Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography

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Summary: The picture of Dorian Fry
Review: ...

Everything about this "autobiography" is constructed, fake and banal. This book is basically an endless enumeration of boyhood traumas, mostly related to Fry's homosexuality. We read uninspired, mandatory descriptions on how lucky he is with his parents and how he caused them so much pain. But most pages are devoted to anecdotes illustrating what a witty and tormented genius he actually is.

The most irritating characteristic of this book is Fry's inability to hold a plotline. From page one, we get flahbacks, flasforwards and rococo embellishments. When he falls in love, Fry spends pages to describe how it's like "the chord Max Steinder brings in when Bogart catches sight of Bergman, the swell and surge of the Liebestod from Tristan, Liszt's sonata in B minor". Etcetera. Etcetera. And of course, for Fry a page is lost if there's no gag. So be prepared to countless platitudes such as "My mother can strip a gooseberry bush quicker than a priest can strip a choirboy". If you think this is funny, don't bother my review. You'll love the book.

Rating:
Summary: The picture of Dorian Fry
Review: ...Everything about this "autobiography" is constructed, fake and banal. This book is basically an endless enumeration of boyhood traumas, mostly related to Fry's homosexuality. We read uninspired, mandatory descriptions on how lucky he is with his parents and how he caused them so much pain. But most pages are devoted to anecdotes illustrating what a witty and tormented genius he actually is.

The most irritating characteristic of this book is Fry's inability to hold a plotline. From page one, we get flahbacks, flasforwards and rococo embellishments. When he falls in love, Fry spends pages to describe how it's like "the chord Max Steinder brings in when Bogart catches sight of Bergman, the swell and surge of the Liebestod from Tristan, Liszt's sonata in B minor". Etcetera. Etcetera. And of course, for Fry a page is lost if there's no gag. So be prepared to countless platitudes such as "My mother can strip a gooseberry bush quicker than a priest can strip a choirboy". If you think this is funny, don't bother my review. You'll love the book.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite autobiography
Review: British Renaissance man Stephen Fry has written his best book, featuring his most compelling protagonist yet: himself. Fry tells of his school days and later criminal escapades with an erudite and knowing wit that is by turns heartbreaking and sly. His style has never been better, with that bouncy tone kept in check by esoteric references to literature peppered throughout and nice little social commentary to round off the delicious mix. His bravado at sharing so much with his readers is commendable, and the book is simultaneously funny and tragic, a difficult mixture to create.

I was unable to put this book down for a minute while I was immersed in it, and am waiting every day for a sequel (Moab II, anyone?) that details his Cambridge days and early experience as a theater actor, to his days as comic TV star, to his best role in Wilde. I'm sure that anything he writes will be interesting, even if it's just his grocery list.

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Summary: Stephen Fry is a genius
Review: I loved this book. I also loved The Liar, The Hippopotamus and Making History but Moab was the best. I can't count the number of times I thought about a phrase or sentiment "I wish I had written that". This book kept me out late for a week. I finally finished it with a warm smile last night, picked up a John Irving and fell instantly to sleep. If you're feeling alone in the world, read this book for tender company. Even if you weren't raised in England. Even if you are a wife, mother, accountant...

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Summary: A stunning work and a pleasure to read
Review: In `Moab is my Washpot' (the best-written celebrity memoir of 1999), Stephen Fry, the intellectually intimidating archetypal Brit tells his life story to the age of 20. Often outrageous, always full of humour, Fry is the darling of the media, appearing regularly in TV series and chat shows. He is highly regarded as raconteur, newspaper columnist, actor and writer. But above all else, Stephen Fry is eccentric in the Oscar Wilde sense of the word.

In this, his autobiography, he is frank about his early years, which included perpetual lying, expulsion from one of Britain's better known public schools, his discovery that he was homosexual, his theft and misuse of a friend's credit card, his imprisonment and, eventually, the discovery of his own personal road to Damascus.

The multi-talented Fry writes as he speaks. He is the ultimate wordsmith, taking his cue from Wilde by using the `correct' word - the one that paints the most vivid mind picture, rather than a pompous, flamboyant word that sends everybody scurrying for the dictionary. `Moab is my Washpot' is simultaneously daring, impertinent, open, moving, sacrilegious and funny.

