Talking about yourself, keeping the right tone and not falling into either narcissism or self-abasement is not easy for each of us, but for a public person it is triple difficult.
Talking about yourself, keeping the right tone and not falling into either narcissism or self-abasement is not easy for each of us, but for a public person it is triple difficult. Actor, director, TV presenter, writer, professional joker, the legendary Jeeves from the cult TV series Jeeves and Wooster and the magnificent Oscar Wilde from the film of the same name by Brian Gilbert — this is how the whole world knows Stephen Fry. Now, thanks to his autobiography, we have the opportunity to look behind the front facade and find out how he sees himself. The agony of growing up and the difficult path to awareness (and public recognition) of one’s sexual identity; complex relationships with his own body (according to Fry, catastrophically imperfect) and problems of national self-identification (Fry grew up in a Jewish family, which made him almost an outcast among his peers); eternal self-doubt, shyness and at the same time a constant, itchy need for creative self-expression. And finally, the most important thing is a deep and irresistible craving for lies and pretense, which at the age of seventeen brought Stephen to prison … Not trying to match the popular opinion about himself, Fry speaks about things that are important to him with captivating sincerity. And he does it in such a way that the reader has no doubts: by his fifty years, Stephen Fry has fully mastered the difficult art of living in harmony with himself and is ready to generously (but at the same time tactfully in English) share his experience with others.
Phantom Press, 608 p.