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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I did not like the book....at all. I find the pacing horrible. Events happen in a confusing matter.
There are some good ides in the book, but the way they were presented made the whole story poorly connected, in my opinion. I am quite sad, I thought that this book would be great and funny, but it turned out to be quite dull for me(
There are some good ides in the book, but the way they were presented made the whole story poorly connected, in my opinion. I am quite sad, I thought that this book would be great and funny, but it turned out to be quite dull for me(
There is something so refreshing about how Douglas Adams wrote, it’s like your chatting to a friend who is telling you a story and occasionally goes off on a random tangent. ‘Dirk Gently’s Hollistic Detective Agency’ is one part detective, two parts sci-fi comedy and a full dose of very clever storytelling. A truly wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey treat to behold.
The chapters seemed too disjointed as they bounced from 1 character to another. If I try reading this again, I need to make sure that I can sit down & read it uninterrupted for an hour or 2.
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.
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.
Enjoyed this book quite a bit. Adams ties the several stories together fairly well, though the key one that drives a lot of the plot (the electronic monk) is a bit weak, and maybe a lot of the scenes work better than the book does as a whole. Interesting to see how poorly many of the technological references (especially to prominent companies and technologies of the late 80s) fair so poorly. The tech references that make you look up to date when you are writing a book, no matter how cool they seem at the time, can seem pretty lame only a couple decades later. But still, the whole thing holds up pretty well, and will probably continue to do so.
I love Douglas Adams' writing style. It's a fast paced story where you just have to keep up with Dirk, his ideas, and figure out who committed the murder. A fun quick read. I'll most likely read the rest!
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes