Moab is my Washpot

I have to admit that I chose to read this autobiography by chance. I was looking in the library for a decent biography of Sigmund Freud but I found this Stephen Fry book and, more than anything else, I was intrigued by its title. I like Stephen Fry. His intellect, wit and humour are a joy and he comes across as a genuinely nice bloke. However, things were not always this way and this book covers the first 20 years of his life when he went off the rails in quite dramatic fashion. So, it's not a celebrity name dropping session, but an honest appraisal of his childhood: his parents, his upbringing, his schooling, his emergent sexuality and his rampant kleptomania and subsequent short spell in prison - no, I would never have guessed that last bit either. I suppose it's a sort of self-psychoanalysis, which is rather fitting since I was looking for the Freud book.

When reading a biography I'm always interested in how much I have in common with the subject. In this case, it would appear to be not very much. Fry had an upper-middle class English engineer father and Austrian-Jewish mother. My father was from a Scots-Catholic background and my mother Welsh/Ulster Protestants (family get-togethers were such a joy). He went to prep and then public school. I went to the local scumbag comprehensive. He was useless at maths, science and music whereas they were always my strengths. His discovered he was homosexual whereas my sexuality was - well, frankly no-one else's business. Yet I do feel some empathy with his story - probably because his thoughts and emotions are so genuinely articulated. It really gives the impression that he has opened up in all confidence and his experiences are those that many young people encounter whilst growing up - merely in a different context. His story of his utter infatuation with another boy at school will ring a bell with many a tale of unrequited love.

For a comedian there aren't that many jokes in the book. That's not to say it isn't very funny in places. He uses humour and often writes in a humorous style but that is not the main thrust of the book. Part of Fry's popularity is his skill as a raconteur and that really propels the book along. Many of the stories are rather downbeat but his use of words and comic asides keep the interest going and gives the various chapters some sort of point - particularly as they relate to his current outlook on life.

The one item I didn't expect was his brush with the law. He hints here about his bi-polar condition and, in fact, the worst of the kleptomania came after a suicide attempt. However, he doesn't elaborate on his mental health here. He has since written and produced a television documentary about this but he was maybe not quite ready to discuss it at any length in 1997 when he wrote the book. Mental health issues always carry a great stigma - possibly Moab was his first attempt to come out of the closet with this. If this book was his opening session on the psychiatrist's chaise longue then the second volume, on which he is currently working, should be an eye-opener.

My only complaint was that the title is not explained anywhere in the book so I had to look it up. It's a quote from Psalm 60, verse 8: "Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, triumph thou because of me." I was pretty much still at a loss but it refers to the Moab, a former enemy of Israel which was overcome but appears to have the meaning of how difficulties, once dealt with, can inspire a person. Well, you learn something every day.