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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The beginning of a long, delightfully nutty journey, 13 Dec 2002
Before there was Python, there were the Goons. And before the Goons, there was Spike Milligan. In the six-book series that begins with "Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall", Milligan charts his own odyssey through World War II. There's plenty of Milliganesque lunacy here, many many laughs, and not a little pathos, all told in an unabashedly sentimental and frequently endearingly naive tone. From the first page, where "a man named Chamberlain who did Prime Minister impressions got on the radio and said we were at war with Germany" to induction, training and eventual departure for North Africa, Milligan captures the essential unpreparedness and paradoxically indomitable spirit that infused the British war effort. The results are touched both by Milligan's own manic humor and the black depression that was its counterpart, and against which he struggled for much of his life. A warning- Milligan's prose is addictive. You will not be able to stop with "Hitler", but will be forced into the continuing story in "Rommel? Gunner Who?", "Monty: His Part in My Victory" and "Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall". It just gets more loony, but it's a must-read.
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44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, and yet so sad, 22 Feb 2003
I'm usually not one to read autobios, but since it is Spike Milligan I made the exception. It was funny, just as I expected it to be, but there were parts that were very moving and sad; as should be expected I suppose for a WWII novel. His accounts of the absurd are always dead on hilarious, and I found myself reading a passage over and over and just cracking up.
I knew that Spike suffered from depression, and I think in parts it was very apparent. The places that are especially poignant are when he relates a humorous tale, and then explain how he visited the place years later, and how the memories are too much for him to bear. In one particular paragraph he laments: "Oh, Yesterday, how you plague me!"
I love Spike Milligan and his comedy, and have read several run-of-the-mill internet bios on him but his own biography really brings him to life. A great read!
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34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Both poignant and funny, 7 Feb 2002
By A Customer
Anyone who has listened to the Goons will know that Spike is one of those rare people who has an innate knack for comic writing.`Adolf Hitler: My part in his downfall' is the first volume of Spike's war memoirs and I read this plus the second volume (Rommel? Gunner Who?) in a single sitting. In the first volume, Spike puts his own unique spin on his experiences in WW2 starting from training at Bexhill-on-Sea (and not a batter-pudding hurler in sight!) to his posting in North Africa and manages to be laugh-out-loud funny and genuinely sad at the same time. I don't normally go for `war stories' but this is a genuine telling-it-like-it-is tale modified by Milligan's unique genius. It's a good read in its own right, but any Goon fan will immediately notice the genesis of Goons-type humour in Spike's exchanges with his mate Harry Edgington (we dont' encounter the `other' Harry until the end of book two!) For best results, read in conjunction with `Rommel? ...' but don't do it in a public place - you'll probably laugh too much!
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