Stephen Fry

The Hippopotamus

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Now a major motion picture: A “deliciously wicked and amusing” tale of a cranky curmudgeon investigating strange goings-on at an English country house (The New York Times).
“I’ve suffered for my art, now it’s your turn.” So begins the story of Ted Wallace, unaffectionately known as the Hippopotamus. Failed poet, failed theater critic, failed father and husband, Ted is a shameless womanizer, drinks too much, and is at odds in his cranky but maddeningly logical way with most of modern life.
Fired from his job at the newspaper, Ted seeks a few months’ repose and free liquor at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend Michael Logan. This world of boozy dinners, hunting parties, and furtive liaisons has recently been turned on its head by miracles, healings, and phenomena beyond Ted’s comprehension. As the mysteries deepen, The Hippopotamus builds into a rollicking sendup of the classic British mystery that is “tremendously funny” (Christopher Buckley) and a “near-perfect book” (Entertainment Weekly).
The basis for the recent movie starring Roger Allam, Matthew Modine, and Fiona Shaw, “The Hippopotamus is animated by an antic sense of comedy and features a willfully feckless hero . . . Described in uproarious terms that suggest Wodehouse crossed with Waugh, Swafford emerges as a parody of every upper-class country house ever depicted in an English novel” (The New York Times).
This book is currently unavailable
337 printed pages
Original publication
2014
Publication year
2014
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  • Mahdi Shafeghatishared an impression6 years ago
    👍Worth reading

Quotes

  • Marina Kolesnikovahas quoted6 years ago
    There was a young girl from Costessey

    Whose pubes were curly and glostessey

    Her thighs and her arse

    Were smooth as mown grass

    And her cunt was dark, dank and mostessey.
  • Marina Kolesnikovahas quoted6 years ago
    Simon, for whom poetry is a closed book in a locked cupboard in a high attic in a lonely house in a remote hamlet in a distant land, kept saying to his friends, 'This is Uncle Ted.
  • Marina Kolesnikovahas quoted6 years ago
    Simon, for whom poetry is a closed book in a locked cupboard in a high attic in a lonely house in a remote hamlet in a distant land, kept saying to his friends, 'This is Uncle Ted. He's a famous poet. He

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