Day By Day

Michael Palin has just published his diaries from the years 1969 to 1979. Being a fan of all things Python, I'll probably pick it up. Steve Almond, reviewing it in the LA Times, has a problem, however.

"Diaries" slogs. This book should have been a brisk 300-page memoir -- and it could have been, too, had the author been willing to do the sort of editing and rewriting he and his mates routinely forced themselves to endure on behalf of their comedy.

There's nothing wrong with memoirs--I'd be glad to read one if Palin wrote it--but I don't agree with Almond. There's something irreplaceable about contemporaneous accounts. It's too easy for facts to get embellished, or forgotten, and replaced with received wisdom. It's fascinating to read what people were thinking right as something was happening.