| Title | : | Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 306 |
| Publication | : | First published May 15, 1987 |
| Awards | : | Audie Award Humor (1998) |
Apparently not much; until Dirk Gently, self-styled private investigator, sets out to prove the fundamental interconnectedness of all things by solving a mysterious murder, assisting a mysterious professor, unravelling a mysterious mystery, and eating a lot of pizza – not to mention saving the entire human race from extinction along the way (at no extra charge).
To find out more, read this book (better still, buy it, then read it) – or contact Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. ‘A thumping good detective-ghost-horror-whodunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy epic.’ The author
Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency (Dirk Gently, #1) Reviews
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I still don't really understand how the ending of this book worked, and trying to describe the plot would be like trying to build a submarine out of cheese. Instead, I'll just share some quotes from this book that I especially loved, because Douglas Adams is the only author in the history of the world who is capable of creating them.
"'A horse?' he said again.
'Yes, it is,' said the Professor. 'Wait - ' he motioned to Richard, who was about to go out again and investigate - 'Let it be. It won't be long.'
Richard stared in disbelief. 'You say there's a horse in your bathroom, and all you can do is stand there naming Beatles songs?'"
"Richard stood transfixed for moment or two, wiped his forehead again, and gently replaced the phone as if it were an injured hamster. His brain began to buzz gently and suck its thumb. Lots of little synapses deep inside his cerebral cortex all joined hands and started dancing around and singing nursery rhymes."
"On the wall was a Duran Duran poster on which someone had scrawled in fat red felt tip, 'Take this down please.'
Beneath that another hand had scrawled, 'No.'
Beneath that again the first hand had written, 'I insist that you take it down.'
Beneath that the second hand had written, 'Won't!'
Beneath that - 'You're fired!'
Beneath that - 'Good!'
And there the matter appeared to have rested."
"'Welcome, by the way, to my offices.'
He waved a vague hand around the tatty surroundings. 'The light works,' he said, indicating the window, 'the gravity works,' he said, dropping a pencil on the floor. 'Anything else we have to take our chances with.'"
"'Don't you listen to anything you say? The whole thing was obvious!' he exclaimed, thumping the table. 'So obvious that the only thing which prevented me from seeing the solution was the trifling fact that it was completely impossible. Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.'" -
The concept of putting as many ideas as possible in as less book space as imaginable worked well for the hitchhiker, but in this case, it was too much, no I mean, less.
It could have been an epic milestone like the ingenious hitchhiker series, but it is simply too short and too densely packed at the same time, it´s a miracle how this is even possible.
The characters and main plots could have been used for one much longer or two short books and it would have been a masterpiece again. More details in the descriptions, probably some more explanations to the reader or another side plot, infodumps, longer dialogues, it would all have been possible if Adams hadn´t tried to distill it to the absolute minimum. I got nervous the closer I got to the end because I couldn´t imagine how all those should culminate in a believable, understandable and satisfying ending.
Especially the end was really unsatisfying, so much came out of nothing, interesting ideas weren´t described in detail and everything felt quite half-baken with too many questions left unanswered and too much confusion for the reader. And I am someone who reads multi k page series with loads of settings, characters, and connections that can be understandably described by the author without a permanent "what, where, when, why, how?" like in this case.
Adams' intention has been to make as many and as complex subplots, connections and associations as possible to let them explode in an epic culmination point, but it didn´t get speed and just hit the fourth wall a tiny little bit without producing more noise than contrived harrumph to let the embarrassing moment pass by. It feels as if there should have been a second half before the sudden ending.
Don´t get me wrong, it´s still a good, philosophical book full of innuendos, connotations and some good laughs, but don´t expect the same quality or the same entertainment the more famous galactic fun brought to your mind.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph... -
Is it an audacious thing to say that Mr. Douglas Adams is hit or miss?
Yes. (Well, & "audacious" not really.)
Good. Here is a fun (and I mean FUN) book, rife with what is absurd and comical in certain sciences that dictate what the world is--I know my math teacher in high school was mad about him. And it does seem as though there is an intended niche audience already built for this type of literature: more literary than, say, Piers Anthony but not character-driven, nor truly dearly dramatic. There is much confusion, and this is also part of its whimsical charm, but the coming together seems so tight, so like a mathematical equation solved and, just, done for (although there is that infamous "to be continued..." at its conclusion--this is giving nothing away!). I'm caustic toward these post-Lewis Carroll productions--wasn't a rabid fan of "Hitchhiker's" for instance, but I won't mind reading Dirk Gently #2. When that type of mood actually finds me. -
I last read this when I was really young and was shortly getting off a fantastic kick of HHGttG wanting MORE, as, I assume, most people do when they get on a Douglas Adams kick.
Like the other series, every page is filled with wonderfully witty and fascinating and wise (crack) quotes that will delight and amaze and generally blow most writing away by the sheer audacity.
To think that Douglas Adams never considered himself a writer! Truly amazing. And of course us fans just snicker at that and keep reading.
I admit to really liking this but not loving it as much as the Hitchhiker series. I don't know. Maybe I just wanted more of the idiot and less of the incomprehensible mystic in systems-theory sheep's clothing.
