A hilarious and brilliant novel from the comedian, actor and polymathic TV presenter.
A hilarious and brilliant novel from the comedian, actor and polymathic TV presenter.
Stephen Fry is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and director. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (which he co-wrote with Laurie) and Jeeves and Wooster, and was unforgettable as General Melchett in Blackadder. He has hosted over 180 episodes of QI, and has narrated all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the audiobook recordings. He is the bestselling author of four novels - The Stars' Tennis Balls, Making History, The Hippopotamus and The Liar - as well as three volumes of autobiography - Moab is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles and More Fool Me. Mythos and Heroes, his retelling of the Greek myths, are both Sunday Times bestsellers.
My goodness what fruity language Fry uses! You can feel his
enjoyment, and also the huge force of his desire to please you, as
you read this
*Mail on Sunday*
Fresh, filthy, funny and fizzing with ideas
*Evening Standard*
One of the funniest people writing on either side of the Atlantic
... like a combination of Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis but
funnier than either
*Publishers Weekly*
Deliciously wicked
*New York Times*
My goodness what fruity language Fry uses! You can feel his
enjoyment, and also the huge force of his desire to please you, as
you read this * Mail on Sunday *
Fresh, filthy, funny and fizzing with ideas * Evening Standard
*
One of the funniest people writing on either side of the Atlantic
... like a combination of Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis but
funnier than either * Publishers Weekly *
Deliciously wicked * New York Times *
English polymath Fry (actor, playwright, newspaper columnist, fledgling novelist) is one of the funniest people writing on either side of the Atlantic. His debut novel, The Liar, published here two years ago by Soho, was brilliantly comic but a bit disorganized. Now, apart from a tendency to shift perspectives rather unconvincingly (which criticism he gleefully anticipates in his hilariously crotchety foreword), he has matters firmly in hand. The hippo of his title is going-to-seed poet Ted Wallace, an aging lecher who drinks too much and is at odds, in his massively cantankerous way, with most of modern life. His ruminations, including achingly funny riffs on subjects as varied as how much more difficult sex is for men than for women, and why it's easier to be a composer or artist than a poet, are like a combination of Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis but, because Fry is such a dazzling mimic and has a splendid ear for contemporary jargon, funnier than either. His plot is decidedly weird: Ted's goddaughter Jane, apparently cured of cancer by the gifts of a teenage son of a rich tycoon, sends Ted off to the tycoon's family seat in Norfolk to find out how the kid does it. In the end, of course, Ted does so, acting as a rather improbable detective, but only after a series of imaginative set pieces, including a scene with a horse that has to be read to be believed. Fry's wicked queenie patter in the persona of ``Mother'' Oliver is alone worth the price of the book. (Jan.)
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