Do You like book Puckoon (1976)?
Umm. Well. It's well-known Spike Milligan had a depressive disorder, making it impossible for him to concentrate on one thing for a long time. Hence his role in the Goons and other digressional comedies. But random doesn't lend itself to novels. You can throw in Romans, Chinamen, IRA officers and the kitchen sink, but you still have to structure the thing.Puckoon is a dated book, probably quite sexist and racist to modern eyes, and the freewheeling absurdity simply doesn't shine on the page, though there are quotable lines a-go-go. Just no novel.
—MJ Nicholls
It's been quite some time since I lined up at the bookstore counter to meet Mr Milligan and have my copy of Puckoon signed. This book will forever hold a tender to my heart. It made me laugh out loud, miss my bus stop when travelling home and saw me buy copies for my friends. It took Milligan 2 years to write this, no doubt while he was in the thrrawl of th Q Series. As one of the greatest comedic talents of the last century it is clear that he had lots of fun writing this one down. He has written his bio, several revisions on the great classics and lots of children's stories and verse. The only serious work was a play "The Bedsitting Room". As this is his only true novel. Believe me it is hard to write funny and there are few examples (Lennie Lower is one).From the man who created a whole new measure of radio media this book deserves to be read.
—Genean
Almost got two stars thanks to the following, the best description of Belfast I've ever read. Almost but not quite. -- “Belfast is a big city. At one time it was quite small, even worse, there had been an occasion when there was no Belfast City at all. Thank heaven, those days are gone and there is now plentiful supply of Belfast. Ugly and grey it spreads out, drab, dull, lack-lustre streets, crammed with the same repetitive, faceless, uninspired, profit-taking, soul-breaking buildings. The only edifices worth seeing are those erected long before the coming of the local council and the builder. Beautiful buildings seemed to taunt them. ‘Pull them down!’ was the cry. ‘The Highway must go through.’ The world, beauty, tranquillity and fresh air were being sacrificed to a lump of compressed tin with a combustion engine. Stately trees were felled as a ‘Danger to lightening’, and when one questioned them the answer came from a faceless thing called ‘Spokesman said’. Here, safe in its bureaucratic cocoon, we had the new vandalism of authority, power without conscience or taste; as it was with Belfast so was it with other cities, for now and ever after it seemed.” --
—Garrett
