A Post-Modem Novel
by Eric Idle
Pantheon, 384 pp., $24
British comedy is distinctly different from its American cousin. The Road to Mars is decidedly British; Idle uses the conventions of science fiction as bit players to carry along his acerbic attacks on show business, and the result is more sputtering farce than speculative fiction. Scattered with notes about comedy by the ostensible narrator, replete with references to the comedians of the late 20th century (including a certain well-known British troupe of cross-dressing parrot-wavers), Idle delivers all of the quick, uproariously funny tidbits that one would expect of a master practitioner of sketch comedy, but the novel’s continuity occasionally suffers from the innate choppiness of that style. Nothing is sacred here; from British culture to cruise ships to Idle himself, everyone and everything is a potential target, and it’s truly a blast to watch Idle fire at them.
This article appears in November 26 • 1999.