Malquiviades's Reviews > Making History

This is my first approach to Fry's books.

It is an entertaining read. He is a talented and cultured man and that it is what you see while reading.

A book is always embedded with the author's feelings likes and dislikes and opinions about anything. It is his "creature" after all. No surprises there. However, it may seem here that the story is just a necessary background against which Fry's impress many of its thoughts (academia's live and fauna, “Scientific” vs. “Humanist” views, English vs. American, social and cultural criticism...) All of them spiced by many comments showing the broad culture of the author; a thing that, so plainly shown, I dislike very much in a book; the research, knowledge and culture should be there, but more slightly woven into the whole story. It is not bad, but I regret that the interesting story is just put aside. What it is left is just an entertaining reading of Fry's humoristic view on the world. Curiously enough, the research on Hitler's first days is thorough and compelling. I liked it much more those parts than the rest.

The implications on changing the past have been visited many a time before, with better end worse results. However... I do prefer "Back to the Future" in this sense. Admittedly, not the same thing, but far more amusing.