I don't get it. I mean, I think I have a pretty good sense of humour. I know time flies when you throw an alarm clock out of a window. I understand that firemen wear red suspenders to keep their trousers up. So, obviously, I know funny. I enjoy a good pie in the face as much as any unaffected bystander, and as for red-heads... well, we all know what people say about them. (They have red hair.)

So when I discovered that Eric Idle -- of Monty Python fame -- had written a novel, and a science fiction novel at that, I was pretty excited. I anticipated laughs aplenty, and I was all geared up for some serious chuckling. The book's tag line? "A post-modem novel." Oh, my sides!

And it just gets better from there.

We open with a diatribe from Professor William Reynolds, an academic discoursing on the evils of fame, and of the late twentieth century. He introduces us to Carlton, a robot built in the image of David Bowie, who wants to make like David Letterman. Carlton works for comedic duo Muscroft and Ashby, they who travel the star lanes of the future in search of gigs and girls, and the attendant wonders that come with. They treat Carlton as a mere appliance, but he is, it seems, so much more than that. He is a scholar, and an author, in search of the meaning, the formula, of comedy.

Take a moment to applaud the irony.

And the irony just keeps on a'comin' when it turns out that Muscroft and Ashby, the inspirations for this brilliant doctrinal thesis, are actually pretty sucky comedians. Their routines, as described by our omniscient narrator, are almost painful in their stupidity. I guess you just had to be there... in the author's mind... or something.

But, well, would you look at that? It looks like I have yet to even mention the girl. There is a girl, of course. You knew that, right? And she's the very best kind of girl... the victim/hussy type, who needs to be redeemed from her wicked ways by our intrepid hero and his weak and pathetic sexual banter. Before her redemption, however, she takes our heroes for a merry ride, eventually getting them blacklisted from all the comedy venues from here to Pluto. And, naturally, she ends up being involved in a huge great conspiracy to take over an entire world.

But I can't really give you too many particulars, because by the time that happened, I was too bored to care.

There was also this whole big thing about some self-absorbed diva, an odd-ball physical comedian with a penchant for the peculiar, and an underground military organisation -- plus some self-deprecatory mentions of a twentieth century comedic troupe who may have had some involvement with a dead parrot of some kind -- but, really, this is all irrelevant to this novel's theme. The main point of the book, it seems to me, was supposed to be that comedy is quantifiable, and that the formula by which a joke's effectiveness on the human psyche can be determined is by how funny Eric Idle thinks he is.

Wanker.

You know, it's sad when you read a book by a guy that you know can be incredibly amusing -- having seen The Life of Brian and The Holy Grail, and knowing all about the Spanish Inquisition (whom no one ever expects) and yet somehow, it turns out to be... not. Sure, I laughed occasionally, I smiled frequently, and I may even have caught myself enjoying the book. But, well... mainly....

I just didn't get it.

-- Rachel Hyland

The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel , published Pantheon Books, is currently available in hardcover.

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