I have recently finished reading
Stephen Fry's [1] two biographies (yes, his life was interesting enough
to allow for two not just one and it looks like there may be a third
one) Moab is my washpot and
The Fry Chronicle. To
my own, very personal surprise, I found that it merits writing my
thoughts down in one of those rather unremarkable articles of mine.
The
books in itself were fantastic due to Fry's rather peculiar writing
style balancing between rarely found excessive eloquence (as
befitting one of those bloody Cambridge graduates who can only speak
like twats... I jest of course, I am envious of the experience...
probably not, I loved rough Glasgow and skanky Manchester a lot) and
infrequent (and for that reason all the more shocking) vulgarity. Of
the two books, I definitely favour The Fry Chronicle
which describes his Cambridge years and his subsequent rise to fame
(Moab is my washpot
talks about his childhood and adolescence up to the point of his
incarceration as a youth criminal for credit card fraud).
As a non-native
English speaker who lived in Britain a decade, I wholly enjoyed
reading Fry's writing for something that only Greg Graffin [2] of
the popular punk band Bad Religion [3] (and another person whose life
fascinates and interests me) achieved before him. I learnt new English vocabulary (regarding one of
Bad Religion's song lyrics: I still keep forgetting what the word
reprobate [4] means). It sounds weird,
but I have become so accustomed to using English and using it also in
academic context that I rarely encounter a text where I truly have to
check words. With Stephen Fry's prose, this happens to me about every
five pages. Some people find that annoying, I revelled in it as I
felt for the first time in about three or four years that I actually
improved my English (Since my departure from English shores, it
actually feels that I am losing my edge a bit).
I was very
surprised to read that Fry is a hobby computer enthusiast like me.
Not just electronic gadgets but programming and all. But unlike me,
he was there from the very first minute. I felt several pangs of envy
when he talked about how he spent thousands and thousands of pounds
on computer equipment (unfortunately on Apple Macintoshs, but youknow my view point on that [5]) - As a side note, I always want to
call him Stephen, because the two books were so courageously
revealing his most personal trials, tribulations and
fears that I feel that I know the man already since 20 years. This
is, however, not true, thus I shall stick with his full name or
plainly with Fry.
His
friendship with Douglas Adams [6] also left me a little bit
envious as I have been a great fan of Adams' Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy trilogy infour parts [7] since my adolscent days. One of the true literary
masterpieces.
I have
found several parallels to me (but also quite a lot of huge
differences... and no, the parallel is not that I am also gay) that
left me feel very sympathetic to him and makes me appreciate the
works and contributions that I like so much even more than before
(Blackadder, A Bit of Fry and Laurie).
I guess, as a
conclusion to this rather pathetic hero worship article, I can only
hope that Mr. Fry never reads this article after I read how critical
he can be of other people's work (despite saying that he will never
admit to having thought it).
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