Diaries, 1969-1979: The Python Years (Hardcover)

by Michael Palin (Author)
Key Phrases: python meeting, python series, cold opening, New York, Monty Python, Terry Gilliam (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
As one of the six Pythons to have assembled back in the late 1960s, Palin provides insights into the group's dynamics during the decade that brought the Monty Python troupe to international acclaim. This abridgment can be satiating and frustrating, often simultaneously. At face value, it provides many behind-the-scenes moments and explores how and why the comedy troupe went about its business. Yet the mere knowledge that it's an abridgment will have listeners yearning to hear more—especially Python-quoting fans. The short, occasionally abrupt entries feel authentic, as journal entries can often be a mere few sentences. But listeners may constantly question how much has been trimmed. Occasionally, the journal entries read as a mere chronological list of events. As narrator, Palin proves adept at adding life and emotion in his mild-mannered voice to the more pedantic lulls in the audiobook. But given the audiobook's shortcomings, a bonus interview or some other material might have improved the overall enjoyment for listeners.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Jonathan Yardley

In April 1975, at the London opening of the film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," an acquaintance approached Michael Palin and told him, "You were great." Palin was delighted: "I'm so used to being anonymous in Python that it's nice to know someone noticed." That's Palin, all right: the Python cast member whom almost nobody noticed, at least during the 1970s when Python was still new and finding its audience. Even now, at the height of an enormously successful career as actor, and star of travel documentaries, Palin remains in the shadow of John Cleese, Eric Idle and the late Graham Chapman.

This doubtless will seem a pity to those who believe that the proper reward of success is celebrity, but it has permitted Palin to lead what is, considering his circumstances, a remarkably normal life. He is busy all the time and away from home more frequently than he would like, but he has been married to the same woman for more than four decades, is a devoted father to his three children, and in his corner of London is just one of the neighbors, indeed is an active member of the Oak Village Residents' Association -- or at least he was in the last year of this exceeding long yet (to my taste) not long enough 10-year diary.

Palin tells us up front that "I have kept a diary, more or less continuously, since April 1969," when he was 25 years old, married with a six-month-old son, and "had been writing comedy with Terry Jones since leaving university in 1965." He has continued the diary for "nothing more complicated" than "to keep a record of how I fill the days." A diary, he says, "is an antidote to hindsight," and continues:

"It seals the present moment and preserves it from the tidying process of context, perspective, analysis and balance. It becomes history, but quite unselfconsciously. What proves to be important over a long period is not always what a diarist will identify at the time. For the historians' sake I should probably have noted every detail of the birth of Monty Python, but it seemed far more important to me to record the emergence of my new family than the faltering steps of a comedy series that would probably last no more than two years. And that, I feel, is as it should be. Legends are not created by diaries, though they can be destroyed by them."

This is slightly misleading. Though the emergence of the Python show and the subsequent phenomenon is traced here in fits and starts, there is more than enough in these 600-plus pages about the show, its cast members, its ups and downs to satisfy all but the most ravenous Python addicts. Not merely is there a lot of Python, there is a lot of show-business maneuvering, infighting and gossip, much of it immensely entertaining. We have no way of knowing what was cut from Palin's 38 notebooks -- "five times the amount of material reproduced here" -- but presumably cuts were made out of discretion as well as for length, and perhaps some tart nuggets about people who crossed Palin's path were left on the cutting-room floor. Still, readers who enjoy the higher gossip -- mea culpa -- will find much here to amuse them, and readers interested in the inner workings of a highly successful troupe of actors, writers and eccentrics will also find much to their satisfaction.

Python began inauspiciously, early in 1969, when Cheese phoned his old friend Palin and suggested it was time to "think of something new." The BBC took on the new show and apparently was unenthusiastic about it at first, programming it late at night and giving it little support, but gradually it caught on. The original cast -- Cleese, Palin, Chapman, Idle, Jones and Terry Gilliam -- got swept up in it almost immediately. The first filming was in July 1969, and by the following February Palin told his diary: "Somehow, since Monty Python, it has become difficult to write material for more conventional shows. Monty Python spoilt us in so far as mad flights of fancy, ludicrous changes of direction, absurd premises and the complete illogicality of writing were the rule rather than the exception. Now we jealously guard this freedom, and writing for anyone else becomes quite oppressive."

