The Fry Chronicles

It saddens me, dear reader, in the interim period between the publication of my initial thoughts on the Giffords massacre and my conclusions (that I’ll post soon enough), to deliver a rather pejorative verdict upon a book, especially one by an author so prone to the glass hammer of critical reaction. So disappointed am I, however, that I cannot help but pass it on.

I’m currently in the process of reading Stephen Fry’s latest installment of autobiography, and, unfortunately, I'm happy to be nearing the end. I'm afraid it's simply, undeniably, terribly boring. There's no sense of humour, no narrative arc, no real twists or turns, no extended investigation or exploration into what it's like to be Stephen Fry. The matter, for want of a less obvious cliché, remains a closed book. I can't help but be left horribly let down by it.

Fry’s previous effort, documenting the touching pleasantness and unpleasantness of his formative years growing up, in Moab is my Washpot, was far more illuminating, amusing, and entertaining, whilst also, most significantly, able to capture his voice that we recognize so fondly.

Incapable of doing differently, I'm also unconsciously comparing The Fry Chronicles to Christopher Hitchens’ Hitch-22 and Derren Brown's recent effort, Confessions of a Conjuror. Both memoirs are fantastic, and Fry falls well short of their mark, so much so that the former two have adopted an even higher mantle by mere juxtaposition. Fry’s latest output is basic, tediously chronological, drab, predictable, apologetic, yet simultaneously unapologetic in its narcissism. He readily admits that he attempts to manage the paradox of combining modesty and smugness, and, in public, he does it quite well, well enough that we love him for it, but in the book it simply jars and makes him appear thoughtless and, the biggest sin of all, boring.

There are but glimmers of his intelligence, wit, vibrancy, zip and vim that characterize a man who has, it’s clear for all to see, lived a very rich and enviable life. The dialectic that undercuts his personality, his subservience to the stifling effects of Manic Depression is only mentioned in brief and rarely expounded. Surely this is the currency of contrast and dichotomy that throws such light upon his character, affecting, as it clearly has done, his entire life. And yet, the text yields nothing of the sort.

The photographs dotted among the text are terrific, promising tales of a trip to Crete with Hugh Laurie, meeting and working with famous faces like Ade Edmundson, Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Emma Thompson, Harry Enfield, and yet we here nothing about Fry’s relationship with these individuals beside the most expected and rudimentary tidbits. Indeed, the text never surpasses the pictures in its vitality. I am very much looking forward to finishing it, but for entirely the wrong reasons.

UPDATE: I’ve just thrown it down in frustration. With only fifty pages to go I’ve decided I cannot stand one more paragraph of Fry's incessant repetition of self-entitlement and self-adulation that he marries so failingly with false modesty and humility. Take as an example, a common passage:

Look, I can’t keep apologizing, but I will say one more time, I know how horrible this must be to read. […] I have to lay out the facts as I recall them in the full knowledge that they reflect little or no credit on me. The cash was flying in and I was a victim of my own saucer-flying cupidity and trashy delight in the riches the world seemed so keen to offer me.

At this point the book went hurtling across the room. It is almost unheard of that I should proceed so far into a book and then set it aside, never to return. It is (his word) a stinker.