What can I say? As an adult, I'm doing an about-face and saying that this might be better by far. It's still wacky and zany and full of oddball moments, but it's closer to Earth... mostly... just not always in the same time-zone. :) And on top of that, it was fun as hell getting into all the old computer stuff and getting into the poetry and the music and ESPECIALLY the problem of the couch.
The couch stayed with me all these years and it was such a wonderful character. It almost reaches the same heights as a certain fridge in the next book. Of which I'm doing a re-read next. :)
Now, to be sure, I probably wouldn't have done a re-read at all if it hadn't been for the BBC tv production of the same name, and even as I was watching it I was going... "Is this remotely the same?"
Definitive answer: SOME. lol. Not all that much. Characters, some. Situations, hints. Zany? That's full-tilt. :) All said, no complaints on either side of the tv screen. )
I'm glad to be doing all of the above. :) -
In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn
A science fiction book decree
With plot purloined from Doctor Who
A cross between a witches' brew
And a nice cup of tea.
So several chapters serially were wrote
Until the text was finished, good and whole
A sovereign remedy or antidote
Against the long dark teatime of the soul
And there were geeks who answered alien prayers
While moving house accompanied by their boxes
And there were sofas stuck upon the stairs
In curious angles causing paradoxes.
But oh! the changes made to history
A tricky deed for any witch or warlock
Even when travelling by time machine
And claiming to be resident in Porlock
A ghost and an Electric Monk in a dream I saw apart
They were the most eccentric pair
I've come across 'most anywhere
But still they touched my heart
If I could piece together
The fragments I find now
Then all around would marvel
And open-mouthed avow
Weave a circle round him thrice
And never mind his extra head
For he of Adams books has read
And fables heard from Paradise -
I discovered Douglas Adams by coincidence. I found his book Last Chance to See, co-written by Mark Cawardine, about animals near extinction and Douglas' and Mark's trip around the world to see some of them, in a box with "Mängelexemplare" (old books, sometimes not in top condition that are therefore sold at a reduced price). His humour stood out even in the German translation and when I told a friend about it, she told me all about an odd-sounding story about a guy hitchhiking across the galaxy and something about the number 42. ;)
Since I've always been an odd duck, I went and bought that book too (in the English original this time) - and have read The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy once every year (May 25th to be exact) ever since.
However, despite having heard of Dirk Gently too, I have never picked up these books, for some weird reason. I'm glad I rectified this now because although I LOVE Hitchhiker, this is actually better!
Douglas Adams has not just been a British author with the usually expected British humour. Sure, he had a dry wit, but also a mind as sharp as a katana and the observations about humanity that he put into his books, while being disguised as silly dialogue or even sillier happenings, are always very deep, reflective and spot-on.
So this story is about the titular Dirk Gently, although that is only the most recent in a long list of names he's used. He doesn't even make an appearance for the first quarter of the book, actually. Mr. Gently believes in the interconnectedness of all things, therefore he named his detective agency "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency".
It's this interconnectedness that has to be proven when a former friend of his with a sofa being stuck halfway up the way to his apartment gets bored half to death at the annual reading of a Coleridge poem (THE Coleridge poem, I should say) at Cambridge university, then witnesses a conjuring trick by one of his old professors, finds a horse in the bathroom of that same professor (after it finally got rid of its rider, an Electric Monk), and finally gets caught up in a very weird murder involving his boss, followed by people acting strangely indeed.
You're confused? Good!
It's a bit like watching Doctor Who and getting all of your brain in a tight knot, but you know exactly that it will all make perfect sense in the end.
As I said, silliness abound in DA's book, but all the silliness serves a purpose and that is what makes this book not only entertaining, but actually intellectually challenging and bloody perfect! Especially eccentric Dirk Gently himself with his weirdness actually makes perfect sense - it's the world that is bonkers.
Thus we end up with gems like the following (some of my favourite bits that I marked in the book):
Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.
It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion about them.
On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.
So two legs were held to be both more suitable and cheaper than the more normal primes of seventeen, nineteen or twenty-three; the skin the Monks were given was pinkish-looking instead of purple, soft and smooth instead of crenellated. They were also restricted to just one mouth and nose, but were given instead an additional eye, making for a grand total of two. A strange-looking creature indeed. But truly excellent at believing the most preposterous things.
She tried to worry that something had happened to him, but didn't believe it for a moment. Nothing terrible ever happened to him, though she was beginning to think that it was time it damn well did. If nothing terrible happened to him soon maybe she'd do it herself.
... coincidences are strange and dangerous things.
... there is a huge difference between disliking somebody - maybe even disliking them a lot - and actually shooting them, strangling them, dragging them through the fields and setting their house on fire. It was a difference which kept the vast majority of the population alive from day to day.
This was a public telephone so it was clearly an oversight that it was working at all.
Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see?
... normal English condition, that of a damp and rancid dish cloth ...
... he believed with an instant effortlessness which would have impressed even a Scientologist.
"It disturbs me very greatly when I find that I know things and do not know why I know them. Maybe it is the same instinctive processing of data that allows you to catch a ball almost before you've seen it. Maybe it is the deeer and less explicable instinct that tells you when someone is watching you."
