Paperweight

by Stephen Fry

"Appallingly funny." — Daily Telegraph

A hilarious collection of the many articles written by Stephen Fry for magazines, newspapers and radio. It includes selected wireless essays of Donald Trefusis, the aging professor of philosophy brought to life in Fry's novel The Liar , and the best of Fry's weekly column for the Daily Telegraph .


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Essays, Comedy, Short Stories, British Literature, Audiobook

470 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Stephen John Fry is an English comedian, writer, actor, humourist, novelist, poet, columnist, filmmaker, television personality and technophile. As one half of the Fry and Laurie double act with his comedy partner, Hugh Laurie, he has appeared in A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. He is also famous for his roles in Blackadder and Wilde, and as the host of QI. In addition to writing for stage, screen, television and radio he has contributed columns and articles for numerous newspapers and magazines, and has also written four successful novels and a series of memoirs.

See also Mrs. Stephen Fry as a pseudonym of the author.

Reviews

[meeners · Rating 3 out of 5]

so, quite a few years ago, a friend of mine gave me a bunch of episodes of the young ones because he knew i liked british comedies. i watched the first episode - and was baffled. this show was weird, crass, loud, foul. none of the sketches made sense. everyone shouted, all the time, for what seemed like no discernable reason. was this supposed to be punk? alternative comedy? or what??

but i stuck with it, out of sheer stubbornness, and finally made it to the episode where the gang somehow ends up on university challenge (a.k.a. quiz bowl for college students) against the "oxbridge" team, made up of emma thompson, hugh laurie, stephen fry, and ben elton. (i was going to describe how the young ones sketch goes but instead i'll just link to a clip: here.) and just like that, I GOT IT. the key background i had been missing, all that stuff the young ones was setting itself in opposition against (yikes, what a mess of prepositions) - it all finally slotted into place, in that moment when the show put it in context for me. and suddenly, magically, i found the show now hilarious, and weirdly brilliant.

to clarify, it wasn't the exaggerated send-up of class ("i've got a porsche!") that made things click for me, it was the way the show plays with the comedy sketch format itself - or rather, the way it just doesn't give one sh*t for it, when all's said and done. the part with the footlights could probably have stood on its own as a perfectly respectable parody, something you could easily imagine being shown on an british version of SNL or something, but the young ones not only resisted this aura of clever parody but rendered it utterly meaningless, through violence and the non sequitur.

all of this is my very round-about way of collecting my thoughts on this stephen fry collection, which is exactly what you might expect it (and him) to be like: self-deprecating, massively intelligent, witty, charming, careful. i always fall madly in love with anyone who can speak in complete paragraphs, with such articulation that you can practically hear the semicolons in their speech, and stephen fry is definitely of that number. but there's something rather . . . antiquated about him, something in line with the footlights parody (even as stephen fry himself participates in that parody) that doesn't lend itself much to a revelatory experience. at first it surprised the bejeesus out of me to realize fry was in his late 20s and early 30s when he started writing the stuff collected here...but then again, that's exactly what i mean - impossible to think of stephen fry as anything but an old soul, even in his 30s.

ah well. still enjoyed thumbing through this, and i do admit i went "teehee" every time he mentioned his "good friend hugh laurie." one whole section of this book consists of a series of radio broadcast transcripts, which suffers from the lack of nuance that live performance provides, but the articles and essays i found eminently readable. also, through one of his essays i learned that "senior wrangler" is actually a real thing in britain!! i had always thought terry pratchett made up the term for discworld because it sounds so silly, but no. who knew!

(incidentally, fry's essay defending the use of academic "jargon" made me want to literally leap up and hoot with pure joy. THIS GUY GETS IT! i wanted to shout, while pumping my fists triumphantly into the air. the next time someone complains about "theory" to me i am going to stuff that person's mouth shut, perhaps literally, with that essay. ALSO, fry does a mini-review for elaine showalter's the female malady!! be still my nerdy heart!!!)

[Tim Poston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fry is so witty that sometimes his serious points are dismissed as a joke: for instance, when he turns the 'animal rights' movement on its head, by questioning whether humans have the right to do kill animals, put them in zoos, etc.
This is a wonderful reframing of the question, but too many people will dismiss it as just a clever paradox.

Everything he says deserves not just laughter, but thought.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've long admired the work of Stephen Fry and I can relate to quite a lot of his viewpoints on the world. Paperweight is a collection of his non-fiction writings in all sorts of formats from around the late 80s; there are numerous newspaper columns he's written, radioscripts, plays and his general musings on life which cover everything from the ordinary, absurd, and the downright banal.

It's a real mixed bag and is definitely a book that needs to be dipped in and out of as Fry himself suggests. I think if you were to read this cover to cover, you'd end up hating it because the way the articles have been put together is so random and incoherent. Bizarre, but there were enough hilarious accounts and interesting pieces to keep me going back for more.

