laurie also played, respectively, Jeeves and Wooster, and Stephen was the titular Oscar in "Wilde." Oh yes, this is supposed to be a book review - Well, turns out Stephen had a semi-rebellious childhood and adolescence, with a penchant for stealing that ultimately earned him prison time; he is known for saying (not frivolously) that boarding school was the best preparation for prison as one could expect. This is a childhood memoir that covers that ground, as well as his recognition of his sexuality, educational development and career aspirations. It's quite an intimate, vulnerable undertaking at times (how many close friends even have you told the story of your very first, um, 'little death'?). Fry is a master and lover of the English language, and knows just when to be serious and when to suddenly interrupt his own flow with a playfully pointless tangent. I don't know if you'd enjoy it that much without some context of appreciating him as an actor/performer, so I'd say check him out in that arena first and if you find yourself charmed then come back here. ...more

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Jul 24, 2008 Siria rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography , queer-lit

Meandering, witty, defensive, wildly self-indulgent, honest, conceited and very entertaining, reading Moab is my Washpot is an experience which I must imagine is very akin to sitting down with Stephen Fry and having him talk with and/or at you for a couple of hours about any subject which comes into his head. Fry recounts the first twenty years of his life—his periods at various boarding schools; his struggles with his sexuality; his suicide attempt and his conviction for fraud—with a great deal ...more

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Jul 05, 2015 Hannah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I adore Stephen Fry, ever since I discovered the joy that is QI, and mainlined like 8 seasons in 2 weeks. Ahem. Unfortunately for me, at least, his trademark verbosity is better suited to the audio/visual medium than the written word - while he is very expressive, it can get a little much to try and digest.

However, the book still gives great insight into his humungous genius mind, and it was fairly entertaining/shocking to read about his various self-destrutive exploits as a youth and the rathe ...more

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May 05, 2014 Susan N rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the bravest books I've ever encountered - I actually listened to Stephen Fry reading it on a talking book recording. And what a marvellous reader he is. He is unflinching in his self-excoriation, revealing the shameful, selfish, cheating, utterly dishonourable and dislikable episodes of his young life and yet, somehow we feel for this lost and lonely, immensely clever and totally unreliable boy, weep with his shame and roar with laughter at his bizarre antics. The story is punctuated with ...more

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Jan 22, 2015 Kapunkt rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-read

I like Stephen Fry, but this was tedious. He uses a lot of words, but he doesn't have much to say. And he knows it. In the introduction of his second book, he writes:

"If a thing can be said in ten words, I may be relied upon to take a hundred to say it. I ought to apologize for that. I ought to go back and prune, pare and extirpate excess growth, but I will not. I like words - strike that, I LOVE words - and while I am fond of the condensed and economical use of them in poetry, in song lyrics, i ...more

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Nov 11, 2014 Janne Varvára rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biographies-memoirs

I've been a fan of Stephen Fry for years, in awe of his enormous brain, his humor and his dedication to helping others. I'm also an absolutely fanatic QI watcher, and in my autism I watch it over and over and over instead of finding anything new. It's my favorite show.

Therefore, I thought I'd try this, the first installment of his autobiography (I also happened to know beforehand that he has a very autobiographable life), which details his childhood and teens.

First of all, it's a very different I've been a fan of Stephen Fry for years, in awe of his enormous brain, his humor and his dedication to helping others. I'm also an absolutely fanatic QI watcher, and in my autism I watch it over and over and over instead of finding anything new. It's my favorite show.

Therefore, I thought I'd try this, the first installment of his autobiography (I also happened to know beforehand that he has a very autobiographable life), which details his childhood and teens.

First of all, it's a very different upbringing than most of us are used to, the kind of traditional middle-class English upbringing where you're packed off to boarding school from age 7, like some sort of Harry Potter (which Fry masterfully narrated for audiobook, by the way).
We are alike, Mr. Fry and I, in that we both had undiagnosed mental characteristics (for lack of a better word), which made us both less than perfect pupils (disastrous, both of us). In his case, he ended up in jail after a trip across England on someone else's credit card in his late teens after leaving school, something I luckily have been able to avoid.
That's part of the reason why I wanted to read this, though. That "differentness" that is Stephen Fry, that, to some extent, I feel I share, albeit for different reasons.

And it's true: this book does bring up loads of your own childhood memories that you didn't think you even remembered anymore. But the story is told with a lot of humor, and somehow that keeps you reading. Because it is rough reading at times, being reminded that your childhood, like Fry's, was one completely defined by fear.

This memoir is actually as much a book compiling ideas and opinions as it is a life story of events and anecdotes. A lot of the time, this is Fry philosophizing on himself and how things turned out like they did, it's about life's what-ifs and might-have-beens almost equally as much as what actually happened.
In this way, it makes an erratic read, in that it veers off point a lot and runs with one thought that turns into another.

It also might be my touch of autism that makes me not completely identify with or even understand some of the very grand feelings described within, but somehow I don't think that's all it is. A good example of this is the author's first love, who is described in such fantastic fashion that the boy doesn't even remotely sound human, but something perfect and divine. The feelings it inspires in Fry are about as grand as the object of their affection, and simply towers above my puny, human ones, trying to empathize.

But, there's enough warmth and humor and shamelessly rendered stories in this book to keep you going to the very end, by which I conclude that I liked it.
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May 31, 2013 Deanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biographies

An insight into Stephen Fry's childhood, enjoyed his comments on himself as a teenager. Not an easy childhood, but not because of his parents or family but seemingly because of things he did, you'll just have to read it.

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Oct 10, 2014 Mark Speed rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

This was a gift, and it took me a few years to get round to reading it.

I've always been a fan of Stephen Fry, having seen him and Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1980. What I particularly enjoyed about this biography was his complete frankness and honesty. He's perfectly happy talking about his sexual tendencies, and his kleptomania. I think it's the latter that is the braver admission. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that it was a product of his ...more

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Feb 12, 2015 Jude rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed this book. Well, most of it. Fry pours out his heart, quite literally in places, giving the impression that most of the book was written in a rush, without much forethought. Of course that might have been the intention. Funny in parts, as you would expect. Illuminating in others - I had not known about his early compulsion to steal. Pretentious too, of course. Intensely egotistical, despite his protestations to the contrary. If you like Stephen Fry, and you enjoy his humour, you will f ...more

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About Stephen Fry

Stephen John Fry is an English comedian, writer, actor, humourist, novelist, poet, columnist, filmmaker, television personality and technophile. As one half of the Fry and Laurie double act with his comedy partner, Hugh Laurie, he has appeared in A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster . He is also famous for his roles in Blackadder and Wilde , and as the host of QI. In addition to writing fo ...more

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“It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.” — 1184 likes

“Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me.” — 447 likes

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