"And Mrs. Roberts? How is she? Foot still troubling her?"
"Not since she had it off, thanks for asking, sir. Between you and me, sir, I would've been just as happy to have had her amputated and kept the foot. I had a little spot reserved on the mantlepiece, but there we are, we have to take things as we find them."
The cry "I could have thought of that" is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.
"Charitable, ha!" said Dirk. "I pay my taxes, what more do you want?"
One thing I could also identify with immensely was this description of Susan:
She had an amazing emotional self-sufficiancy and control provided she could play her cello. He had noticed an odd and extraordinary thing about her relationship with the music she played. If ever she was feeling emotional or upset she could sit and play some music with utter concentration and emerge seeming fresh and calm.
Only in my case the cello has to be replaced by books and playing music by reading. But yes, a very precise description of me.
Oh, and despite me being too young to know too much about what it was like with the very first computers being sold, it was so cool to read about all the technical stuff because I know from interviews and Neil Gaiman's biography of Douglas Adams what a techie / computer enthusiast he was (plus, from a historical point of view alone it must have been pretty exciting).
So you see, not just a thrilling writing style with engaging and quirky characters, but also wit dry enough to start a wildfire that illuminates a wide range of important topics, making the reader not only laugh but also reflect, all while you're having the time of your life.
Honestly, no idea why this is rated lower than Hitchhiker, because despite me being a huge fan (I even bought a towel and stitched "42" and "Don't Panic!" onto it and carry it with me every Towel Day), I am firmly sold on Dirk Gently and think this first volume beats the first of the 5 volumes in the Hitchhiker trilogy. -
“He instituted this Chair of Chronology to see if there was any particular reason why one thing happened after another and if there was any way of stopping it. Since the answers to the three questions were, I knew immediately, yes, no, and maybe, I realised I could then take the rest of my career off.”
Books by
Oscar Wilde,
Terry Pratchett and
Douglas Adams have (at least) one thing in common. I can easily pick funny, witty, interesting quotes from every page. The above quote represents Adams’ surreal sense of humour quite nicely, I think.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is of course, Douglas Adams’ lesser known series, compared to the incomparable (but often compared to)
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Still, there are only five “Hitchhiker's” books, excluding Eoin Colfer's
And Another Thing..., which—in all fairness—I have not read, but I am not that big a fan of Colfer's
Artemis Fowl, so the idea of a sequel by him is a nonstarter for me.
So how does Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency compare to
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? What kind of question is that? Damn you! (Sorry, I’m feeling a bit schizophrenic). Anyway, the answer to that question would be “favorably”. It does not have the epic space opera setting of Hitchhiker's, but then Adams wanted to write something different rather than retread old ground so the smaller scale of the setting is understandable.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is not really about the eponymous Dirk Gently’s, I would not even call him the protagonist. He is one of the central characters. As the book has to be called something the title Adams went with is a suitably intriguing one. The plot of the novel is a combination of several seemingly unrelated plot strands. It starts with an “Electric Monk” looking for a Door (the capital D distinguishes from any old door), then the scene switches to a dinner at St. Cedd's College in Cambridge where Professor Urban Chronotis performs a seemingly commonplace magic trick is for a child. Soon after that a horse is found in the professor’s bathroom. A wealthy businessman is shot dead for no reason, and his ghost starts to roam. An alien spacecraft accidentally lands and soon blows up.
The disparate plotlines are actually interrelated, and the only man who can find the connection between them is Dirk Gently, the world’s first “Holistic Detective”, which means that he understands “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things”. Sherlock Holmes famously said “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth”, Dirk Gently goes one better by not even eliminating the impossible (see one of the selected quotes below). His ability to make intuitive leaps verges on being a superpower.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency reminds me a little bit of Kurt Vonnegut's
Breakfast of Champions, another novel with different plotlines that seem to bear no relation to each other. I thought that was a bit of a mess, but a funny, admirable and beautiful one by the time I finished it. “Dirk Gently’s” is similarly messy, but the eponymous Dirk untangles all the plot strands by the end of the book. For the most part, it is easy enough to follow, and always funny, but the climax and denouement are a little convoluted. If your attention strayed during some seemingly unimportant scenes some of the expositions at the end may be confusing. For the most part Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a madcap surreal comic novel with a lot of sci-fi elements that you can expect from Douglas Adams. However, a shade of sadness, melancholy and loneliness permeate the last few chapters of the book.
The characters are mostly well developed, with Dirk, being the standout due to his eccentricity and superhuman intuition. Not far behind is the enigmatic Professor Urban Chronotis who is much more than he seems, and he also appears in
Doctor Who: Shada, based on Adams’ Doctor Who TV episode script.
If you are a fan of
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but have read all the books already you should not miss this book. On the other hand—or perhaps the same hand but different fingers—if you have not read all the “Hitchhiker's” books, or have not read any, or never heard of Douglas Adams, you should still not miss this book. Who then, should give this book a miss? I don’t know, dead people perhaps?
_________________________
Notes:
• There was a
BBC adaptation of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency in 2010, only a few episodes were made. Quite good as I recall.
