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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
I recently finished reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams for one of the challenges I'm in. It's been quite a while since I've read a Douglas Adams book (last one was Salmon of Doubt a few years back) but I knew I'm in for a treat. And indeed, it has the same excellent humor as we are already used to from the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[return][return]The main plot idea seems to be Gordon Way's shooting during a call to his sister Susan's answering machine and Richard MacDuff's (an employee of Gordon's working on a program to convert data into music, currently dating Susan) seemingly implication in the murder; even if Gordon Way is dead his ghost is still roaming around. Dirk Gently, Richard's former college friend, believes in the fundamental interconnectedness of everything and tries to help Richard to prove he's innocent.[return][return]However, this is just a small part of the plot, in fact a very small one: time travel, aliens and other ideas are mixed in to create another great and funny Douglas Adams book.[return][return]Towards the end I was totally lost since I had no idea what the Coleridge connection is. After some searches on the internets, I discovered that the novel cannot be fully understood without familiarity with Samuel Taylor Coleridge life and works, particularly The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan poems. I found some notes though on a website so things got clearer.[return][return]During these searches on the net I also found out that the sofa irreversibly stuck on the stairs is based on an incident that happened during Adams’ college life.[return][return]Overall, a great read, 4 out of 5 stars.[return][return]I can't wait to read the next Dirk Gently book, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.
A slightly disappointing read. The beginning was classic Douglas Adams with the wot and sharp definitions for things. And then it dipped a bit and then some more. Around 60% there is an extraordinary digression on music being math and it perhaps is one of the best things in this book. Kind of skimmed through the end. Douglas fans keep at it. The rest can steer clear. He is better than this.
We bought this when it was first published in 1987 but my copy is missing and has been for years. I wonder who I lent it to. Anyway, someone else was talking about it recently so I bought a secondhand copy. Douglas Adams is interesting because he's effortlessness clever but you know that writing was a terrible burden and he wrestled with deadlines and actually doing the work. The Dirk Gently books are complex but fun and it's a real shame he didn't have time to write more.
While this isn't as enjoyable for me as his Hitchhiker's Guide books, I still love Adams' writing style and this idea.
When I finished Hitchhiker's Guide, I assumed that was the end of the tragically short lived Douglas Adams' bibliography. But Lo, what strange murder mystery series beyond the pale of death breaks?
I think this book is weird. It's nonsense, it's a lot of fun, and trying to describe the plot in fewer words than the length of the book is not worth the effort. The writing style is as strong as ever, Dirk is strange and very fun, and it's hard not to get sucked in to the logical impossible plot, that makes absolutely no sense looking at it from any angle, except that it almost does. It's great, and you'll have a good time.
I think this book is weird. It's nonsense, it's a lot of fun, and trying to describe the plot in fewer words than the length of the book is not worth the effort. The writing style is as strong as ever, Dirk is strange and very fun, and it's hard not to get sucked in to the logical impossible plot, that makes absolutely no sense looking at it from any angle, except that it almost does. It's great, and you'll have a good time.
I've read this once before, and I picked up again in the wake of the (very sadly) now-axed TV series, which was different yet still quite good. It's, of course, even better than I remembered. Especially since I'm much more well versed in Coleridge, and Shroedinger's Cat, and the like. It's just really good fun: the characters are brilliant, to a fault; the situations are amazingly absurd, but the fundamental interconnectedness of all things does prevail in the end; and, furthermore, it's Douglas Adams, which is really the best one can ask for in that respect.
This book was recently adapted into a BBC show or Netflix for something like that, right?
Well I was just at my library and oh! hey that's a TV show.
So I read it.
This book has so many interesting features. Its like the shows Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock all rolled into one beautiful, 260-page book. The writing style was sort of like Rick Yancey+J.R.R. Tolkien, which turned out to be an interesting combination. There were several plot twists, and ou only found out about everything that happened toward the end of the story.
While there were plenty of unnamed characters, there were only a select few that were really featured in the book, and I appreciate that. There weren't like, fifty people who you had to remember; it focused mainly on Richard, Dirk, Susan, Michael, Gordon, Reg and the Electric Monk.
The book takes a lot of focus to read, though, because of the writing style. It's the kind that makes you want to drift off into your own head. Still, it's a really good book, and I'm disappointed in myself that it took so long for me to read.
Well I was just at my library and oh! hey that's a TV show.
So I read it.
This book has so many interesting features. Its like the shows Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock all rolled into one beautiful, 260-page book. The writing style was sort of like Rick Yancey+J.R.R. Tolkien, which turned out to be an interesting combination. There were several plot twists, and ou only found out about everything that happened toward the end of the story.
While there were plenty of unnamed characters, there were only a select few that were really featured in the book, and I appreciate that. There weren't like, fifty people who you had to remember; it focused mainly on Richard, Dirk, Susan, Michael, Gordon, Reg and the Electric Monk.
The book takes a lot of focus to read, though, because of the writing style. It's the kind that makes you want to drift off into your own head. Still, it's a really good book, and I'm disappointed in myself that it took so long for me to read.
adventurous
challenging
funny
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated