As I grew up, Stephen Fry was the witty panelist on radio programmes, a voice of documentaries and later, of course, the voice of the Harry Potter books. his play - with words, with accents, with intonation and inflection was something I found remarkably adult, as an impressionable teen. It seems to logically follow that the same distinction should be applied to his pursuit of trivia:

"The aural replication of milk delivery is clearly a common (if evolutionarily bewildering) gift amongst the domesticated mynahs of the West Country and a phenomenon into which more research cries out to be done."

Having read a rather dry and encyclopedic page on Fry, I knew about his public shame - or at least knew of it sufficiently to not be surprised by it in this book. But related here is far more than that: problems of a more mundane nature, for instance.

"So. Your friend, he is saying Hit it, bitch... and next music is starting and you must
be singing? Yes?"

the hypnotist session fascinated me, as I suspect it would anyone who's never had cause to use such methods themselves. And there's a lot of sexual content, of course - not in substance but in theme, as it were; we get these marvelous peeks into the things that flow behind his outlook.

"It involved some of the things I loved best: early mornings, the sound of my own voice, efficient service and a hint of eroticism."

I'm not a big reader of non-fiction, as a rule. Generally, what people have to say about themselves is of little interest to me; not, at least, when it's published en-mass. Of course there are some people, I suppose they're almost childhood heroes,of a sort (a category into which Fry fits perfectly), where the rule fails. But this work was not just of Fry, it was of some of the beliefs of Fry.

"A culture that demands people apologise for something that is not their fault: that is as good a definition of a tyranny as I can think of. "

Bravo, and all that.

I will refrain from popping any more morsels in. there were many more I could have, and passages throughout that made me pause - not to denote an interesting quotation but just to think. Intellectually, I understood that Fry's seminal years hadn't been a walk in the park, but as is the wont of a young life, I hadn't stopped to even consider the particulars. Normal is as one sees it: one blind from birth does not question a lack of eyesight - one used to seeing a celebrity in a position of top-of-the-worldlyness does not ask how he came to be there. Not initially, at least. I'd wanted to read this book for a while, now seemed opportune.

I can't say it's changed my views on the man, either. I still follow him on Twitter, read his blog posts with the interest anyone might show, and keep an ear out for him on the radio (or should I say wireless). Mixed in with all the humourous asides and anecdotes of a youth of a different generation, the thing I found most remarkable about this volume was the bravery. Not of coming clean, because the facts were already out there for anyone to see. But nobody is as harsh a critic as oneself, and Stephen Fry, in this work, is as forthright, as open and as utterly frank as anyone can ask of a man. For that, I applaud him. For the honesty, the attempt at explanation, the chance to glimpse into something that ninety-nine of a hundred men would rather forget and bury, I salute him. it is, I firmly believe, an unparalleled act of bravery, of manliness - even of heroism. To throw out ones persona into the world in such a vibrant, heartfelt way - the good, the bad and the ugly included - that is now what Stephen Fry means to me.