Though there were, inevitably, moments of tension and disagreement within the cast and crew, Python seems to have been a genuine collaboration from the beginning and to have remained one even as its members drifted their separate ways, reuniting ever less frequently for shows, movies, tours and other events. It's difficult to imagine Python in the beginning absent any one of the original six, yet it can't be said that a single person was absolutely essential to its success. The closest to that was the immortal Cleese, but Python rolled on without him as his movie career began to take off, though it is my considered opinion that no one on earth is as capable of a silly walk as he is.

To be sure, my enthusiasm for Cleese is not solely aesthetic. It happens that he and I were born on exactly the same day in the autumn of 1939, and thus I feel entitled to a measure of reflected hilarity. He casts beams in other directions as well: "John is a good traveling companion in so far as he is nearly always recognized by stewards and stewardesses who pamper him blatantly; and Eric and I were able to catch a little of this reflected blandishment." Like many exceedingly funny people he can be difficult -- "he can be incredibly self-centered, and, if he wasn't so charming with it, I would have told him so" -- and insecure: "John is still tense and unrelaxed with people, which compounds his problems. He has more defenses than Fort Knox." But Palin's affection and admiration for him are self-evident: Once a Python always a Python.

Other members of the troupe are given similarly candid but affectionate portraits. The most troubled, and in some ways the most interesting, was Graham Chapman, "the high priest of hedonism," who reluctantly acknowledged his homosexuality and "seems to feel that having stated his position he now deserves the good life." When he "is faced with the extraordinary complexity of his private life it seems to sap his energies totally," a problem for the rest of the cast when Python went on tour. Yet he rather heroically stopped drinking, and by the late 1970s "he's now become a model of co-operation and efficiency, and his avuncular presence is calm and reassuring. In fact John today suggested that Graham was reminding him more and more of a vicar."

Python quickly became a mainstay of the BBC -- the bureaucracy of which is well roasted here by Palin -- but it wasn't until the show caught on in the States that its immense success was assured. Being a Python devotee but scarcely a certifiable lunatic, I had not known that it was first discovered by a public-television executive in Dallas, and only after it found an enthusiastic following there did PBS take it on, making it available to "far away places with strange-sounding names -- to Pensacola, Florida, to Utica, Illinois, Syracuse, NY, Athens, Georgia and so on. It sounds as though there's been a mistake and we've sold it to Greece." Soon "the news from America daily lends an extra air of unreality to the situation for, by all accounts, Python is catching on in the States as the prestige programme to watch."

For Palin it has been one hell of a ride, but he seems to have maintained his equilibrium all along the way. "My life is here in London, with my family," he writes in 1977. "I love travel, but I love them more." That may be a slight oversimplification, as these pages show business in various aspects taking Palin away from his wife and their kids frequently, occasionally for long stretches, but his heart always has been at home. It also is worth noting, and not merely in passing, that he is a constant and ardent reader. He loves the work of Vladimir Nabokov, "one of my literary heroes," and Charles Mingus's autobiography, Beneath the Underdog. He wants to "read more German novels -- for here if anywhere is a chance to try and prove Solzhenitsyn's point that art and literature are the only spiritual ambassadors between countries." He's "acquiring an enormous taste" for authors he found "heavy, worthy and boring" when he was younger -- Dickens, Austen, Eliot -- and he gets "vivid impressions of South East Asia in Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar."

In sum, it's tempting to call him a Renaissance Man. But that, as any Pythonite would be quick to tell you, would be silly.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (September 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312369352
• ISBN-13: 978-0312369354
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #284,000 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Palin: The Nice Python , February 4, 2008

By	S. M Marson (Lumberton, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have vivid memories of watching MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS every Saturday evening with group of fellow college students. We packed into the Grand Wazoo's apartment to watch the program on PBS followed by SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. What a hoot!

