Quote:
Originally Posted by astrangerhere
While I agree with many of you that the book was not all it could have been, consider a different perspective.
The novel was written 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, I was certain that it would not ever be legal for me to marry my wife in my lifetime. There were still many parts of the state in which I live that it was physically unsafe to be out publically in. (Though there are still some of those). I wonder if the self-indulgence in this book came more from wanting to write a gay story and needing a larger plot to nest it in.
I assumed that Michael was at least bisexual very early in the book, and I was not surprised at all by the eventual conclusion to the arc. It was clumsy, clunky, and terribly heavy-handed, but I understood what he was trying to do. The parallel between the inevitability of a tyrant in Germany mirrored what might be seen as an inevitability in Michael's life once he met Steve. Again, clunky and heavy-handed, but gay storylines in popular fiction had to start somewhere, I suppose. That is, of course, not to say that much better LGBT fiction was not written before this time, because it was. But Fry is a hugely popular public figure and might have gotten more exposure than a lot of his peers.
I ended up giving the book a 2.5/5, but I appreciated Fry's knack for voice and characterization, even if I did not like most of the characters.
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I think you're right. We should give Fry some credit for approaching the LGBT issue in such an open way (for the time), which overall I think he handled pretty sensitively. Times were indeed different then.
Stephen Fry is what we fondly term a "National Treasure" over here, involved in almost everyone's daily lives. From the quiz shows he's hosted, the panel shows he is involved in, all the comedy and film work (he's even directed), his audiobook narrations, his excellent work on BBC Radio 4, and his marvellous and frank autobiographies, one is able to forgive a relatively amateurish work as Making History. His heart is in the right place.