[Erlend Raanaas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audio book read by the author. Some of the stories were a bit dated, but I did enjoy most of it.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I got a lot of pleasure from this book - essentially a collection of Stephen Fry's newspaper columns from the late 1980s - I was also left a bit underwhelmed. Fry writes on a range of subjects, there is an interesting element of interest and prescience about some of the predictions made, how things turned out. I also got a hell of a lot of enjoyment from the author's playful use of words - very nice indeed

But it just felt a bit old in places. Repetitive in places (due to the nature of the book - Fry never wrote his newspaper columns mindful of the future idea of compiling them into a book) and a bit too dense to consume from front to back as I did. Though Fry warns against doing this, admittedly.

[Thomas Stroemquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the foreword, the author himself advices us that this is not a book to be read cover to cover, but rather to dip into from time to time. This is very good advice, and I do not think I would have liked it as much if I had tried to go about it in the first mentioned fashion. A collection of radio transcripts, articles and various other writings, it is a dense and wast collection. The earliest stuff breathes of Monty Python/early Woody Allen writing, but all has the Fry taste that we love. I would not recommend it as a starting point and do take care to heed the man's recommendation on how to go about it."

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A handsome volume of Stephen Fry's journalism from the eighties (and nineties? I forget.) My only beef is that a lot of the columns concern topics that, as an American living in 2009, aren't at all relevant. I found myself reading this book for the sake of Stephen's prose, not because the content particularly engaged me. I skipped the Trefusis columns entirely. Overall, though, it's a book I'm not sorry to have read. Stephen delivers every time.

[Suzanne Fournier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would recommend picking away at this tome leisurely, it should not be attempted in one go as the author himself warns.
A collection of radio pieces, articles and other bits and bobs Stephen wrote over the years. Most are witty and interesting. I particularly enjoyed 'As Mad As Mad Can Be' and 'The Adventure of the Laughing Jarvey', I'll admit I skipped the articles about cricket and the play Latin! at the end.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of Fry's radio scripts and newspaper columns. As always he is witty, funny and observant and as always quite flamboyant in his use of vocabulary. Not as light reading as the subject matter could be (I needed a dictionary at hand!) - but as the author himself recommends digest it slowly and you'll find plenty to enjoy.

[Lara Ramos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somente o segundo audiobook que ouvi na vida, sinto como se tivesse tirado a sorte grande, porque agora é impossível imaginar como diabos poderia consumir esse livro sem ser pela voz de Stephen me embalando pelas orações gigantescas e sotaques e onomatopéias descrições de Londres nos final dos anos 80 e tantas outras coisas triviais (algumas até bizarras) que ele faz ficar charmosas.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Fry is his usual, witty self in this collection of essays, articles and scratches from his earlier days of comedy. The introduction suggest that you not read the book in one short period, but set it down and pick it up from time to time, But I found i had to keep moving from one piece to another to another. It’s really that intoxinly funny. A terrific read.

[[ J o ] · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Quick review from memory until I re-read and re-review at a later date:

A collection of stuff he's written i.e columns etc? Not particularly exiting and I don't recall what his writing style is like, but c'mon it's Frymo]

[Dane Cobain · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was another bedtime book for me, and for a lot of good reasons. I used to really like Stephen Fry’s books, but then I picked up The Ode Less Travelled and hated it so much that I literally set fire to it. Part of the reason for that was that he was snarky about free verse, which is my favourite kind of poetry.

But this is about Paperweight. I just thought that The Ode Less Travelled was important to mention because that’s the reason why I went into this with a sour taste in my mouth. It’s just hard for me to take Fry seriously after that, because I think that it betrayed some of his biases. It was almost as though he was saying that if you enjoy free verse, you’re an idiot, which must make me an idiot. And it was also a poor message to send to people in a book that was designed to get people into reading poetry in the first place.

So when you pick this up and start to read through essays where Fry is sharing his opinion on things, there’s the risk that you’re just going to disagree with him on principle, which kept happening to me. Now, I do think it’s important to occasionally read things that you disagree with because it can help you to firm up your own decisions and even realise that you might be wrong.

Here, though, it was just a bit of a chore, and that’s on top of the fact that reading essays in general can be a chore. The result is a book where I’m not even really sure why it was published, other than because Fry had got a bunch of essays and wanted to feed the endless publishing machine. But that doesn’t mean that they made a decent book.

Paperweight is a good name for it, because that’s what it’s best used for. There were one or two things that were standouts, but it’s a pain to read through 470 pages for maybe 15 pages of quality content. In fact, the only reason that I stuck with it is that I want to read everything that Fry’s ever written, but this has got me wondering whether I even want to still do that.