• A new adaptation is being made by BBC America (
announced March 2016)
• I am looking forward to reading the sequel
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul soon. -
Douglas Adams' underated masterpiece leads Dirk Gently from a search for a missing cat to unlocking the secrets of time travel and saving the human race from total extinction.
I thought no-one could write a better comic novel than 'The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' until I first read this. I've subsequently re-read this novel countless times and it never fails to entertain, I'm still finding references to literature and popular culture that I've previously missed.
That a novel can be re-read despite the reader knowing what is about to happen is a testement to any novel but this one can be re-read with a suspition that something different will happen this time! -
I am a firm believer that a bit of British humor is good for the soul...
And I am quite American, in case you did not know...
“Don’t you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn’t developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don’t expect to see?”
Douglas Adams has a highly quotable, laugh out loud writing style which I adore; I seem to remember a blurb describing this book as
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with significantly fewer spaceships (I apologize that my memory fails on whom I heard this from) I can't think of a better description myself.
This book will forever be on my list of favorite books of all time.
There's really not much more I can say about it which could express my love.
Some of My Favorite Moments:
-
From the title you would think this is possibly about a detective agency. Well there is an agency but they don’t detect things in the normal matter. You should probably guess that since it is a Douglas Adams book and when has he written anything really normal (I mean that in the best way).
Nope for this book “Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”
There is craziness, absurdity, the interconnectedness of all things and Dirk is smack dab in the middle of it all. He will somehow figure out how a horse in a bathroom, a ghost making telephone calls, a undoable magic trick, the cat in Schrodinger’s Box and an alien electronic monk who can believe anything all have to do with one another.
It is a crazy and fantastic ride that if you just hang back and not think about it too much everything will just all into place. Most of the time Dirk Gently seems to make no sense until he makes hysterical sense. There were times I flat out belly laughed at some of the general obscurity of it.
I will never think of Sir Isaac Newton the same again – or Bach but that is a different matter.
“Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"
"The what?" said Richard.
"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ..."
"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."
"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissed shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." ... "You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap ... ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see.”
I read both the Dirk Gently books years ago and they are some of the few books that I come back to years later and love for different reasons all over again. If you were a fan of the Hitchhikers series or Monty Python then this kind of humor might be exactly what you need for a good laugh. -
Hysterical. If you liked The Hitchhiker's Guide but thought it could do with fewer spaceships, try this. If you're shaking your head in bafflement, thinking "Fewer spaceships? Do you want to ruin the whole thing, woman?" try this. If you've never read any Douglas Adams at all, try this. If you like things that are good, try this.
On the other hand, I am pretty sure my best friend hated it, and she does often like things that are good, so maybe it's not for everyone. But try it anyway.
"He was rounder than the average undergraduate and wore more hats. That is to say, there was just the one hat which he habitually wore, but he wore it with a passion that was rare in one so young. [...:] By means of an ingenious series of strategically deployed denials of the most exciting and exotic things, he was able to create the myth that he was a psychic, mystic, telepathic, fey, clairvoyant, psychosassic vampire bat.
"What did 'psychosassic' mean?
"It was his own word and he vigorously denied that it meant anything at all." -
POR FIN LO HE TERMINADO!!! Ha sido mi Mortirolo particular!!
Me ha costado horrores y eso que las primeras paginas prometían, bueno las 20 primeras.
Segundo libro que leo de este autor y este incluso me ha gustado mucho menos que el del autoestopista galáctico... La verdad es que hasta mas del 50 % no entendía que estaba leyendo!! Luego poco a poco se va mas o menos entendiendo pero ni con esas, todo muy poco gracioso (ummm creo que este humor no va conmigo). 1/10.
No se si darle una última oportunidad al autor con el 2º del autoestopista...
Sinopsis: Dirk Gently es un detective muy peculiar. Sherlock Holmes afirmaba que, cuando se ha eliminado lo imposible, lo que queda —sea lo que sea— es la verdad. Dirk Gently, sin embargo, jamás elimina nada, y menos que nada, lo imposible. Y para resolver sus casos prefiere recurrir a la física cuántica antes que a las huellas dactilares. Así pues, cuando le encargan la búsqueda de un gato perdido —un misterio por lo general muy fácil de desentrañar—, Dirk acaba encontrando dos fantasmas y un Monje Eléctrico venido de otra dimensión, y descubre un terrible secreto que puede acarrear la destrucción de la humanidad. También averigua la imposible, improbable, increíble y aterradora razón por la que un experto en ordenadores tuvo un sofá atascado en la escalera de su casa durante tres semanas. Pero ¿qué sucedió con el gato? El gato, infortunadamente, murió. -
I love this book. I love it far, far more than is in any way reasonable. It is possibly Douglas Adams' strangest work, and it is far and away my favorite. It makes almost no sense unless you read it twice or more. And a good knowledge of the content and historical context of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is essentially required to understand many of the jokes and much of the plot.
Because, as it turns out, the linchpin upon which history turns, upon which depends the whole of human history before and to come, is the fact that Coleridge never wrote the second "altogether stranger" part of Kubla Khan.