You'll read `Moab is my Washpot' not just for the factual story of a young man whose confused sexuality takes him to the edge of self-destruction, but for the joy and beauty of the written word.

A stunning work and a pleasure to read.

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Summary: Autobiography Shows Fry's "Wilde" Side
Review: Moab Is My Washpot by British comedian Stephen Fry is at turns sly, funny and laced with a poignancy which reveals a hauntingly human side to a man whose writing talent and comedic prowess makes him intellectually intimidating.

In the book we learn of how Fry was turned out of prep and public school, his jaunt around England as a forger of credit card signatures, his time in prison and the triumphant reclaiming of his life through his entrance to Cambridge.

What is important about this book is that it is universal. Fry's story of teenage angst and lonliness is one many teens go through today. It is good to see that his story has a successful ending. It serves as notice to lost youths that they can turn their lives around and be a success.

There is one flaw with the book. It ended to soon. Fry only chronciles the first 20 years and doesn't even hit on such momentous events such as meeting fellow partner in comedic crime, Hugh Laurie at Cambridge. I can only hope Mr. Fry's fingers are busily typing out a sequel covering the next twenty years.

Rating:
Summary: not bad, but . . .
Review: Most of this autobiography was quite enjoyable. Stephen Fry is clearly a gifted writer, and based on this book I might try some of his fiction. However, a great deal of the middle of this book, say 100 pages or more, are devoted to his explaining and defending and preaching on his homosexuality.

While I certainly don't begrudge him his right to tell his own story the way he wants and to spend time on what he finds important, this section really dragged on far too long. Aside from this, his story is really quite interesting and provocative. Go ahead and read it.

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Summary: Sweet, disarming and unforgettable
Review: There is a lot of very funny stuff in this true tale of Fry's first 20 years on the planet. The title itself has got to be one of the silliest Bible quotations in the whole book. "Moab is my washpot, and over Edom will I cast out my shoe." Pure Monty Python.

I was startled when I read the story of his first love. "There were all the days that had gone before, and then there was the day when I saw him. And after that, nothing was ever the same again." Startled, because he was eerily recounting my own life history, which occurred at the same age, in the same sort of school setting, with the same immense impact. He tells that story beautifully.

Highly recommended!

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Summary: Excellent! A treat for one and all.
Review: This is an excellent book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I realize that everyone has different reading habits, but it might be revealing to know that I more or less read this straight through, starting the minute I got it home, breaking for maybe six hours of sleep, then resuming progress in every free moment at work until I finished. It was impossible to put down, and seems to exert some sort of gravitational pull upon my hand every time I pass it on the shelf.

If you're interested in Stephen Fry, it follows that you should read this. If you like autobiographies in general, this is one of the best you'll come across. There are parts that could easily stand alone as essays, and parts that read like fiction. The writing is brilliant as usual-- clear, precise, thoughtful, poignant, and funny.

One thing I feel is important to mention-- most folks do not remember what it felt like to be young. It's clear to me that most writers create teenage or youthful characters from observations of those around them, not from their own experiences, and it shows. After a while, it becomes painful to read yet another cardboard teen. But Stephen Fry does remember, what it was like, in detail, and it's very refreshing and gratifying. I read this and see myself, or someone I can relate to and identify with. Others might read this and see someone they know, and still others might be astounded by the depth of feeling and sincerity expressed.

I would recommend this to most anyone--I love it and, while there are people who won't, I think they're in the minority. If you're not convinced, get the cheapest copy you can find, and give it a shot anyway. This book is more than worth your while.

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Summary: Just a note, really.
Review: This is the best of Fry's books that I've read; the most honest, in its hesitations at least (its candour is always qualified, as candour must needs be if it is not to appall, by self-doubt). He shares a flaw with Wilde: sentimentality. As a moralist, which Wilde however morally unconventional undoubtedly was also, Fry embarrasses himself as Wilde also did by occasional lapses into the idiom of the Anglican archdeacon speaking on Radio 4's Thought For The Day. It helps that he's often at least half-right, but I prefer the Fry who looks squarely at the other half of the truth and sees the comedy in the whole. I hope Fry realises soon that he's turning into the sort of national treasure even his native enemies are eager to be seen to cherish; it might bring out the cuss in him (always in evidence in Fry and Laurie) a little more. Still a fantastic intellect, and more importantly a tremendous wit. I hope he's got even better in him somewhere.