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Halfway to Hollywood

Diaries, 1980–1988
by Michael Palin
Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries, 1980–1988. Thomas Dunne: St. Martin's. Mar. 2011. c.680p. illus. index. ISBN 9780312682026. $32.50. FILM
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In this second volume of diaries, actor and Monty Python alumnus Palin (Diaries, 1969–1979: The Python Years) continues the witty, highly observant, and piquant chronicle of his life. During this period, the Pythons gathered one final time to film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983), and Palin spent much of the rest of the 1980s writing screenplays and acting in such films as Brazil (1985) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988). Palin has a novelist's eye for character and detail, and his observations of the entertainment world, filmmaking, his family relationships, and such external details as politics, current events, travel, and the weather are written with style and a distinctly subtle wit that gives this rich volume the drive of an epistolary novel.
VERDICT These voluminous and copious diaries may be too detailed for a large general readership, but Monty Python and Palin fans will find them indispensable, and those with an especially Anglocentric taste in the arts and culture will be deeply rewarded.
Reviewed by Jim Collins, Morristown-Morris Twp. Lib., NJ , Feb 01, 2011
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