This discovery is the culmination of an intricate, madcap skein of detecting into the interconnectedness of all things by "holistic detective" Dirk Gently, computer programmer Richard MacDuff and his ghostly employer Gordon Way, an Electric Monk, a rogue Time Lord turned Cambridge professor (the book started life as a Doctor Who script), a horse in the bathroom and a thousand thousand slimy things. Beginning with an inquiry into an inexplicable bout of housebreaking, proceeding to impossible magic tricks, a murder, a sofa that can't be where it is, the mathematics of music, aliens, and time travel, the story is packed with whimsical trivialities which turn out to have the most profound significance — in line with the titular detective's much-professed belief in the interconnectedness of all things, but especially nice beaches in the Bahamas. Although it may appear nonsensical, all is in the end tied together — but if you blink, you'll miss the explanation of how the sofa got up the stairs.
Dirk Gently is a much darker book than The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but it's also much richer, with a flavor a little closer to Terry Pratchett (and particularly to the brilliant Good Omens) than to the wacky, almost slapstick Hitchhiker series. Adams' omnipresent punnery and clever narrative is absolutely delightful, if subtle enough that one must sometimes pause to figure out just what sort of trick he is playing. The joy Adams took in whimsy and wordplay is palpable on almost every page. This may be the best-written of his works, and to my mind it is also the funniest. It is a quick read, and well worth the few hours it'll take to read twice. Or five times, if you love it as much as I do. -
‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’ is completely absurd. If you have read other books by Douglas Adams, like
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, gentle reader, it is helpful to know that all of Adams' books, including this one, are hilariously ridiculous and impossible. The characters and the plots are played entirely for laughs, puns, jokes and satire. Oh, and usually some of the known aspects of quantum physics and Einstein's relativity theories drive the action endured by Adams’ mostly hapless and confused main characters, who often are deers in headlights as quantum weirdness takes over their realities. Also, expect ghosts. And electronics which can bridge universes (remember our real history of linking electricity with spiritualism in the late 19th century?) And animals with some very human-like or weirdly species-appropriate thinking.
It takes a few chapters and many seemingly disconnected introductory scenes of many other characters, but eventually Dirk Gently is introduced. Dirk Gently is a very peculiar detective. He has been forced into the profession after being sent down from St. Cedd's college for cheating. He didn't cheat - it was a coincidence when he guessed all of the answers to an upcoming test correctly. He DID coach many students in the answers to the test to make money, supposedly through mystic means which he believed he was faking, but he truly had no idea his con would end up being so correct. The unspoken assumption behind Gently's becoming a detective is the mystery of having all of the right answers when he never knew he had all of the right answers has led him to being a detective. He is not a mystic, but he believes in particle physics and Einstein's relativity, apparently, and all of the spooky science which comes out of that, and especially, maybe, in the Grand Unification Theory of Everything. A Holistic universe, so to speak. Hehe.
Of course, as the author explains Gently's accidentally appearing to be seemingly clairvoyant, or in the University's thinking, a cheater, Gently was actually a simple student who simply knew the patterns of the usual questions asked on the usual exams given usually in any given subject. He made assumptions that some form of the usual questions with the usual answers would be asked. He hinted it was a mystical process when he was only being logical, based on past patterns of human behavior - which if you analyze, gentle reader, is a holistic exercise we all do, and get better at, as we age and collect patterns of past behaviors of actual people around us...and coincidences of perfect guesses occur, an actual scientific possibility of statistics. Or like a guess of what Time it is being correct twice a day.
: D
Adams appears to me to design scenes in the manner of someone using free-association word games where someone who is trying to think of creative ideas writes down a word on a paper, and then follows that up with whatever words are triggered by that word, letting the mind go where it will without restraint - and then putting some humorous order to the ideas, like the physics theories which most decidedly are putting a humorous and impossible order on the actual universe. In Adams case, these wild and insane ideas appear to always involve quantum/relativity physics craziness, along with space aliens, which he spins down into a kind of daft coherency - barely.
This is the usual premise of a Douglas Adams' novel: Barely competent space aliens land on Earth and cause mysterious events to occur to barely competent earthlings. The space aliens have the advantage of superior technology, which, combined with the aliens' ignorance or incompetence, frequently bring horrendous side effects to the unfortunate earthlings who unsuspectingly become part of whoever and whatever space aliens' lives they have the bad luck with whom to be swept up. Three hundred pages later, luck and fate and accidents have led the main characters, and us readers, down a rabbit hole to an Alice-in-Wonderland adventure which we all have miraculously survived!
Even though describing an Adams' book can make them seem alike, this is not true. Well, not entirely true. What is important is the novels are extremely funny and entertaining! However, the humor is whacked out and often bizarrely witty. It requires a flexible mindset, and being prepared for all kinds of coloring outside the lines.
We assume space aliens would be smarter than us, or more noble, or are more purposefully vicious, and intent on a plan or have goals in mind - after all, to fly here would require all sorts of brilliant technology which should reflect a greater intelligence. But what if space aliens, even if they have better tech, are no different in their faults or interests or mental lapses than any humans? What if space aliens differ the same way people differ - they can drive a spaceship or time machine like most of us drive a car, but just like most of us, they do not know any more of how their spaceship works than we do, but they do want a vacation or just an outing, or an adventure, just like we do. Plus, they have missed connections, or their vehicle breaks down, or they run out of money, or decide to settle, for the same reasons we do.