I was delighted when I opened MICHAEL PALIN DIARIES as a Christmas present. I read it while receiving therapy for my back. The book was a fantastic diversion. As for me, I looked forward to reading Palin's description of the clerical attacks on THE LIFE OF BRIAN.* Well, that part was at the end. Nevertheless, the entire diary was a pleasure and captured my interest.

One unexpected dimension of Palin's life that captured my attention was the unfolding relationship he had with his family including his parents, wife and children. In particular, the progressive decline and death of his father produced a profound portrait of Palin. It was touching. Less touching but still an attention grabber was Palin's portrait of the other Pythons. The personality of each Python was a candid and multidimensional. However, I wasn't surprised by these descriptions and reaffirmed Palin's reputation as being "the nice one."

As for THE LIFE OF BRIAN, my primary interest in reading this diary, the description of the evolution of the leper and crucifixion scenes was a real hoot. The evolution of the leper scene was more complex than imaginable.

* An Episcopalian Bishop asked a close friend (a priest) to discourage his flock to not view THE LIFE OF BRIAN. He and his Bishop never saw the film, but after I explained the storyline, my friend became less concerned. The protest of the film could have easily been included in the film itself. If the Python boys realized a protest would ensue, I am sure they would have done so.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Seventies according to Palin, September 27, 2007

By	Robin Cramp (Melbourne, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What a nice man! Michael Palin's diary of Seventies Britain Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Yearsshows that you don't have to be weird or "out there" or even arrogant to create the kind of ground-breaking humor that was Monty Python's Flying Circus. They certainly needed the comic genius of John Cleese to make it come to life, but it is clear that Michael Palin and Terry Jones did much of the writing and then the general tidying up afterwards that made Python at once gloriously offensive and yet globally marketable.

Palin's honest yet self-effacing notes on his life during the 1970's include lots of interesting out-takes on Python writing and performance for Python aficionados, but his attendance to his aging parents and his thoughtful asides on a critical decade in British politics show an Everyman that contrasts wildly with the lunacy of Python. Maybe that's why Python became a global experience - because it connected us to that silly streak we all have inside but seldom allow to show, in a decade when so many accepted social mores were being overturned.

For those of us that lived through that decade (I am English and two months younger than Palin) this is an entertaining and absorbing social history which will make you think "maybe if I had just had the right friends?".

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Engaging Record of Painstaking Hilarity, October 11, 2007

By	Thomas Brett (Philadelphia , PA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Michael Palin is a very nice man. This may seem a simple, even banal conclusion, but it sums up this reader's overall reaction upon completing this charming, revelatory (at least so far as the Pythons are concerned), and oftentimes poignant diary of the heyday of Monty Python. This book begins in 1969, when the Pythons first came together to create their groundbreaking show, and continues until 1979, when 'The Life of Brian' has been released amidst acclaim and controversy. Along the way the Python fan will be fascinated to explore the stressful, even tortured, relationships between the principals themselves, as well as the industry professionals and artistic colleagues they come in contact with. The Pythons, like any small, select society had their differences (often major)and cliques (never truly sinking to the level of petty), and it is primarily this reason that no one among the group could have captured as successfully the viscitudes of this prolific period as well as Palin. In the group dynamic, Palin functioned as both a conscience and a moral compass; whatever difficulties were taking place between the members, it was always him that everyone else was ringing up. Never captivated by the trappings of success and wealth himself, it is highly amusing to read his gentle, never mean-spirited musings upon such subjects as John Cleese's Rolls Royce or Eric Idle's almost obsessive drive to make more and more money. Because Palin has such a sincere liking for all of his colleagues, whatever their personal failings, his diary never comes close the sort of viscious, dishy, dirty-laundry airing we have come to expect in show business memoirs. And though the most fascinating parts of the book for most readers will undoubtedly be the workman-like descriptions of the writing and filming processes that produced some of the twentieth century's most memorable comedy, the personal side of Palin's diary manages somehow to be utterly ordinary and yet completely moving. Children grow up, parents fall ill and slowly deteriorate, old friends pass on, and through all the cheerful, life-affirming force of Palin's gentle personality guides the reader along like a friendly, somewhat protective curator. What a blessing for us that this engaging man had the energy to write it all down at the end of the day!