Gridlock

Having re-read Gridlock for the fifth time since buying the book when it first came out, I would recommend it to anyone new to Ben Elton. This book offers the originality that is sometimes lacking with his later books, but still tackles the subject of pollution and cars with lots of humour. This book has ensured I have read all of Ben's books. It's just a pity he set such a high standard!

Yawn! (0/0 people found this helpful)

I expected much more from Ben Elton than this. I couldn't even get past the first few pages. Actually, after Gridlock it all went down hill and I have read most of his books. His previous books like Stark was hysterical, Eden was amusing, Gridlock..zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Enjoyable if not entirely memorable. (0/0 people found this helpful)

I actually retrieved this book from my bookshelf thinking that it was one of those many books I have purchased over the years but never had time to read. Rather ironically, considering the subject matter of the book, I now find myself commuting to work by train, and have time to catch up on my reading. It was not until about a dozen or so pages into it that I found myself thinking that there something was familiar, and realized that I had read the book before but could not really remember much about it. Not a good start I thought to myself - must be a great read if I cant remember it! But I needn't have worried, Ben Elton is at his witty best with this book.

First let me say, I am an Ben Elton fan. I absolutely love Elton's obtuse and over the top descriptions. To my mind they are some of the funniest aspects of his writing, and this book abounds in them. Along with witty one liners and some very descriptive physical humour for good measure, this book excels. I actually found myself apologising to people for laughing out loud on the train or in the lunch room at work. Fortunately, I was reading at home at one point in the book which caught me so violently by surprise that I actually swore out loud too.

The hero's of the story are fleshed out enough that you feel an empathy toward them, especially when you realise that they were not what you expected, with their differences introduced almost as an aside, which makes them all the more attention grabbing.

My only criticism, and it is a very personal one, is that I was reading this book as someone who moved from Suffolk to the Australian "bush", and grew up with the nearest town of any size being almost 200km away, with non existant public transport. I have always seen the car as the very symbol of freedom that Elton was trying to dissuade us from. I couldn't help thinking that some of the critisism was unfounded, or at least quite subjective.

All in all though, I loved reading this book (again), and would happily recommend it.

JAMS BOND (8/37 people found this helpful)

This novel is art imitating life to about the extent that a James Bond film does that. It's for Ben Elton's fans, of whom I happen to be one. It picks up the theme of degradation of our environment that he had attacked wholesale in his previous novel Stark, focuses this time on the specific threats from motor transport, and features once again heroic misfits battling with cartoon ogres and monsters in the shape of tycoons of the auto and oil industries. The style uses comic hyperbole in aid of a serious message, but not much of the book is actually about the ostensible theme, namely gridlock. Apart from the `off-planet introduction' there is nothing more about gridlock until right at the end. The rest is all about pollution from auto exhausts, and indeed if the ecologically-positive hydrogen engine in the story had actually gone into production its popularity, far from helping with traffic congestion and encouraging a switch to public transport, might have had exactly the opposite effect so far as I can see.

Ben Elton is nothing if not inventive, and some of the more ingenious contraptions we find here would have been worthy of Ian Fleming's Q. This is one of his earlier efforts, before he slowed down a little in later novels. He is still taking pops at every incidental target he can think of, still chasing every hare he starts, but never losing his main thread even when he is throwing out more ideas per square minute (as he used to do in his standup comedy routine) than practically any other novelist I can think of. There are various subsidiary themes and sub-plots, but of course this is a novel with a message if ever there was one, clever certainly but roughly as subtle as an Abrams tank in the way the message is put across. Insofar as the theme really is gridlock, Ben Elton used an analogy in one of his comedy acts that has stuck with me since I heard it. To try to cope with gridlock on the roads by building more and more roads, said he, is like solving the problem of an overflowing kitchen bin by buying a second bin. What does this `solution' leave us with? You got it in one - TWO overflowing kitchen bins. He must surely have been relieved, as we all were, when a pleasant young presenter of a TV programme dedicated to cars recently had a miraculous escape from a crash when testing some strange vehicle at something like 250 mph. The whole project involved design ingenuity, great expense and of course an enormous output of pollutant gases. If the fortunate young man had the opportunity in hospital to do some reading and to reflect on what possible purpose his deathmobile can conceivably have been intended for I hope some wellwisher brought him a copy of Gridlock.

Seriously disappointing (15/16 people found this helpful)

This offering was substandard to say the least. First of all Elton's attempt at preaching to his reader is artless and unsubtle. Entire paragraphs are dedicated to pointing out the abuses of the automotive industry, or how bad cars are for the environment, without any attempt to be witty or relevant to the plot. The book therefore amounts to mediocre humour interspersed with letters to the editor. Secondly, there are several Americans in the book who sound extremely British and use expressions and terms no American would ever use. Instead Elton relies on crude characterisations of American oil-company baddies with British vocab. Lastly (and I do acknowledge my own pedantry here) the book was FULL of mistakes, particularly punctuation but also grammatical. I found this extremely irritating and distracting. I wanted to take out a red pen, correct the mistakes, and send it back to the publisher with a note suggesting their editors actually make themselves useful. I am so glad this book was lent to me and that I didn't spend any money on it.

Ben Elton

Reader Reviews:

The best Ben Elton book by far (0/0 people found this helpful)

Yawn! (0/0 people found this helpful)

Enjoyable if not entirely memorable. (0/0 people found this helpful)

JAMS BOND (8/37 people found this helpful)

Seriously disappointing (15/16 people found this helpful)

Similar Products

Categories