Still, this is just my experience with it, and you might find that you see it totally differently. I think it all comes down to how interested you are in the different subject matters and whether you agree with Fry’s take on things. And like I said, there are a few little nuggets in here that are worth reading, so it’s just up to you whether you feel like it.

[S.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stephen Fry is a treasure to humanity, but apart from a handful of essays this book just didn't do anything at all for me. If you weren't an adult in 1980s-90s Britain, a lot of the names and references will completely pass over you, and unfortunately that's a large portion of the contents here. Most everything else is just kinda meh.

[Nikky3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much but it realy is to much. Even tasted a little at a time it is so so so much.

[Stephanie Cullen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't even remember it now so clearly didn't stick. 😂

[Jani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book consists of many stories and articles, some more interesting than others. But of course most of it is of good Stephen Fry quality.

[Sam Denney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely collection of Stephen Fry's various writings; piece after piece, mostly monologues, reviews and old newspaper columns, with a short story and a play thrown in for good measure. Most of the selections are 3 or 4 pages long, perfect little morsels usually tied around a particular idea or event. With such a wide selection of material, it's reasonable to expect a few duds to slip through. In fact, I was surprised by how little of the book felt like filler. Great writing or simple good selection, it doesn't matter. As per Fry's suggestion, Paperweight found its place in my house on a shelf next to the toilet, where it became a stalwart companion at times of... You get the idea, I'm sure.

I particularly enjoyed Fry's "wireless essays", written in the character of Donald Trefusis, an utterly lovable Cambridge University professor. The voice of a man of incomprehensible intelligence and a profoundly English dodderiness is an authentic and funny one. When Fry writes as himself he comes across with the expected charm, humility and wit that has made him a national treasure. Some people find his often self-deprecating, frequently challenging and occasionally incomprehensible style infuriating, but for me Paperweight is the work of a unique and worthwhile talent. Fry's articles, reviews and essays are capable of inspiring me, provoking me, and making me laugh all in the space of a page or two. His passions always seem genuine and his opinions always thoroughly examined before being aired.

Fry's attempt at a short Sherlock Holmes story is particularly beautiful; a Christmas tale that I'll be returning to every year. It seems that he is capable of turning his hand to most things, including theatre with his short play Latin! I loved the way a classroom full of boys was created using a couple of actors, a few props and the audience itself.

For me, Paperweight represents ridiculously good value. The book is full to bursting with moments of thought and humour that would be pretty much lost if they hadn't been collected like this. Whether it's something I'll read again, I'm not sure, but I'll definitely dip into favourite sections when the fancy takes me.

Arbitrary Rating: 4 Harpic-stained copies of The Sloane Ranger Handbook out of 5.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"We live in dangerous, uncertain times. Dame War, her mean, pinched features cracking into a ghastly smile, threatens to enGulf us in a molten river of desolation and ruin ... That surly footpad, Recession, rubs his brutal blue beard-line threateningly between finger and thumb and leers down with grim delight at the prospect of poverty, squalor and homelessness. At such a time it's good to know that people are coming up with television advertisements for Carefree Panty-Shields and Intimate Wipes." - Stephen Fry in 1990.

Substitute "online bingo and personal injury compensation" in place of the panty-shields etc. and, really, what's changed?

I didn't really do this book justice. For one, I abandoned it part-way through for some Johnny-come-lately new release on the Kindle (which was totally worth it, by the way). Second, it was pretty much squeezed into coffee breaks between lectures on heart disease and postoperative pain relief on the days when I couldn't face another textbook. Third, I made only a token attempt at the play. Sorry, but plays should be seen and not read. Fourth, I read it precisely the way Mr Fry instructs us not to: from cover to cover. Probably mostly, though, because I was hankering after some yummy fiction, which I am missing sorely. But five books on the go is too much, even for me.

Isn't it funny that Fry, whose name was synonymous with Twitter for a time, actually imagined the word "twitter" as a collective noun for a group of actors, way back in 1991?

[D.A. Fellows · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars. Dog-eared as this book became by the end of the ten months or more that it took me to read, it was no less enjoyable for that. It's nice to have something not too long (but not too short!) to read in the bathroom, or when you fancy a quick read before going to sleep but realise that the next section of the novel that you're currently reading is more than fifty pages long. "Read the toothpaste box, then," you might say, "if all you want is something short to read." Good point, but the back of a box of Colgates won't engage you so deeply as just a few pages of Stephen Fry. The critiques all over the cover would have you believe that this collection of reviews, articles and various other oddments from Fry is "appallingly funny", but I think comments like this do the compilation an injustice - yes, it's funny here and there, but it's not the script of a stand-up comedian. There are many interesting, well thought-out arguments in here on subjects as far-ranging as cricket, Salman Rushdie, the madness of people who sue establishments after accidents and too many more to list. This is just a good book to have around the house - it's simply a guaranteed enjoyable way to spend a quick five minutes.

