Monty Python: A Celebration

Rating:
Summary: Great Show, Disappointing Celebration
Review: "Monty Python: A Celebration" is a book covering the history of Monty Python, from their university days at Oxford and Cambridge, to the TV series, movies, live shows and the members' post-Python careers. Although it's definitely interesting for those who don't know the history of Python and it's members, (like me before I read this), this book is definitely not all it could have been.

There is a guide to the episodes, for instance, featuring summaries. Some episodes in the episode guide are summarized, while some are just listed without so much as a sentence. (Including the episode with my favourite sketch: Dejavu. I really would have liked to have known more about that.) Topping writes at the start of the book that there wasn't enough room to list all the sketches because of the price of printing. Sure, but what exactly is the point of releasing a spotty, incomplete episode guide? If there wasn't much room, why does every single scene of all the movies get a thorough summary?

It doesn't help that author Richard Topping tries to make some Python-esque jokes in his writing to pad the book out. (There's a whole section devoted to "scientists" comments on Eric Idle's Galaxy Song) They're the sort of jokes get in the way of the book, rather than make you laugh. If he got rid of this padding, (and made the font a little smaller) maybe he could have written more about the actual show! To top it all off the pictures scattered through the book are in washed out black and white, and not a single one of them of Terry Gilliams wonderful animations (which were such a big part of the feel of the show)

Still, the facts that do make it into the book are pretty interesting. I enjoyed reading about how the group got together, how they wrote their scripts, and about the ups and downs of the members lives (Graham Chapman in particular). I haven't read much Python nonfiction, mind you. These things are probably written about far better in some other Monty Python book. This does seem more like a cash-in than a genuine attempt at being a Python reference guide.

I found my copy in a discount bookstore, discounted because it was a little battered and the dust jacket was missing. I probably wouldn't have bought it for full price. It's all too brief and a rather pointless release, really. You'd be better off buying some Monty Python DVDs and watching the actual show.

Rating:
Summary: SIMPLY SCRUMMY!!!
Review: By far the VERY best book not to come out yet about Monty Python this year!! The wife and I both look forward to it not coming out any sooner,at all. In the best tradition of other books not yet released about Monty Python.... this is surely one of them!

Rating:
Summary: Simply Scrummy?
Review: Don't be fooled by "Simply Scrummy" a couple of reviews down. I'll bet it's the author plugging the book. Instead, listen to everything the review directly above "scrummy" has to say, and then I won't have to say it myself.

Rating:
Summary: No good reason for this book to exist
Review: It's hard to accept the credibility of a book that's full of either typos or outright errors. Halfway-knowledgable Python fans will spot these immediately: erstwhile Goodie Graeme Garden is repeatedly referred to as Graeme "Gardner", Neil Innes is both a member of the Bonzo Dog Band and the "Bongo" Dog Band, Terry Gilliam's opening sequence in "The Meaning of Life" is referred to as both "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" (its actual title) and "The Crimson Pearl Assurance," and the lyrics to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" are misquoted... those are the ones _I_ found. The only place this book fills is for Python completists who might want its handful of possibly unique photos. Python fans, either oldtimers or newbies, are advised to stay away from this patent 30th anniversary cash-in project which, stripped of the author's subjective re-hashings of the TV programs and movies, leaves very little that is new or inspired. Instead, pick up a copy of the new and stratospherically superior "Python Speaks" (read the real stories from the Pythons and their associates themselves), and find copies of George Perry's "Life of Python" (even if it is a few years old), both volumes of "All The Words", and perhaps supplement with Robert Hewison's "Monty Python : The Case Against," all cornerstones of a worthy Python history library.