The Fry Chronicles

Don't trust Stephen Fry's reviews. They will always be most friendly, and if the author happens to be a friend or acquaintance (and given he's Stephen Fry, chances are quite good that they are), they will be even more so. The fact that he admits to putting loyalty before literary integrity says a good deal about the man's character: He is, in short, a true gentleman.
The Fry Chronicles, his second autobiography after Moab is my Washpot, covers his Cambridge years and the steady rise to fame in the 5 or 6 years after. If we are to believe him, and who wouldn't, they mark the happiest days of his life, a time when he pulled himself together after a wild and even criminal adolescence, enjoyed leading a respectable life and met friends for life. I'm not an expert when it comes to autobiographies, and I don't think I've ever read one before. All I (theoretically) know is that it's very subjective and quite often an apology on behalf of the author - if it isn't pure showing off, which is the main reason I'm not interested. Stephen Fry stubbornly insists on apologizing for everything. He's clever, talented and everyone's number one dream dinner guest, yet he seems almost ashamed to admit it. He tries to explain this special trait of constantly putting himself down, and what he says makes a lot of sense, so you forgive him after an initial phase of frowning at yet another apology. He is, as most of his fans and even non-fans know, a troubled soul, battling bipolar disorder. If you keep that in mind, the amount of self-doubt he displays in his book makes you sad rather than mad.
He is, however, an incredibly funny man, and even though The Fry Chronicles are mostly descriptive and occasionally explanatory, his wit shines through. There is an imagined staff meeting at his Cambridge College concerning the admission of women that made me howl. What's more important, at least for me, is his love for learning and university. And this is where his apologies are least justified. You want to shake the man (gently) and tell him to stop apologizing for loving Cambridge and, effectively, his youth. After struggling for years, the idea of Cambridge alone finally seemed to have relaxed Fry and given him a purpose. And when he says things like these, I want to hug him and yell "YES!"

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.

Here's the man I want to have dinner with.

It's not all clever little thoughts though. Fry describes his time with various Cambridge theatre clubs, his first successes in Edinburgh, and finally, his time as a broadcasting darling, working in television, radio and theatre, together with his friends Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Ben Elton and all those guys. He comes across as somebody who's still amazed at the chances that presented themselves to him, so you don't mind the constant namedropping. Life has been good to Stephen Fry, and yet he struggles with self-doubt. It's tragic (and the book's last-page cliffhanger doesn't exactly make for a happy ending), and I want to cuddle Uncle Stephen. In my eyes, and I'm sure I'm not alone, he can't do no wrong, precisely because he is such a gentle, genuine and troubled person.

Everybody who loves Stephen Fry is obviously already reading this book. Even people who are merely interested in what made him become a man so many love and quite a few cannot stand should read it though. Maybe even those mainly interested in the comedy scene in Thatcher's Britain. Or Cambridge people. Even people who have never seen his documentaries or read his books. It's a good one.