Moab Is My Washpot is Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry

Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...

’s autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

, covering the first 20 years of his life. Reviewers described it as both humorous and painfully candid.

In the book, Fry is candid about his many weaknesses, including stealing, cheating and lying. The book covers some of the same ground as in Fry’s first novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

, The Liar, published in 1991. In that work, public schoolboy Adrian Healey falls in love with a boy called Hugo Cartwright; in the autobiography, 14-year-old Fry becomes besotted with 13-year-old "Matthew Osborne".

Fry also writes about his older brother Roger, Bunce (the new boy at his prep school

Preparatory school (UK)

In English language usage in the former British Empire, the present-day Commonwealth, a preparatory school is an independent school preparing children up to the age of eleven or thirteen for entry into fee-paying, secondary independent schools, some of which are known as public schools...

, Stouts Hill

Stouts Hill

Stouts Hill is an 18th-Century Gothic revival country house situated in the Cotswolds, just outside the village of Uley. The house is currently a timeshare property....

), Jo Wood (his best friend at Uppingham

Uppingham School

Uppingham School is a co-educational independent school of the English public school tradition, situated in the small town of Uppingham in Rutland, England...

), and Oliver Derwent (a prefect who "seduces" Fry).

Title

The title, never explained in the text of the book, is a verse found in Psalm 60 and Psalm 108 (the latter being mainly a compilation of material from Psalms 57 and 60 but with a much more optimistic tone than either of those two). Jews in ancient times were extremely concerned with cleanliness. While wearing sandals in the dusty desert environment, their feet would become filthy, and upon entering a home they would be washed with water. They would not put their feet into the bowl, but instead hold their feet over the bowl and pour clean water over them, and the bowl would be used to catch the water.

Moab

Moab

Moab is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over...

, which had threatened Israel, was to be so completely subdued, and so became likened to a wash pot or basin.

Matthew Osborne

In an interview with the Evening Standard

Evening Standard

The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

, Fry relates that he was reunited with "Osborne" after the publication of the book:

I ask if the pseudonymous Matthew, with whom he eventually achieved some form of splendour in the long grass, had been in touch since the book came out in 1997. He had. How did he take it? 'Very well. He is very happily married with children. A wonderful chap and hugely successful as it happens,' Fry chuckles, incredulous. 'I think his wife knows because she is extremely friendly to me in a way that suggests to me she knows all about it and is very happy with it. I see him a couple of times a year, I suppose.'