Customer Reviews

THE STARS' TENNIS BALLS.

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I knew nothing about this book when I picked it up, other than it was written by the actor/comedian who played Oscar Wilde. Based on the first few pages, I thought it would be a fun, witty story about some young people in prep school, their romantic entanglements, with a bit of British politics thrown in. And for a while it is this--a nice light satire.

Then this novel takes an amazing radical turn and becomes harrowingly serious in a vivid description of a kidnapping and confinement. Then it turns once again to be a suspenseful escape story, and finally a step by step "Count of Monte Cristo" revenge story (the latter of which is a bit unsatisfying as the main character becomes an efficient revenge machine and we lose the sense of him as a person that the middle of the book had so wonderfully built).

Still, Fry is an excellent writer to be able to pull off all of these tones in a single book. It is a great read, and it makes me want to seek out other works by Stephen Fry. Recommended!!

Stephen Fry in the past has written some brilliantly original books that are so overflowing with humor and wit that they are can seem almost too clever. This however, is not 100% original, in that it updates the classic The Count Of Monte Cristo to the modern day. (I should point out that TCOMC is my favorite book of all time, and one that I have read many times in many versions).

The way Fry has transplanted the characters and applied the dot com touch to it, must have been like untangling a huge stubborn knot of string--but he succeeds.

The story touches most of the main points of the classic, each central character from Dumas' book has a Fry counterpart, and while there are changes, they are changes that are in keeping with a contemporise adaptation of the story.

Even though this is a very clever re-telling of such a classic story, and while I enjoyed it, I must say that this lacks the original's grace.

Perhaps the era in which the original story was set had in fact more grace to it, but the conclusion to this version seemed very abrupt and stark.

Dumas brilliantly showed us some of the inner torment that the Dante's character was suffering, while Fry showed nothing like that from Ned Maddstone, leaving a rather one-dimensional feeling in relation to the character. In fact, it was in some of Maddstone's "victims" that you were given greater insights to, especially leading up to their final scenes.

All in all, a fun read very cleverly composed, but nothing more...but I'm sure Fry being the frighteningly clever man he is, realized that his version would suffer in comparison.

Armchair Interviews says: Well worth the read.

Why this book is not available as normal quick-to-ship-paperback by AMAZON is beyond me (it doesn't even pop up while searching for Stephen Fry stuff), but anyway: this is a highly suspenseful novel which is perfect for turning into a movie. Old Babe could be played by Richard Harris- is he still alive?- and Ned perhaps by Linus Roache! I wish I were a screenwriter for this one. Well, come on, buy the bloody book already (if you can stand seeing a nice young lad ending up like Jack Nicolson in 'One flew over the cookoo's nest' for a while)!

The title 'The Stars' Tennis Balls' looked promising, and the author was well known to me from television. Stephen Fry is the soul of imperturbable urbanity and enlightened sophisticated wit. I have heard him compared, with just a little hyperbole, to Oscar Wilde, a likeness helped by his large corporeal dimensions. When I actually read the book I found wit indeed, and sophistication, and enlightened liberal attitudes. I found a great deal else too. In particular I found myself baffled as to what Fry thought he was doing in writing let alone publishing a story like this.

The title turns out to be taken from Webster's Duchess of Malfi, where it is meant in dead earnest - `We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and banded/Which way please them.' This is much the same sentiment as in Housman's `mortalem uexantia sidera sortem' - the stars that blight our human lot - suggesting that we are helpless pawns at the mercy of blind uncaring fate and chance. I am completely unable to relate this smart and eye-catching title to the story, which is one of the most improbable I ever read. There is nothing wrong with that in an appropriate case - Gulliver's Travels is not very probable on the face of it. The personae of this drama, far from being buffeted by remote eternal forces, are themselves the agents and victims of brilliant and outlandish human ingenuity, although one early catalyst of what happens is admittedly a wildly flukish coincidence, the kind of thing on which bookmakers' odds would be hard to compute. The various transformations that the main character then goes through are the stuff of legend not reality as most of us would understand the term, more like a modern Arabian Nights. Above all what puzzles me is the complete disproportion between the ostensible and humdrum reasons for ill-feeling towards the `hero' and the inferno of horrors that he first endures and then inflicts. Apart from anything else, it all takes place in a world apparently devoid of any law-enforcement.

Two ways occurred to me to make sense of it all. One was to try to view it as fantasy, an outlandish backdrop to a display of Fry's pet dislikes, mainly petit-bourgeois snobbery and conservative and traditionalist outlooks. These outlooks certainly get short shrift from the author, in a manner familiar from a certain type of enlightened and bien-pensant English intellectual. However what it really suggested to me was the bloodthirsty imaginings of an 8-year-old boy who has taken offence at some of his schoolmates or playmates and who in his mind calls down on them supra-biblical and ultra-Dante horrors. On seeing the name Cade among the cast of characters it crossed my mind that Fry might have got some of his inspiration from Cape Fear, but what the final sequence reminded me of more than anything was some of the Vincent Price movies of happy memory, such as The Abominable Dr Phibes.

I shall own up to mildly enjoying it, but at nearer 400 pages than 300 I recommend reading it quickly. Put it down for too long and you're not likely to pick it up again.

An excellent re-envisioning of The Count of Monte Cristo (including humorous insights into class, Irish Republicanism, and British politics), now published in the US as Revenge.

Revenge: A Novel

The Count of Monte Cristo in modern Europe. Our protagonist is now the son of an English aristocrat, the Chateau d'If has become an insane asylum in Scandinavia, but the basic premise is the same. It's the extra twists, though, which make this book worth buying.

To be honest, I am anything but a fan of Steven Fry the comedian. I find his humour to be well, schoolboyishly undemanding. How is it that when sitting at his typewriter he is able to pen works of such quality and originality? This is an excellent read. The storytelling is gripping, the wordplay and constructions used conjur up images and provoke feelings on several levels. For those of us of a certain age, this book is at times gratifyingly embarrassing as it takes us back to those moments which, when recalled are ear-stingingly painful but at the time made so much sense.

Read this book. If you enjoyed "Perfume," you will probably enjoy this one too.

One of my favorite authors, Fry is wonderful! This book definitely lingered with me- made me rethink those thoughts on revenge and trust...

Hi, I read this book while I was in my sickbed and it really made me feel a lot better. The story was very gripping, but I got confused at the beginning about who the main character was, Ashley or Ned, until it became clear that it was Ned. I agree with the other reviewer Bettina that the book would make a great movie. I've read another Stephen Fry book, the Liar, and this was much better. I think the ending was a bit weak, which was something I noticed about the Liar too. Anyway, I would definitely recommend it!

The Stars' Tennis Balls is an amazing read. Ceaselessly entertaining, this somewhat twisted modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, as seen through the deliciously clever mind of Stephen Fry, is a delightful adventure. Filled with fresh views of many things in our world, great philosophy and wonderful characterizations, this book will not fail to please anyone who is looking for the perfect summer novel. Thank you so much Mr. Fry!