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Review #2: Stephen Fry - The Hippopotamus

Category: Fiction
Author: Stephen Fry
Book title: The Hippopotamus
Release date: March 1994
Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd.

Stephen Fry’s novels are that rare thing: clever, enjoyable and seamlessly funny. Very few works often manage to amalgamate said three qualities. Fry, however, has a stranglehold on them, able to bend them to his will in typically erudite fashion.

The Hippopotamus, the second of three stories by the ‘British Institution’ (though not in a series) sees Stephen return to the fruity, dazzling storytelling of The Liar. What’s more accomplished about The Hippopotamus than that debut title, however, is that its ending isn’t nearly as contrived or frustrating.

Fry brings us the archetypal anti-hero: Ted Wallace. Cynical, bloated, womanizing, brilliant. Wallace is a stubborn right-wing snob, a washed-up poet and recently sacked drama critic. One of Fry’s stand out descriptions in the book concerns Ted: “(he) resembles in sight and sound nothing so much as a bin-liner full of yoghurt.” 

Fry’s customary wit pervades through the novel, cutting and hilarious. Moreover, his true storytelling nous comes out when he writes from the various perspectives of Davey (Ted’s godson) and recreates the history of Albert Bienenstock (father of Lord Logan, Ted’s old friend and Davey’s dad).  

Drinking (obviously) in the local following his dismissal from the paper, Ted’s long-lost goddaughter Jane (Logan’s niece) offers him a chance for redemption - believing herself to have been healed from leukemia by some miracle at Swafford Hall (Logan’s country mansion), she offers him the opportunity to make himself useful and travel there to uncover what exactly has been going on at Logan’s place. It’s typical of Fry’s protagonist to only be swayed by the juicy cheque Jane offers him in return.

Once ensconced at Swafford, Ted proceeds to engage in regular letter correspondence with Jane, with most of the novel actually being written in that form. Logan is Ted’s old army buddy, a millionaire Jew with four children. The two older sons, Davey and Simon, are the ones who feature prominently in the novel.
Ted spends a lot of time over the next few days and weeks with Davey, his other Godchild and begins to uncover the mysteries and phenomena surrounding the little boy…

This novel is absolutely delightful not only for Fry’s trademark erudition but also because it is so, as I said, seamless. There is no contrivance here, no strained development of plot or character as there seems to be with the finale of The Liar. Each event compels the story and fleshes out its colourful inhabitants perfectly, with Fry chucking in a few of his own theories and allusions along the way, such is his stamp.

The novel’s self-awareness of such graceless and, at times, pretentious characters prevents it from becoming arrogant and annoying. This is, as anyone who has read Fry in the past will know, one of his major strengths, making him charming instead of supercilious. The same can be said of this novel, which is a great exploration of the accidental and the intentional and how they can often intertwine. It also takes time out for some spiritual themes too and how beliefs can be encouraged by seemingly fantastical occurences.

Ted eventually unfolds the mystery of the ‘healings’ at Swafford and the novel winds down to a surprising yet satisfactory close. There isn’t a dull moment in this book: it’s intelligent, cynical and energetic, with all the trademarks of Fry’s original style present and correct. A furiously entertaining read, from bonce to toe.

9/10

Review #1: White Lies - Ritual

Category: Music
Artist: White Lies
Album/Track: Ritual
Release Date: January 18th 2011
Record Label: Geffen

 AFTER the brooding, fist-pumping gloom-rock success of White Lies’ debut, To Lose My Life, comes the Ealing lads’ sophomore offering Ritual.

It’d be inaccurate to say that this is a deviation from the death-obsessed tones of their first release; rather a continuation or a development of the dream for stardom so unabatedly espoused by Harry McVeigh & Co in every interview from here to Valhalla. One can’t reasonably blame them for sticking to the tried & tested, though: with To Lose My Life shooting to the top of charts and drawing comparisons with the like of Joy Division and The Cure, there really would seem to be no need to change.

Change, of course, they eschew purposefully with Ritual. Progression, on the other hand, escapes them rather unintentionally. Whilst Ritual strives to emulate the soaring choruses and hair-raising, spine-tingling goosebumpery of the last album, it only manages to sound timid by comparison. And where songs like ‘Death’, ‘To Lose My Life’ and ‘Unfinished Business’ were meaty, weighty and muscly, Ritual risks sounding tinny and sparse in its reluctance to move on.

None of this is to discredit the album entirely, however. Opener ‘Is Love’ is a crisply produced slab of epic proportions, sonically echoing the latter half of the first album; very much picking up where we left off.

The deadlock continues through ‘Strangers’ and ‘Bigger Than Us’, McVeigh’s vocal paths uncomfortably familiar. While choruses have clearly always been the forte of White Lies, their lyrics, dripping with desperation for profundity, have lead to critics and fans assailing them with accusations like ‘fraudulent’ and ‘hollow’ in the past. It’s not hard to see why, with lines like: ‘I was tired and cold from the window/You’re tired. Nothing’s changed’. And that’s not the worst of it. Higher presses such as The Guardian and NME have understandably raised questions about the lexical quality of the lyrics throughout this album.

Sadly, it’s a strain of complaint that runs right through this album, despite the suitably stadium-ready singalongs of ‘Bigger Than Us’ and ‘Holy Ghost’ and the 80’s electro-pop machinations of ‘Turn The Bells’, which is Ritual’s one and only real departure from the doom-laden skygaze of To Lose My Life and a charming, successful one at that.

Ritual’s main redemption is its stubborn deliberations over every chorus and verse, every beat and rhythm; it is one of White Lies’ major strengths that they are so precise and anal about getting their songs right, down to the last glacial fade-out.

It’s not enough, however, to mask all the emotive posing. Nor indeed, whatever White Lies may have hoped, does it convince the listener of its heart, its conviction. If they hoped to banish questions hanging over their sincerity, they’ve fallen somewhat short here; while they certainly know how to craft a song, they have never really got to grips with the symbology of the truly great albums they are so unashamedly trying to join.

Hardcore Lies fans won’t see anything to complain about here. In fact, it’s highly likely they’ll love every over-sombre, serious second of it. As far as White Lies’ dreams of arena-sized glory go, they’ve set themselves back a step or two here.

• 6 out of 10

Genesis - 361 days on…

And so it was, 3 or 4 days by my reckoning, from the time whence the concept speaking to thee from thou computer screen was merely smoke in the air, that it came to pass that it was made real. And God saw this creation that was not his, and was seriously envious. Loads. For it was built not by the hands of mighty, omnipotent deities, but that hedonous and sinning sect of ‘students’. And the ‘students’ said ‘let there be a blog’, and there was a blog. Because it’s not hard to make one. And they said ‘let us post of our thoughts’ and their thoughts were posted (once they clicked ‘create post’) but they could not expect anyone to take notice. And the ‘students’ said ‘let there be hazy recollections’ and hazy recollections were all they had, so that was sound. And the ‘students’ saw what they had created, and it was plain, so they changed the theme to something more fitting. And the ‘students’ were pleased, and they clicked create and checked facebook.