A Liar's Autobiography

Чепмен Грэм

One of the things that emerges from any history of Python- from, for instance, David Morgan’s Monty Python Speaks! Is how much of a slacker Chapman was in the Python group; how completely his writing relied upon Cleese’s more disciplined input, how late he was to every meeting, how lackadaisical was his approach to the practicalities of living. His autobiography is perfectly candid about the slapdash side of his personality, but it also manages to convey his energy, his capacity for kindness and the unique, mad slant of his particular genius. He relates the events of his life his ordinary childhood, his time as a medical student at Cambridge, his Python years, his drinking, his mountain-climbing— through the unique prism of his looniness. Some of this is lies («Thinking of muons and quarks I invented the ’gluon’ or at least sub-atomic particles of adhesiveness I term ’fettons’...»), most of it is painfully and precisely true.