Book Review: Moab is my Washpot

Stephen Fry is a very interesting, clever, witty, well spoken man. So it would be come as no surprise that his biography is interesting, clever, witty and well written. This book covers the first 20 years of his life. He is very honest about the struggles he had fitting in at school and problems we faced with attempted suicide and crime in his teens. It is amazing to see how low he was as points, how he could have just been a drop-out by not focusing his intelligence and how he saved himself after a close call with prison bucked his ideas up finished school and went to Cambridge.

Stephen Fry is incredibly intelligent, he writes how he found his 11+ results with approaching genius next to his name. However I get the feeling he would have given anything at that age to not be quite so intelligent and a bit better at music and sport. Fry loves to watch sport or listen to music but is unable to participate, he felt this stopped him from joining in. I think this is a common thought amongst young people, they would give anything to be better at sport or music or what ever it is all their friends are skilled at. Being intelligent can make fitting in very difficult, often it is the very intelligent that go flying off the rails as they may be bored at school or feel left out as Fry did. I am generalising of course and not saying all intelligent people get lost along the way but I do think they find it hard. I would not call myself particularly intelligent I got average results at school and University, so I cannot totally sympathise with Fry but I can understand what he went through and how he reacted to it.

So all in all it is a jolly good read and gives a great insight to the mind and childhood of Stephen Fry.