https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/john-cleese-of-monty-python-book-review/
A new book by Monty Python’s John Cleese revisits the wide variety of topics he delved into in the course of his two decades as a Cornell professor. Monty Python’s John Cleese, for many years a Cornell professor, weighs in brilliantly on a wide assortment of topics.
In 1986, John Cleese saw an ad in a Los Angeles magazine that claimed the following: “Buddhism gives you the competitive edge!” The oblivious machismo proved inspiring when he created the character of Otto, the dimwit thug in A Fish Called Wanda, whom Kevin Kline won an Academy Award for playing.
That ad captured Cleese’s attention because he has done a lot of thinking about religion and the sometimes curious gap between the lessons taught by religious leaders and the lessons learned by some followers. Cleese has done a lot of thinking about a lot of things, and he revisits his various fields of study with an engaging curiosity and able wit. Everything from the science of facial recognition to the art of screenwriting turns up in his slender but brilliant new book Professor at Large: The Cornell Years.
Cleese studied science when he entered the University of Cambridge, switched to law while he was there, graduated, did some other things, and in 1999 became a professor-at-large at Cornell University, where he lectured intermittently on a variety of subjects for nearly 20 years. The book collects transcripts of seven of those appearances, four of which are actually conversations between Cleese and someone else.