This is simply not a book for everyone. I was left a bit perplexed by the end and unsure of how I felt about the novel as a whole. On one hand, this is a hilarious memoir from the acerbic wit of one Tedward Wallace, “hippopotamus“, poet and curmudgeon, asked by his dying god-daughter to keep witness to a miracle at her uncle's English country estate.
Fry's writing is as intelligent as it is funny and I fell hard for the antihero Ted right away. Then it things take some unexpected turns for the darker with Nazi flashbacks and animal sex, only to have everything turn out cheery and happily ever after. Like I said, a perplexing book that deals with ideas about wealth, religion, belief, mass hysteria, and faith in a satirical, comedic and sometimes strange way.
It's certainly worth a read if you want to try something different and it has made me very interested in reading more from the actor (he is Jeeves from TV pick Jeeves and Wooster and played the inept detective in Gosford Park).
But what do you think?