The fact is we are all unknowingly silly while we believe we are doing things meaningfully - this fact slowly grows on readers of Adams' novels. People are very very silly. This is why Adams has had plenty of silly material for his books.
That said, I would not read this book first of Adams’ work. I’d start with ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ - in my opinion, his best book.
Here is a link to my review of 'The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul':
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... -
I recently watched the
pilot episode of Dirk Gently and loved it. So, naturally, I picked up the book. Now this order of doing things is often frowned upon by many people, including me, but sometimes things just happen.
The reason I'm telling you this is that I was slightly let down by the book, having seen (a version of) Dirk Gently in action before reading about him. There just wasn't enough of the detective in the book, while he (both versions) is such an interesting character. And yes, it was a fun little book, but felt a bit random and not as interconnected as it should have been, considering the holistic approach Dirk promotes.
Also, having looked into some other reviews before writing my own, I have to say that
a) I'm not going to touch on the Pratchett vs. Adams thing, but the seemingly random scenes in the beginning of the book and the time it took to actually reach the main character did remind me of many Discworld novels (nothing original about that technique, just saying).
b) The Doctor Who connection - it's certainly strong, then again I'm a Doctor Who maniac. But I think it's safe to say that those of us who can't wait until the next Doctor Who episode (September!) will certainly enjoy Dirk Gently's company. -
I enjoyed the TV show, especially the first season and based on that experience, I wanted to read the book. I'm just glad I've watched the show first because if had read the book first, I probably wouldn't have bothered with the show.
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Adams, author of the bafflingly popular
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series as well as this whimsical genre-buster and its sequel, seems to have mastered the oximoronic art of writing funny books that are actually not very funny at all. There are some wacky English characters who fall somewhere on a spectrum between Jeeves and Fat Charlie's brother Spider, and an unusual plot which plods along aimlessly and manages to make 260 pages feel like 1000, and you may smirk a couple of times but actual laughs are unlikely. Don't feel bad if you get confused by the end; Adams himself said: "All I can say is that it was as clear as day to me when I wrote it and now I can't figure it out myself." -
To prove the theory of the interconnectedness of everything I´ll grant 3½-4, possibly 4½ star.
I have learned a lot. How the dodos became extinct, how to computer simulate the movements of a sofa while it gets stuck in a stairway and how an abacus can work in mysterious ways.
Not least have I come to know the origin of the albatros in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a thing that has puzzled me for billions of years.
I´m still very much in doubt when it comes to the death of Gordon Way, but it just may be connected to the extinction of the dodo, as everything is interconnected.
Well, except just maybe not the Electric Monk, who is quite disconnected.
Still, his horse is connected to the bathroom of Professor Reg, meaning that everything is interconnected after all.
That is if you take the horse literally, which you should as you otherwise would miss the connection.
Those were the words of Zarathustra, who, though not mentioned in the text, would be interconnected as well based alone on his holistic views. -
Infinitely dull for long stretches, punctuated by brief flashes of humor and incomprehensibility, with an ending that's fairly amusing. Time well spent? No, not really. Recommended for lovers of dry British humor that can stomach even the driest of Monty Python sketches.
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Robot monks, ghosts, murder and add a bit of The Doctor. But since it is Douglas Adams, don't forget the towel.
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4.5/5 stars! Very funny, very British, and overall good fun!
Something terrible has happened! Richard MAcDuff's boss Gordon Way has been murdered! And Richard is considered the prime suspect! Gordon's ghost wanders the outskirts of London and Cambridge, desperately trying to make contact with anyone and anything. Susan, Gordon's sister, is trying to cope with her brother's death and is trying to figure out why Richard, her boyfriend, is been acting so strange lately. Reg, Richard's old professor, is trying to figure out why a horse showed up in his flat, though that's not too troubling of an issue. And Richard needs to clear his name and prove his innocence. His only hope? An old acquaintance of both his and Reg's--the enigmatic detective Dirk Gently, who has a penchant for quantum physics, and for not being very frugal with money.
Oh, and there's and Electronic Monk, owner of said horse, who believes in everything who is very lost.
I haven't read read Douglas Adams since I was in high school, when
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was one of our required reading for (I think) summer, and it was such a delight to get back into him. He's a very easy read for the most part. His pacing is quite quick, you never lose interest in anything. And his comedy is absolutely great. You won't laugh at everything, but you will definitely laugh at something. Adams' comedy is not only in the jokes he tells with narration, though the comedy mostly comes from that; it is also in the characters' interactions and dialogue with each other and in the realization about certain scenes and themes within the book. Like I said, the comedy is all very British. I grew up watching all of the Monty Python movies and entire TV series, so while I haven't seen every avenue of British humor, I am certainly acquainted with it to a certain extent. Adams' comedy is reminiscent of Monty Python, but it certainly all his own. The one criticism I had towards the comedy is that sometimes the build-up to some of his jokes were a bit lengthy. The punchline was always good, but not ever build-up needs to be that extra long.