[Fiona · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of articles, mostly written between 1989 and 1991 so they're almost old enough to be considered historical, at least to me as I was born in the middle of that time. From that perspective they're pretty interesting in places, especially where they show how much things have changed in some respects but also how many problems have changed depressingly little in the time since. I also feel like there are probably some views in the articles which he wouldn't recognise or agree with now. I would be interested to read a collection of more recent writing to see if that's the case.

This is definitely the kind of book which is better to dip into to read the more entertaining articles but probably not to do what I did and solidly read a few articles at a time, without skipping any of the ones about cricket or featuring names I didn't recognise. That may have been a factor in why it took me so long to read this book and why it occasionally felt like a struggle which I only carried on with due to how determined I was to finish it. It's mostly worth reading if you have a strong desire to read everything he ever wrote but definitely the kind of book I'd only ever read once.

[N.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Fry's writing in various forms, from radio scripts to columns in The Spectator and Telegraph.
Whilst some of it seems dated nowadays, it is still a superb account of the period before Fry became the 'Prince of Twitter', and contains some wonderful, intelligent pieces on anything from Wimbledon to masturbation. For me though, it is when Fry's gaze turns to the art of word-craft that this book becomes most enjoyable.
Unseemly as it may be, this has been the only permanent feature of my toilet bookshelf for the past fifteen years - a testament to it's staying power. On that note I'll leave you with this graffiti Fry quotes, written on the lavatory wall of the Earl of Norfolk, and attributed to Byron:
"O Cloacina, goddess of this place,
Look upon thy suppliants with smiling face.
Smooth and consistent may their offerings flow;
Neither rashly swift not insolently slow!"

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

If it seems that it took me a long time to read this, it was intentional. A multitude of 2-3 page columns and broadcast transcripts on a multitude of topics, it was a delight to read one or two at a time and savor each one. It expanded my vocabulary as well.

True, a few of the pieces meant little to me as a non-British citizen - mention of politicians, entertainers, and others who might have local but not global fame - but most had global appeal. And the political commentary about Conservative and Labour parties, referencing officeholders of decades ago, could easily be applied to the contemporary American political scene. His attacks on bigotry, delivered in oh-so-civil prose, also seem apropos to the current American social scene.

Fry's writing is articulate, witty, humorous, and perceptive. Highly recommended.

[Graham Tapper · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's taken me a long time to read this, not because it's a difficult book to read but because of the type of book it is. This is a compilation of Fry's articles for publication in papers and magazines, and script for radio programmes, from the 80s and 90s.

Each is around two pages long and so it makes the book the perfect "Book to read in the loo". And that is where it has been since I started it. Consequently it only got read when I happened to be using that particular loo.

But, I have finished, and found it very entertaining. As I said, it is almost entirely short articles; the exception is the final contribution, which consists of the script for a playlet that, as far as I am aware, has never actually been performed in public.

[M. Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I truly enjoyed reading this book, I closed it knowing that I would never feel the urge to read it again. (Unlike most of Mr. Fry's other books, which I keep around like a circle of old friends.) It is indeed a dense and somewhat-dated read, and as an American of a certain age, I found it difficult to engage with, in spots.

If I were a Briton of a different certain age, it might be an entirely different story. Of course, if I were a Briton of a different certain age, most things would be an entirely different story.

[Celia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ah, I'm not sure if I'm ever going to finish this - it's a bit of a mish-mash of columns and random audio stuff. I think some of the humour is a bit linked to the time and society, and therefore lost on me.

***

Nope, didn't end up finishing it - racked up some late fines at the library, and ending up returning it while about halfway through.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant writing style in his pieces for the Listener and other publications, witty, well informed and startlingly thought-provoking.
The radio transcripts are a little less accessible, but still absolutely excellent. He even includes a play he wrote aged about 22, which is superb and really quite original - best seen live I'm sure though, of course.

A quite fantastic book.

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have really loved some of the insights from this book. Some things are a little too far to the left, as far as I am concerned. He has a problem with organized religion, but otherwise it has been hilarious at times, and extremely thought provoking at others. He admits that most of the chapters are short enough to be read in the bathroom, depending on the "health of one's bowels" (!)

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book compiled from various sources of Stephen Fry's articles or radio appearences.
read in a pick and choose style not start to finsh.
the short Sherlock Holmes story he has written and is included, is very much in the spirit of the origional A C D stories and tho brief is quiet good! more of this please!

[Alex Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly amusing collection of Stephen Fry's whimsical musings for newspapers during the 1980's. I read it in fits and starts around other things over the course of several months much as the introductory note advises. I feel this negated over-familiarity with the material and kept it interesting given that there is no overarching narrative driving the 450+ pages.