Like most ambitious comedians—meaning any comedian whose act does not consist of displaying a series of humorous props—Steve Martin longs to be recognized as more than just a comedian. But unlike Woody Allen, a similarly ambitious writer-comedian, Martin leads an artistic double life: The good Steve Martin writes pithy, humorous short pieces for The New Yorker, pens whimsical plays featuring undergraduate-level dissertations on the nature of art and genius, and takes supporting roles in David Mamet films. The bad Steve Martin collects barrels of money for appearing in dreck like Sgt. Bilko and Father Of The Bride Part II. Though all of the pieces in his new Pure Drivel are comic, the collection seems designed to show off Martin's desire to be afforded the respect and admiration Allen receives on a regular basis. Allen wrote a series of humorous pieces in the '70s, and Martin borrows heavily from him, both in tone—a sort of genial absurdism mixed with self-consciously highbrow satire and obvious high-culture references—and content. Several entries are remarkably similar to pieces in Allen's books, and one of the funniest, "Side Effects," shares a title with one of Allen's short-story collections. Martin has talent as a humorist—the pieces in Pure Drivel that work are often very funny—but too often, he indulges in absurdism for absurdism's sake. And when Martin's ideas fail, the results can be excruciating. "The Nature Of Matter And Its Antecedents," for example, is a woefully misguided attempt at satire, with a paper-thin premise—Hollywood celebrities are actually brilliant scientists—that can't support a four-page piece. Almost everything in Pure Drivel appeared originally on the back page of The New Yorker, and while most of what worked in the magazine holds up well in book form, Pure Drivel's 104 pages equate to about 25 New Yorker pages. In other words, the reader is paying a whopping 20 dollars to read material that wouldn't occupy even a quarter of a single issue of the magazine. While Martin die-hards will likely enjoy the book, everyone else is better off skimming through it at bookstores or waiting for it to come out in paperback.