All of the characters were a delight and aided the comedy too, especially Dirk. You really don't see Dirk until towards the middle of the book which made me a bit crossed (as the Brits say). We do see a good amount of him after he is introduced, but it made me wish he had been introduced earlier. Reg and Richard were the next funniest members of the cast. In fact the funniest thing about Richard is that he worked with Mac computers. HAH! *slaps my knee*
Anyway, much of the comedy with Richard was in what was happening to him via plot. Reg's comedy was mostly like Dirk, things he said and did. Susan was funny in the moments Adams made her be, however this is where I have another criticism. I wish we had seen Susan more. She was such a fun and important character and I really liked her. She was kind of the straight (wo)man in the entire group. Gordon was funny too, but not as much as everyone else.
I will say that some parts of the plot, such as some of the science stuff, made me a bit confused. I must confess that I'm confused as to why Gordon died and why his killer killed him and what his killer was ultimately going to do after Dirk, Richard, and Reg saw him off towards the end. Also, the ending scene with Richard and Susan and Richard not knowing about Bach made me scratch my head. Adams certainly knows his quantum physics and computer science and applies it well, but I think I am just not knowledgeable about it enough to understand. If you're like me in that regard, then you can just fly through some of the science bits and you'll still be able to enjoy the story and humor. The plot is straightforward, but some of the events just left me head scratching.
In terms of sci-fi, other than the quantum physics and computer science stuff, there isn't too much other sci-fi elements. It isn't as heavy as your space operas or military sci-fi and that's just fine for me. There is some philosophical stuff, but nothing meant to be a world-spanning and deep as something like
Dune or
Stranger in a Strange Land. There's actually some history stuff and English poetry from Samuel Taylor Coleridge that I enjoyed, I might even pick up some of his stuff.
This was a really fun read. My co-worker who lent me this said you don't have to read any of the next books to enjoy the story, but I still have questions so I might pick up the next book in the future. -
It's all about the couch.
Allow me to elucidate. Doug Adams book. Funny? Sure. Satirical? Check. But would you have guessed intricately plotted?
Adams, who practically invented the vein of British literary humor now being minted hand-over-fist by Terry Pratchett, is in fine form with this novel, his major work outside the Hitchhiker's universe. We get the same bumbling protaginsts, the gently affable quasi-villain, the apocalyptic-threat-which-is-not-a-threat, the deft one-sentence-paragraph narratorial asides. Check, check, and checkeroo.
But we also get something we can't have gotten in Hitchhikers, which was written in sometimes lightning-round single drafts, sometimes mere minutes before the radio-plays would hit the air. Under those circumstances, there was no way for Adams to think too far in advance. It had to be joke, bang, plot, joke, action, joke, exposition...and it shows in the number of times he wrote himself into a corner and then had to pull a Deus-ex-Machina out of the sky to save the narrative.
Not so in Dirk Gently, where tiny throw-away details become massively essential plot points late in the book, and all of the little details together topple into a eperfect, crystalline structure by the end of the story. The perfect example is the bit about the couch. At the beginning of the story, we see our poor schlepp of a protagonist working his way over a couch which has gotten wedged in his stairwell. Cute bit of physical humor, and in a lesser book, that would be the end of it. Instead, long about the penultimate chapter, the couch problem becomes a part of the solution to the whole messy apocalyptic threat mentioned earlier. It's a breathtaking bit of plotting, and I can't help but think Adams revelled in the chance to prove that his gift was not just the ability to make up rapid-fire absurdity, but to really master a novel, show it who'se boss, in a way which is entirely satisfying to the reader. -
The classic, beloved, brilliant, wacky Douglas Adams, with his penchant for paradoxes and meaningful nonsense and his totally absurd humor. It would be hard for me to chose what I loved most from this book, but I think it was the decision-making program that allows you to justify practically any outcome by back-tracing from the desired result - that could come quite handy, no?
But apart from all this, the book is quite well thought out, with a self-consistent detective story and an imaginitive and complex plot.
Douglas Adams never disappoints. -
Stavolta non ci sarebbero stati testimoni.
Stavolta c'era solo la terra morta, un rombo di tuono e l'inizio di quell'interminabile pioggerellina da Nordest che sembra accompagnare buona parte degli eventi cruciali di questo mondo.
Se è vero che l'incipit di un romanzo sia fondamentale, in quanto già riesce a metterti in sintonia con le corde di tutta la narrazione, quello di Douglas Adams è la perfezione. L'empatia tra me e Dirk Gently è iniziata subito, dalla prima pagina, tanto da domandarmi se io e tutta questa storia non fossimo destinate ad incontrarci, per via della fondamentale interconnessione di tutte le cose.
L'investigatore più assurdo di tutta la storia dei possibili investigatori che la letteratura abbia mai prodotto (e di tizi strambi ne sono usciti fuori parecchi), nasce dallo strano connubio di fantascienza, giallo ed umorismo; quello che ne esce fuori è Dirk Gently, descritto talmente sommariamente nell'aspetto fisico - tanto che non ne abbiamo che una confusa e poco delineata idea - quanto minuziosamente dal punto di vista caratteriale per farcelo apparire come assolutamente fuori di testa.
