SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Imagine you're on a hunt for real estate, find a place in a great location, if a bit out of the way.
ERIC IDLE: Inside we found a couple of dusty old rooms with no floorboards, just bare earth. It had no bedroom, no kitchen, no bathroom, no drains, no toilet, no plumbing, no floors, no windows, no fireplace, no chimney, no ceilings, no heating, no road, no electricity, no gas and - ah, yes - no water. It pretty much lacked everything. It wasn't so much a fixer-upper as a run away and avoider.
SIMON: And, of course, Eric Idle bought it immediately. That stone shack...
IDLE: (Laughter).
SIMON: ...In southern France was his dream wreck in the middle of nowhere. And he has a new book that is, all at once, a memoir, travel book and a meditation on life with those you love, mostly set in a town at a house in Provence that came into his life 55 years ago. His new book is "Idle in Provence: A Brief History Of Thyme" as in parsley, sage, rosemary and. And Eric Idle, a founding member of Monty Python, cowriter and costar of their many films and creator of the musical "Spamalot" joins us from his home. Thanks so much for being with us.
IDLE: My pleasure. Thank you for calling me.
SIMON: Why did you buy such a place?
IDLE: Well, it was 1971, and we did live in Earl's Court in London, which is not the most salubrious area. And we couldn't afford a house in London in those days 'cause we hadn't earned enough because we'd only just started Monty Python about two years before. So we were only on BBC money. So that's the answer (laughter).
SIMON: You call it your shackeau (ph), right?
IDLE: Well, it started as a shack, and now it's a shackeau, yes. It was, first of all, just, you know, a tiny bedsit - you know, three-room bedsit. So we lived there for about seven or eight years without electricity. And then finally, you know, we decided - Tania and I decided to build a house behind the one that was there, and we haven't stopped altering things ever since.
SIMON: How did it grow?
IDLE: Well, it grew sort of organically. That's why I kind of like it. It grew organically. And when we had the first house behind the tiny, little one, we finally got electricity. So then we had, you know, telephones and television and more guests. We always got guests anyway. And, you know, we were able to, you know, stop the pool turning green every three weeks and having to empty buckets of bleach into it, which was, you know, really made it even viler. So it was - everything became a lot easier. I didn't have to climb up the hill and tug on a motor to start it pumping water up from our farrage (ph), our well, which was 80 meters down, which is where we discovered water finally.
SIMON: Oh, my word.
IDLE: (LAUGHTER] .
SIMON: But what was the charm that overwhelmed all of your reservations?
IDLE: Well, the charm is Provence. The charm is Provence. It's beautiful. And certainly, in those days, there was hardly anybody here. You know, it was very much the least-populated department in France at the time. And so, you know, things have changed a lot. But, you know, the sun belt thing changed everything. Everybody tilted towards the sun. But it was very lovely. It was calming. And, you know, the reason I bought it is that I said to my wife, I think I can write just as badly here as I can in London.
SIMON: [LAUGHTER] .
IDLE: And she said, yes. I think you probably could. That's what I did. I mean, I had a little shack up in the wood on the top of the hill, and I wrote in there. It was bare earth, but it was kind of fun. And that burned down in a forest fire in 1979.
SIMON: Well, yeah.
IDLE: So there was kind of adventures, you know? Then - yes (laughter) - you know, foxes on your terrace, wild boar around, and, you know, it was interesting.
SIMON: Yeah. You write about many - let me put it this way - recognizable names who visited you - George Harrison, Robin Williams, Paul Simon, Penny Marshall, I think, riding on the back of Art Garfunkel's motorcycle?
IDLE: Yes (laughter).
SIMON: Stephen Hawking, Sir James Dyson. But you don't dish. I admire that. Why?
IDLE: Well, they were friends. You know, I mean, they are the names that people would recognize, and also, people want to know what some of these people are like. The list you read, sadly, most of them are dead. And as I say to people, they say, It's name-dropping. I say it's not name-dropping. Once they're dead, that's history. You know, this is what you do. That's how you remember your friends, and they can stay alive in memory...
SIMON: Yeah.
IDLE: ...If you write about them.
SIMON: Was part of the delight living in this village of Cotignac, Provence, the fact that you were not routinely recognized?
IDLE: That was, I think, one of the big appeals to me. Because, you know, there's nothing wrong with being recognize, but sometimes it can get a bit much. Because, for example, Penny Marshall would always - when she was on "Laverne & Shirley," she couldn't wait for the season to end in June 'cause she'd come immediately here, where nobody recognized her at all. The same was true for Robin Williams the first time he came here. Even when he stopped at a dance in the village, put his head up and yelled, I'm Mork. I'm Mork.
SIMON: Ha.
IDLE: That's a big relief. People don't seem to - and of course, they don't understand how nice it is to be anonymous.
SIMON: There's a sad section in the book where you get burned out, and the pain, the loss. I have to ask - in this summer of scorching heat across France, is this the future of Provence?
IDLE: I'm afraid so. We had three weeks of it this summer, and it was over 100 degrees for about a month beforehand. And so when the fires took off in early July, I think, we were evacuated twice. I mean, and our village lost 29 homes, and it was horrendous. The air was filled with smoke, and it was awful. And I'm afraid this might well be the future.
SIMON: Yeah. I'm moved to ask you this question because you venture some thoughts along these lines in this book that is about a house but so much more. What really counts in life?
IDLE: Well, that's a very difficult question to answer, isn't it? I mean, what really counts in life is probably friends and, I think, music and reading and being able to live a peaceful life and note - I mean, I was born in a war. So the first two years of my life, Hitler was trying to kill me, but luckily he missed. You know, so I think not being at war is a terribly good thing.
SIMON: Is there a screenplay or another book ahead?
IDLE: I don't know what's ahead because I never decide what I'm going to do until I finish what I've done. The thing I liked about living here is that you have the summers off, and that's still a bit like your college years. So when you go back, you say, oh, now what am I going to do? And then I find what I want to write or what I want to, you know, pursue.
SIMON: Eric Idle. His new book is "Idle in Provence: A Brief History Of Thyme." Thank you so much for being with us.
IDLE: My great pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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