The Gospel According To Monty Python

This book was funny and entertaining! I thoroughly enjoyed it and so did my husband. I highly recommend it!

I know that you know that I’m not braving the crowds…I’ve spent the day walking, reading, playing games, still trying to get over last night’s Doctor Who Inception/Alien/Santa episode, eating leftovers, watching Psych with my son…and avoiding the chocolates calling my name from the pantry.

I adore Monty Python, like, forever (even got a Ministry of Silly Walks watch for Christmas, awesomeness), so I borrowed a digital copy of The Gospel According to Monty Python (First Edition Design Publishing) on Netgalley.com for the price of an honest review, for which they might be sorry. The author, Julian Doyle, best known for directing Kate Bush’s epic, Cloudbusting video (with the amazing Donald Sutherland) and Iron Maiden’s Can I Play with Madness? video (Graham Chapman in one of his last appearances before his 1989 death); also worked in various parts of filmmaking, editing, special effects, etc., even the policeman who puts his hand over the lens at the end of Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

Fans know Python not only pushes the envelope, but licks it shut, stamps it, mails it off knowing it’s going around the world to cause havoc and laughter, then waits for it to return, runs the envelope over with a steamroller before opening it and realizing it’s not their mail. I expected great things from this book, it’s there, but much is incoherent. Bits and bobs are fascinating and funny, others incomprehensible in the garbly gobbly gook. I’m sure with government funding this post could have been a lot sillier, ok, I’ve regressed to Ministry of Silly Walks again.

As for Psych, still one of the best gifts of laughter for any time of year, I needed at least 2 more seasons…and a movie. Please?

Playing board games, always fun, but playing video games, for me, like taking a banana to a gun fight, my only hope is someone will slip on the banana peel so I can run.

Sadly, the chocolates calling my name have gotten louder as I type this, drowning out any rational arguments as to why they should not be devoured.

Mmmm, maybe some chocolate-covered pineapple…Psych fans will understand.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I first saw this book on Netgalley, I supposed it would be about Life of Brian (amazing film). It was not completely what I expected. For the biggest part, it was not at all what I had expected...

For someone who edits movies, I was a bit surprised to find so little structure in the book. True, it kind of follows the storyline of the movie, but it switches a lot between different theories in explaining why Life of Brian is the most accurate biblical movie made. Mixed in between the theories is also some explaining on making films and deleted scenes from the movie.

The parts about the film where by far the most interesting parts. I found the theories, which also involved the - how could there be a conspiracy without their involvement - Knight Templars and Freemasons. It even references Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. All in all, some parts were funny or absurd, others were just less interesting. I'm not sure what the ultimate goal of this book was nor what I think of it...

I really enjoyed the theories and contrarian opinions. The format of this galley for the Kindle was quite garbled, so it made reading difficult at times. I will just have to buy the final version!

Very entertaining and interesting. Monty Python poked fun at anything; God, religion, dead parrots, the Spanish Inquisition, etc. Although it was never meant to be taken for face value, their jokes occasionally highlight absurdities and sometimes holes in the things we take for granted.

I will say this book was not what I expected it to be. While it did give me some great insight into where Monty Python got their ideas, I will say parts were edging a bit too close to blasphemy for my taste and that of my readers.

Anything involving Monty Python is a 5 star in my book. Fantastic read!

Interesting read

In 1984 I dared to play the soundtrack to Life of Brian on my overnight comedy show (called Pullet Surprise) and was fired. I was unable to find work in radio ever again. My friends and I watched the series in its first run in 1969. After the first show we all had to agree not to laugh during the show, because 1) we’d miss a throwaway line, and 2) we were memorizing as we watched. There were no vcrs, dvrs, books or soundtracks, and no guarantee we’d ever be able to see these episodes again. And the CBC lived down to our expectations, cancelling season two, causing us to picket their offices in subzero weather. So I have a proven passion for things Python.

Bizarrely, this book is not by or about Monty Python. It is a polemic by their film editor, whose clear and profoundly deep passion is debunking Religion, and particularly the various incarnations of the Christian bible. Doyle has assembled endless contradictions, variations and errors to make the single point: how can anyone charge you with blasphemy when there is no possible agreement on the truth? There are endless pages of coincidences, fun with numbers and interpretations of artworks from the middle ages. Some chapters remind me of Kennedy-Lincoln coincidences, like JFK was shot in a Ford Lincoln, and Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theatre, and both men’s assassins have 15 letters in their names, and their secretaries each had…..

Each chapter has at least some connection to Life of Brian, usually right off the top to let you think there is some comedy potential in the book. A snippet of clever dialogue from the film, a reminiscence about an event in the making of the film, or about film editing’s usefulness. Then it’s right back into historical controversy. Doyle says he knows he presents his hypotheses in the most controversial and alarming way. Doesn’t help.

I have read similar historic criticisms elsewhere, but not so many and not all collected in one book. This is largely because I am not interested in debunking the bible. Nor, I suspect, is the typical Monty Python fan. This is the least Monty Python of any MPFC product I have ever seen. It is an abuse of the brand. A perfectly good polemic on religion, but not for the Python collection.

David Wineberg

I love ‘Life of Brian’, it makes me giggle uncontrollably, so the chance to read about the process of filming it was not one to miss. Julian Doyle weaves technical information in to his personal exploration of the Bible. I found the book fascinating, if somewhat speculative.The writing style is very informal, and conversational. The use of film still and other images is useful in illustrating Julian Doyle’s points; I think a few more might have been beneficial. Citation and the bibliography is poor though; I found that disappointing considering the nature of his comments.

This is a weird book. In between genuinely interesting moments of memoir about the writing and filming of "The Life of Brian" and other Python projects (including the movie's last minute save from George Harrison), there are interesting discussions of how they genuinely wrote Biblical and historical details into the script (which so many smart movie reviewing students have discovered over the years), but it also veers off into batshit crazy rather than smartass personal theories of Mary Magdalene in southern France, ancient astronomy and religious speculation.

celebrity attacks on christianity have become tiresome and lack originality. A disappointing read.