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I have only a few books that I will make my children read (when they come of age)....this is one of them.
Balance, honesty and contextual historicism are characteristic of Perry's work.
Most reading it will concur with this reviewer that Perry has found a niche in reminding us of those persons of sacrifice who are such a rare type of leader in this 21st century.
Take time to read this book and discover Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver whose lives transcended racial prejudice, reviling, misunderstanding and jealousy.
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This book has the history of the Paris Opera, then it goes on to tell how Gaston Leroux came up with Phantom, then the film versions of Phantom, then, of course, the Lloyd Webber version.
This book is perfect for the true Phantom Phan!
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Interestingly, the book has a number of not so subtle parallels to a certain Steinbeck novel of the same period.
Highly recommended.
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I found this book very interesting. I liked how Perry wrote an introduction of British Comedy leading up to Python. This gives you an idea of what the Pythons were up against.
I also thought it was nice to split up the book into the mini biographies of each Python and then to go into the Python years as a whole. I especially enjoyed the sections on John Cleese and Michael Palin. Perry has a way of picking out the more interesting details. He does a good job of outlining the Pythons early careers in television and comedy.
This is a great book, although there are better in-depth ones. I would reccomend this book for those who are unfamiliar with Monty Python and who want to learn more. For more lengthy and minute details on the Python People and the Python sketches, something like The First 280 Years of Monty Python might be better.
Mostly, though, it's a history of Python, from what led into it both on television and at Oxford and (particularly) Cambridge, how it came about, and what happened afterwards. It discusses who worked with whom throughout (including on the show, which is significant: Graham Chapman and John Cleese were one pairing, Terry Jones and Michael Palin were another, while Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam tended to work alone).
It's copiously illustrated, including a demonstration of silly walks in the upper-right-hand corner that one can experience in motion by flipping the pages rapidly. My only quibble is that there seems to be an inordinate fondness for photographs from lesser-known efforts like Erik the Viking and The Missionaries.
The text is good overall, though it could be better organized. Early chapters cover the careers of each of the Pythons individually, then return to their history as a group. Since many of the Pythons worked together after the program went off, there's a significant amount of repetition as a result.
Overall, though, this is an excellent overview and appreciation of the Pythons and their remarkable accomplishments in bringing us a new brand of comedy.
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The basic material of the book is to try to track each member of the group from their comedic beginnings to the formation of the troupe and then to the work following the cancellation of the TV series, all interwoven by time. Sounds like a mess, but it works. Perry interviewed all the members, sometimes more than once, and the book is liberally sprinkled with quotes. This new version has color photos as well as black and white, which fills the book (every page has a picture on it). This is probably the definitive biography of the group, although Kim "Howard" Johnson's The First 20X Years of Monty Python is a close second.
The book attempts to provide physiological reasons for aetheticism. The alchemical process is described as a purely physical process that creates the "God-Man," the "next step in human evolution." It links together many facets of esotericism and occultism from kundalini to cell salts, using a symbolic reading of the New Testament.
Read it along with "The Secret of the Golden Flower," a classic of Taoist internal alchemy while keeping in mind Luke 8:11 - "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God."