This week I have been reading The Fry Chronicles by the
eponymous Stephen Fry. I’m not going to review it because, well, it was
published two years ago and I think I’ve missed my window. Everything that
could possibly be written about it has been written and in far fluffier prose
than I could muster with a mouth full of tissue (this isn’t a metaphor; I’ve
just been to the dentist – See My Dentist Thinks I’m a Car – and I’m starting
to wonder if my tooth mechanic is trying to see just how many teeth he can extract
before I start to question his motives). Needless to say, I enjoyed the second
instalment of Stephen Fry’s biographical offerings and would highly recommend
it. So, why did it take me two years to get around to reading it?
Let me put this in context. I loooved Moab is my Washpot,
his early memoir. In fact, I believe that it saved some part of me from
shrivelling into the folds of self-shame and disappearing. Here is a book about
a young boy becoming a young man whose adolescent wrestling match with himself
took him all the way to a young offenders’ institute. There was his genius to
cope with (not something I’ve been particularly troubled by), his awkwardness,
his compulsion towards mischief, and his sexuality. This was a mixed-up kid,
but Stephen Fry the Elder looks back with a soothing message for his former
self and for readers.
‘It’s alright!’ he simply states (I’m paraphrasing, of
course; why use two words when there is whole thesaurus at hand). ‘It’s
alright! Whatever you are, whatever you do, as long as you’re not hurting
anyone, it’s going to be alright.’ A simple message, but in the context of a
battle with self and sexuality, it was a message that I needed to hear.
I remember word of The Fry Chronicles unleashing itself onto
the world two years ago; I put up links on Facebook around the time of my
birthday, hoping that an odd sister or aunt might take the hint, and when it
didn’t materialise, I resolved to treat myself. Then what happened? Well, it
fell out of my head. Two years on and I see a copy in a charity shop. To be
honest, as a bestseller, it is a staple of charity shop shelves, but seeing it
this time caused a little ripple of excitement. How was the kid getting on at
Cambridge and then in the big wide world? How had he become the sumptuous
national treasure that we know and love? More importantly, what was his message
for me this time and was I ready to hear it? Perhaps I wasn’t two years ago.
Perhaps I would have read it with all of the openness of a child being dragged
to hear the bla-bla-bla-ness of Sunday mass on a rainy October morning. Isn’t
that the way with life? There is a time for everything. This much is obvious,
but what is more difficult to understand is that, as human creatures hopping on
the burning embers of day-to-day life and wondering where it all might lead, we
instinctively stumble upon the information that we most need at just the right
time. There is no logic to explain this magic (although the Law of Attraction
could sign its name below the miracle). The subconscious is such that at just
the exact point that we need to know something (sometimes for our emotional
survival) and are capable of absorbing the information, it knocks on the door
like an intuitive friend. I’ve been in doctors’ surgeries and found the most apt
articles in magazines that I wouldn’t normally touch, speaking directly to me;
I’ve bought books because of their interesting titles, not knowing that the
information inside was personalised to my specific needs; I’ve turned on the TV
at the exact point that a documentary was answering some of the most pressing
questions pestering my soul; I read The Fry Chronicles and Stephen Fry saved a
part of me for the second time. Not only did he give me something to write
about in this week’s blog, but his reassurances have held my hand through these
seven days. I’m not quite as candid as Stephen Fry to openly reveal my
inner-most revelations publicly, but I thank him for steering me in the right
direction and I thank the universe for never disappointing me.
Diazepam for Sale, the debut novel by Hayley Sherman is now available on Amazon
Time travel as a cure for depression, the Mods and Rockers on the West Pier, a vengeful Sat Nav lady, a seagull-stalked Frank Sinatra and Diazepam for sale...
A fairytale for a prozac nation...
Fiction for a world that doesn't behave the way it should....
www.hayley-sherman.co.uk
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