A Bit of Fry and...Fry

Fry's English Delight: Series 1 by Stephen Fry
Audiobook Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've loved Stephen Fry since the days when I discovered the Blackadder series, so I had to have a listen to these audiobooks, even if the subject matter is a little boring.

I doubt this will appeal to most people. It's about words and language, where they come from, what their meanings are, and why they exist. Writers and readers, that might be the limited audience scope for this.

Series 1 deals with puns, quotations, metaphors and clichés. I have a love-hate relationship to all of these language forms. Hearing their origins and such was really interesting to me. However, even I found it hard to be fully engaged through out, so I can't imagine someone who's not interested in the wordsmith arts having any interest in this whatsoever.

Fry does an excellent job guiding us through the many interviews and soundbytes used herein. The writing is quite clever as well. All in all, this is good stuff for the very few who go in for it.




Fry's English Delight: Series 2 by Stephen Fry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm a big PG Wodehouse fan and his Jeeves & Wooster series is my favorite of the many...lord have mercy!...the many books he wrote over a long career. There have been numerous attempts to turn Wodehouse's work into tv shows and pretty much all have failed, at least on some level. The best attempt was a version of Jeeves & Wooster starring Hugh Laurie of "House" and his long time comedy partner, Stephen Fry. Fry's Jeeves is spot on.



It's for this reason and many of his other great performances that I love this man and will watch or read anything by him.

So, that leads us to Fry's English Delight a brainy series about the English language. Not exactly a riveting topic for most, but like I said, I'm a Frynatic. I'm also an avid reader and writer, which are really the only kind of people I could envision this series appealing to.

Series 2 includes talk on jargon, elocution, accents, spelling, gibberish and more. Interesting topics with entertainment value. Well produced. Witty stuff from Fry as usual.

A British National Treasure Indeed!

Moab is My Washpot

Stephen Fry

Review by Zorena

Five Stars

Summary

Stephen 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.

My Review

How can you not love a man, that in the middle of why he kept his crooked nose veers off to discourse on how the monarchy is the crooked nose of Great Britain. Brilliant stuff!
Stephen has such a command of language and the written word that I felt his pains and triumphs. He agonizes over his lack of musical ability yet in the next breath he's soaring with his first tale of love. His love of words. His toys as he calls them. Using them to give this memoir a very unique title and strengthening my own love of language.
Unlike others, I knew a few things going in so I didn't find a lot of what he relayed quite so shocking. What I did find surprising is just how sincere he is over the pain some of his misadventures had caused others. A lot of biographies of celebrities either celebrate their crimes or try and sweep them under a rug. Stephen faces his head on and I found that profoundly heartening.
I am absurdly glad that I already have The Fry Chronicles so that I don't have to wait to continue Stephen's memoirs.