Gridlock

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.

Very well written, much like some of the old audio / stand up, Ben is cutting, sharp, emotive, and provocative. The plot is probably a bit too close to the truth for the oil barons of this world, and the political aspect may well be the same. At times i was laughing out loud, at others i sat and thought ponderously, a good mix from any book. Read and enjoy.

This book looks at serious matters regarding the car industry and it's greed. It shows how the car industry puts profits before costomers but with a humour behind it all. This book about a interlectual disabled man running from the big bosses of the car industy is a big winner.

With its sensitive handling of its two central characters (one a c.p. sufferer, the other a cripple), this book is a masterpiece. Very readable, packed with humour and yet still managing to deal with serious issues and make its main characters come across as genuine, sympathetic people.

This book is a true gem. Ben Elton can make me laugh. This book is exciting and enlightening, it gave me a whole new perspective on cars.