Stephen Fry

And there are parts that you could read as recrimination and even bitterness.

And there are other parts you can read as great forgiveness.

But I think what makes it cohere is that his vision in the second half of Christ artist is part of his lifelong search for an understanding of the creative act and of art.

And he ends up, and this is a word we were using earlier when talking about him, sympathy.

He understands that the fact that he's the one who has suffered, he's the one whose name is forever mired and as far as he knows will never ever rise again.

that his reputation has been trashed, that his future life will be one of exile and disgrace.

But he has won because he's found in that suffering something profoundly important.

Whereas Bosie, he suspects as he writes the letter, and of course it turns out to be true, although he is free as air, is the one who is really suffering.

And that is what he understands the Christ to be about.

that the Christ tells people to give up money and follow him, not because the poor need to be given the money and you'll give it away, but because the money is ruining your soul and is bad for you and you will be free if you give it away.

You will be free if you do things that are often painful and you humiliate yourself.

And Wilde is in that position because he's come to the depths.

From the depths he writes.

I cry out from the depths.

And it is, you know, it's something we know in a more finished kind of psychological closed world of things like addiction or whatever, that you have to get to the depths before you can...

purify yourself and arise again and be cleaned of your addiction, whatever it might be.

It could be gambling.

It doesn't have to be a substance.

It can be a behavior.

And in that wider sense, Wilde was an addict, and he writes about it very honestly.