MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - New Leaf April 2018 Discussion • Making History by Stephen Fry

gmw · 04-15-2018, 03:53 AM

I like Stephen Fry as a comedian, as an actor, as a presenter. But as an author I find him often too fond of his own voice. (Or is he so lacking in confidence that he has to keep repeating or elaborating on himself?) In his autobiographical books I am content to accept this excess verbiage, you expect that a writer is likely to be self-indulgent in such work. Stephen Fry is undoubtedly clever and articulate, and some of the lines he comes up with are wonderful, but in a work of fiction - like Making History - I find myself begging: will you please just get out of the way and get on with it!

(Page numbers according to ADE, which gives total count as 355 pages.)

100 pages in and we've wasted pages and pages on things that I seriously doubt this book is going to revisit or otherwise allude to further on. Great long lists of what something is or is not like. A page-long paragraph describing what isn't in Zuckermann's lab. I can't speak for everyone, but I got the point after the first couple of examples, so this sort of thing rapidly stopped seeming clever and became just tedious.

And at page 114 he changes from narrative to screenplay layout. WTF? If I wanted to read a screenplay I'd have bought one! By page 122/3 we're back to narrative and our protagonist explains it's because this is how it felt, and he talks about how movies are better: you make movies in which you don't think, you make things happen. A curious observation - but of the writer and not apropos the story, or is it?* - it's also a rather ironic, since making this observation has all served to stop things happening in the story.

Page 127 we see the supposed twist in what Leo lives with. Strangely perhaps, it was what I had assumed from the start; it had not occurred to me that Leo might be Jewish, so finding out he wasn't was no surprise.

By page 150 or so I am finally starting to get interested, but since Fry has already made me impatient he's having to work extra hard to keep me interested. He lost me a few more times later, heading off on side-tracks or long-winded cleverness that had my eyelids drooping, but overall I think it ended up as a fairly good story (though whether it was worth the effort is less certain, because some of it really was an effort).

This was not a new tale. People have been imagining what might have happened sans Hitler since he first became a player on the world stage.

It was not a surprising tale. Almost everything was presaged so clearly that I feel as if I could have given an outline of the book after 60 pages (despite having slept through many of those):

Spoiler:

But there is a reasonable story in here. With the interspersed look into life in Germany, and life on the front lines of WWI, this could have been a really good story if it wasn't for the author constantly pulling me out of it with changes is presentation or wandering off into long lists that serve only to remind me there is a story teller between me and the story.

And I was right, most of the gratuitous crap at the start (and at times through the middle) has no bearing on the story, and little on the characters. Most of it is self-indulgent fluff that should have been edited out long before publication.

And for me that's the saddest part of most books (that I've read) by Stephen Fry: with a good editor they could all have been very good. He has a good gift with words, but he doesn't have a great gift for editing; he needs help.

Is there a bigger message to this story?

Leo tells us at one point: "a rat does good or evil by changing things around him, by acting. The mouse does good or evil by doing nothing, by refusing to interfere."

Aside from making me wonder how/where Fry came up with this strange (to me) aphorism, the subsequent events would seem to affirm the idea that a mouse, by refusing to interfere, is in the right. Is this what Fry would like us to take away from this story, or is it just an open question?

* One of the many side-tracks that Fry makes is to observe that movies are about making things happen. Movies are like rats? Are we supposed to take the lesson of this story to think that maybe making things happen (movies) is not so great after all? Or is the fact that this book has given us a deluge of side-tracks enough to tell us that there is no such message? (My inclination is for the latter.)

All up: It was not a complete waste of space, I ended up giving it a 3/5 (which is what all books I've read from Stephen Fry have received). But I'd have a hard time recommending it to others.

04-15-2018, 03:53 AM	#4
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	I like Stephen Fry as a comedian, as an actor, as a presenter. But as an author I find him often too fond of his own voice. (Or is he so lacking in confidence that he has to keep repeating or elaborating on himself?) In his autobiographical books I am content to accept this excess verbiage, you expect that a writer is likely to be self-indulgent in such work. Stephen Fry is undoubtedly clever and articulate, and some of the lines he comes up with are wonderful, but in a work of fiction - like Making History - I find myself begging: *will you please just get out of the way and get on with it!* (Page numbers according to ADE, which gives total count as 355 pages.) 100 pages in and we've wasted pages and pages on things that I seriously doubt this book is going to revisit or otherwise allude to further on. Great long lists of what something is or is not like. A page-long paragraph describing what isn't in Zuckermann's lab. I can't speak for everyone, but I got the point after the first couple of examples, so this sort of thing rapidly stopped seeming clever and became just tedious. And at page 114 he changes from narrative to screenplay layout. WTF? If I wanted to read a screenplay I'd have bought one! By page 122/3 we're back to narrative and our protagonist explains it's because this is how it felt, and he talks about how movies are better: you make movies in which you don't think, you make things happen. A curious observation - but of the writer and not apropos the story, or is it?* - it's also a rather ironic, since making this observation has all served to stop things happening in the story. Page 127 we see the supposed twist in what Leo lives with. Strangely perhaps, it was what I had assumed from the start; it had not occurred to me that Leo might be Jewish, so finding out he wasn't was no surprise. By page 150 or so I am finally starting to get interested, but since Fry has already made me impatient he's having to work extra hard to keep me interested. He lost me a few more times later, heading off on side-tracks or long-winded cleverness that had my eyelids drooping, but overall I think it ended up as a fairly good story (though whether it was worth the effort is less certain, because some of it really was an effort). This was not a new tale. People have been imagining what might have happened sans Hitler since he first became a player on the world stage. It was not a surprising tale. Almost everything was presaged so clearly that I feel as if I could have given an outline of the book after 60 pages (despite having slept through many of those): Spoiler: On the first page we are told the story is a circle, so we know everything comes back. On the assumption of a happy or neutral ending, we can foresee that any change to history will be for the worse and a way will be found to undo the change. On page 58 we are told about the little orange contraceptive pills, and have already been told of the smell of dead rats at the water pump. So there's the outline, everything else is just explanation and filler (some parts of it feel more like filler than others). But there is a reasonable story in here. With the interspersed look into life in Germany, and life on the front lines of WWI, this could have been a really good story if it wasn't for the author constantly pulling me out of it with changes is presentation or wandering off into long lists that serve only to remind me there is a story teller between me and the story. And I was right, most of the gratuitous crap at the start (and at times through the middle) has no bearing on the story, and little on the characters. Most of it is self-indulgent fluff that should have been edited out long before publication. And for me that's the saddest part of most books (that I've read) by Stephen Fry: with a good editor they could all have been very good. He has a good gift with words, but he doesn't have a great gift for editing; he needs help. Is there a bigger message to this story? Leo tells us at one point: "a rat does good or evil by changing things around him, by acting. The mouse does good or evil by doing nothing, by refusing to interfere." Aside from making me wonder how/where Fry came up with this strange (to me) aphorism, the subsequent events would seem to affirm the idea that a mouse, by refusing to interfere, is in the right. Is this what Fry would like us to take away from this story, or is it just an open question? * One of the many side-tracks that Fry makes is to observe that movies are about making things happen. Movies are like rats? Are we supposed to take the lesson of this story to think that maybe making things happen (movies) is not so great after all? Or is the fact that this book has given us a deluge of side-tracks enough to tell us that there is no such message? (My inclination is for the latter.) All up: It was not a complete waste of space, I ended up giving it a 3/5 (which is what all books I've read from Stephen Fry have received). But I'd have a hard time recommending it to others.