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 role in the film Wilde, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination, and his supporting role in A Civil Action.
Fry has already given readers a taste of his tumultuous adolescence in his autobiographical first novel, The Liar, and now he reveals the equally tumultuous life that inspired it. Sent to boarding school at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love affairs, carnal violation, expulsion, attempted suicide, criminal conviction and imprisonment to emerge, at the age of eighteen, ready to start over in a world in which he had always felt a stranger. One of very few Cambridge University graduates to have been imprisoned prior to his freshman year, Fry is a brilliantly idiosyncratic character who continues to attract controversy, empathy and real devotion.
This extraordinary and affecting book has "a tragic grandeur that lifts it to classic status," raved the Financial Times in one of the many ecstatic British reviews. Stephen Fry's autobiography, in turns funny, shocking, sad, bruisingly frank and always compulsively readable, could well become a classic gay coming-of-age memoir.
Stephen Fry is not making this up! Fry started out as a dishonorable schoolboy inclined to lies, pranks, bringing decaying moles to school as a science exhibit, theft, suicide attempts, the illicit pursuit of candy and lads, a genius for mischief, and a neurotic life of crime that sent him straight to Pucklechurch Prison and Cambridge University, where he vaulted to fame along with actress Emma Thompson. He wound up starring as Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde, costarring in A Civil Action, and writing funny, distinguished novels.
This irresistible book, the best-written celebrity memoir of 1999, concentrates on Fry's first two tumultuous decades, but beware! A Fry sentence can lead anywhere, from a ringing defense of beating schoolchildren to a thoughtful comparison of male and female naughty parts. Fry's deepest regrets seem to be the elusiveness of a particular boy's love and the fact that, despite his keen ear for music, Fry's singing voice can make listeners "claw out their inner ears, electrocute their genitals, put on a Jim Reeves record, throw themselves cackling hysterically onto the path of moving buses... anything, anything to take away the pain." A chance mention of Fry's time-travel book about thwarting Hitler, Making History (a finalist for the 1998 Sidewise Award for Best Alternative History), leads to the startling real-life revelation that Fry's own Jewish uncle may have loaned a young, shivering Hitler the coat off his back.
Fry's life is full of school and jailhouse blues overcome by jaunty wit, à la Wilde. The title, from Psalm 108:9, refers to King David's triumph over the Philistines. Fry triumphs similarly, and with more style. --Tim Appelo
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
[insert cryptic title here]:
Stephen Fry recounts his childhood and teenage years with honesty and candor. Whenever I read an autobiography I'm prepared for some bias and self-absorption, but Fry's book seems to be a sincere attempt to be candid and reflect upon his past. The autobiography feels relatively uncensored as he writes about mischief at boarding school, unrequited love, making use of a stolen credit card, and a suicide attempt during his teenage years. It's all presented with humor and little, if any, self-aggrandizement. I... more info
Wildean Fry:
I have been a fan of the polymath approaching genius that is Stephen Fry for many years and had enjoyed his acting, columns, and novels before getting my hands on "Moab is My Washpot", the story of a young, pre-fame Stephen Fry. This volume is, as all of his writings are, a wonderful display of how beautiful language can be. Fry manages to effortlessly and effulgently blend his incredibly sharp wit, his thorough understanding of the English language, and a nice flowing story with the real life problems... more info
An insight I was delighted to have:
We all know Stephen Fry as the witty, urbane, polymath of entertainment that he has become. However it is interesting and, in certain ways, reassuring, to see that entertainers such as himself go through the same growing pains as the rest of us. His autobiography 'Moab is my Washpot', charts his growth from a young schoolboy, through various adolescent crises, on to his successful graduation from school and his eventual path through to Cambridge. His early school years have an almost Enid Blyton feel... more info
Not his best work:
I think Stephen Fry is wonderfully talented-- as an actor and a writer. I very much enjoyed The Liar and Making History, two of his fictional forays. MOAB seemed disjointed, haphazzard... I believe that SF must have a very interesting life & life history, but this book did not express it. Was this written to fufill a contractual obligation? His heart just did not seem to be in it. Quite a shame.
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