Ammetto che alcuni punti della trama mi hanno lasciato un po' di perplessità, ma sono curiosa di scoprire cosa si nasconde tra le pagine dei volumi successivi. Lettura assolutamente consigliata, se non altro per lo strano alternarsi di comicità e riflessioni di una profondità commovente.
In verità è una mente rara quella che può rendere ciò che finora non esisteva di una ovvietà accecante. -
1988 The plot gets a bit muddled at the end, but I dearly love this book. And the sofa.***Sept 10, 2012This may be one of the few books that is more rewarding to re-read. Now all those random scenes make sense.In fact, my reading pal at the mini mart and I were talking yesterday about how hard it can be to read Adams the first time. That you have to just stick with it, and hope it makes sense at the end. [It won't, it'll still be muddled nonsense, but it'll be funny nonsense] This reading what I particularly enjoyed were all the bits about music and computers and cats. These may have been my favorite bits before, but I failed to record that. I also particularly noticed the idea of extinction, echoed in Last Chance to See.And the sofa issue.Personal copy
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3 Stars Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (audiobook) by Douglas Adams performed by a full cast.
I like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy better. I thought I liked Douglas Adams’s sense of humor but this just didn’t work for me. This book is produced by the BBC and performed by a full cast. It’s broken into many parts and I think that affected the flow of the story. And it’s acted out as a radio drama and I had a hard time hearing some of the performers and understanding what was going on. -
If you are interested in this book because you watched the Netflix series, or intend do so, my comments at the end :D
Adams nails it again and delivers a nice piece of fiction/comedy/romance/sci-fi/detective/fantasy.
It was a hard read though. I have to admit that I didn't dedicate as much attention to this book as I had wished, between my overworked and underpaid job and my messy personal life, I could only manage to pick this book for 10 minutes everyday before I fell completely asleep.
I haven't decided if I liked this more than
The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy but definitely was worth reading. At least, the plot is excellent, everything is connected and all that at the beginning seems totally unrelated, at the end, makes sense (kind of).
The characters are quite enjoyable. Dirk is pretty stressful (not to mention annoying) until he actually starts to sort things out (or at least he makes you think he is doing so). Richard is quite funny, and the rest, even though remain secondary are well developed and have a reason for being there.
This novel has nothing to do with the series. Well, there is a holistic detective called Dirk Genlty who believes in the interconnectedness of all things and... that's it. So, 1) if you want to read the book before you watch the series: don't. It's not necessary. I mean, read the book anyway, but go ahead with Netflix. 2) If you liked the series and want to read the book: go ahead, you won´t find your favorite characters but chances are you are going to laugh harder, find even weirder situations and don't worry, Dirk is as annoying as in the series.
You can read this review and more in my blog :) -
To be honest this is the first time I have read Douglas Adams Dirk Gently books and I have to say it was more of a challange than I was expecting. Now I know that Douglas Adams is famous for his Hitch-Hikers series which took absurdist science fiction to new heights (am sure the more scholarly out there will tell me what the correct term is) but that is such a well know and loved story - that it can almost tell itself.
However with Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency I felt that the absurdity was cranked up a little too high - part of the early story I struggled to follow as they seem to jump around far too much either in subject or dialogue or in some cases location.
Now true it does all come together and form a cohesive story and quite a fun one to be honest however it took its time and that was a struggle. I agree with many readers out there if a story does not "click" then move on - after all there are far too many books out there to waste on those you do not enjoy and this book did skate very close to that however it pulled it back just as quickly.
Will I read the next in the series - probably but I am going to have to build up to it so do not expect it any time soon. -
Given how huge a Douglas Adams fan I have always thought myself as, I was surprised at how little I liked this book. And guilty, I feel guilty. One star is added on for the guilt.
But, in truth, in retrospect, I don't remember liking this one anywhere near as much as Hitchhikers. The humor is a little flat and often forced, nothing has aged well (the ga-ga'ing over computers seems childish these days) and the plot, rehashes of two episodes of Doctor Who that Adams wrote, is too confusing and uninteresting to have any kind of effect. Plus, Dirk Gently shows up literally only halfway through the book and since he is the only really interesting person around we end up with only half of a book of interesting characters.
I guess they can't all be zingers. -
"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we not eff it after all."
This book is Douglas Adams' take on detective fiction in which Sherlock Holmes meets Doctor Who, quantum theory meets time travel.
As with many detective stories this book features a murder and all evidence seems to point to an innocent man, Richard. Enter the rather shady Dirk Gently, ex Cambridge undergraduate, last seen in police custody some years previously, now running a holistic detective agency. Holistic because it is based on the interconnectedness of all things, any event in the space-time continuum can connect to any other. Adams therefore assembles a wonderfully madcap collection of people, things and events, and weaves them into this imaginatively playful romp. Normally TOO MANY coincidences would have the reader rolling their eyes with frustration but here it just seems to work, it's fun to see what gets linked together.
Now I'm sure that this is a Marmite book, you will either love or loathe it. If you enjoyed Adams whimsical style in his better known 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' then you are already well on the road to enjoying this one, if not, then it's unlikely to convert you. Personally, whilst I didn't actually laugh out loud, I found it a very clever piece of writing that left me with a smile on my face and that as far as I'm concerned can be no bad thing.
