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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
I’d like to thank (I guess) the guy who recommended this to me in either 2011 or 2010 (whose name I can’t remember & who turned out to be a jerk anyway.) It improved my day.
2023: love the writing just so much. so silly, often ridiculous. not sure if the plot completely holds up still but overall it's exactly the chaos I like
4 e 1/2
Dirk Gently è uno dei più assurdi investigatori su cui ci si possa imbattere; convinto che tutte le cose siano sostanzialmente interconnesse, pronto a non eliminare l'impossibile per limitarsi all'improbabile e a pensare come un bambino si ritroverà per le mani un'indagine da cui dipende la salvezza dell'umanità.
Tra gattini, paradossi, critica alle religioni e considerazioni sulla tecnologia il buon vecchio DNA riesce anche a seminare indizi per costruire il suo "giallo".
Dirk Gently è uno dei più assurdi investigatori su cui ci si possa imbattere; convinto che tutte le cose siano sostanzialmente interconnesse, pronto a non eliminare l'impossibile per limitarsi all'improbabile e a pensare come un bambino si ritroverà per le mani un'indagine da cui dipende la salvezza dell'umanità.
Tra gattini, paradossi, critica alle religioni e considerazioni sulla tecnologia il buon vecchio DNA riesce anche a seminare indizi per costruire il suo "giallo".
SUMMARY:
There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, AND the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: NO CHARGE.
There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, AND the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: NO CHARGE.
It's my favorite pastiche of Doctor Who plot lines ever. The fact that Douglas Adams was never fully satisfied with his writing, or the dramatization of it, and insisted on writing and rewriting over and over (which must have been hell for his editors) makes it entertaining to spot where and how he recycled various themes and characters throughout his career.
That was completely, wonderfully, masterfully ridiculous.
Douglas Adams takes the most ludicrous ideas and turns them into plausible, engaging stories that not only keep you laughing your ass off, but also keep you on the edge of your seat, trying in vain to guess just what precisely is going to come next.
On top of that he brings to life a cast of colourful characters (alive, dead, and Electric).
That was so much fun. I look forward to the rest of the series.
Douglas Adams takes the most ludicrous ideas and turns them into plausible, engaging stories that not only keep you laughing your ass off, but also keep you on the edge of your seat, trying in vain to guess just what precisely is going to come next.
On top of that he brings to life a cast of colourful characters (alive, dead, and Electric).
That was so much fun. I look forward to the rest of the series.
Reading this I cannot help but have a distinct feeling of Deja Vu. The problem is being such a Doctor Who fan I recognise a lot of the plot points from Adams' tenure as script editor (most prominently City of Death and Shada). At the same time Dirk still maintains many Doctorish traits e.g.:
"Tall. Tall and absurdly thin. And good natured. A bit like a preying mantis that doesn't prey - a non-preying mantis if you like. A sort of genial mantis that has given up preying and taken up tennis instead."
As such it gives me the sense of a book not fully formed in itself yet. But extracting the recycled elements what remains is rather fun. Adams trademark humour shines through and it's a good solid adventure. I failed to find the mysteries surprising but I presume that is my familiarity with the source material and it didn't reduce the enjoyment of their discovery.
One final element that did surprise was how likeable Dirk was, he's cheeky but I have always seem him described as unpleasant. He instead seem to be the rather standard rude genius detective combined with the loveable rogue.
"Tall. Tall and absurdly thin. And good natured. A bit like a preying mantis that doesn't prey - a non-preying mantis if you like. A sort of genial mantis that has given up preying and taken up tennis instead."
As such it gives me the sense of a book not fully formed in itself yet. But extracting the recycled elements what remains is rather fun. Adams trademark humour shines through and it's a good solid adventure. I failed to find the mysteries surprising but I presume that is my familiarity with the source material and it didn't reduce the enjoyment of their discovery.
One final element that did surprise was how likeable Dirk was, he's cheeky but I have always seem him described as unpleasant. He instead seem to be the rather standard rude genius detective combined with the loveable rogue.
While nowhere near as just-kinda-blah as the later Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books got to be, Dirk Gently's just a very meandering book that has nowhere to go, takes its time getting there, and is only occasionally worth the journey. While aspects of it were very good, it really felt like it was too in love with the title character (despite the fact that he's only introduced halfway through the book) to the point that when he's finally involved in the plot, it just screeches to a halt so we can see how wacky he is.
He's a little bit of a Zaphod type character - all madness to the people who know him, but he's got it all figured out somehow in the end!
It's a shame because before that, there were cool ideas introduced, or at least fun ideas I wish could have been taken to a more interesting conclusion. The death of Gordon Way, for example. After he dies, the writing about his adjustment to being dead was pretty engaging - he was so lost and unsure. He couldn't feel heat or cold and just kinda was. At some point he realized what he wanted most was to sleep but also realized that he couldn't. Stuff like that gave a more human and relatable aspect to being a ghost that I could get into.
Similarly, the misadventures of the Electric Monk in modern England. I mean we've all seen fish out of water stories, 3rd Rock that are all about aliens trying to deal with the weirdness of living on Earth, but the fact that this one's also a religious character based around believing anything it's told and all, there's a lot you can do there!
Which the other thing about it is that there's a lot of wildly disparate things being worked with here, and of course there was never going to be a satisfying conclusion that wrapped up: Richard and Susan's relationship issues; Richard's programming subplot; Gordon's ghost trubs; the Electric Monk being lost on earth; Michael's getting possessed; the professor who was a time traveler/could also go through space because he's basically a Doctor apparently. Dirk's whole thing is that he believe in the interconnectedness of all things, but really for the sake of the book this just means "Dirk wraps it all up super nicely in like a chapter."
Which he's then one of those super problem characters that I never particularly liked, who will just kinda happen to know what's going on and show up and be able to handle it all. He's a sort of deus ex machina. He senses all things are connected. He does things like when he doesn't know the answer, he just writes scribbles and says "I wrote the answer, it's just in a language I don't understand and now I just have to just figure out the language!" and so of course he does just that. By writing a character who's just about finding interconnections, you write a character who's just going to bring all of these coincidences together.
And he suuuuuuuuuure does. The last like 20 pages are so full of things just getting so nicely and tightly wrapped up at such speed that some plot points are brought up AND finished in these pages. Just a nice little bow on it, man.
While there is still humor in it, and I liked how some of the themes did come together, all in all it's just kind of a shrug of a book. Adams has a weak spot for writing really strong characters (though he can write excellent GIMMICK characters), but at least in Hitchhiker's, the plain every-man-ness of Arthur was something that could be appreciated. Here there's no one to really catch onto, so you're just getting the events and ideas and charm of the prose to latch onto. It's a shame, then, that it takes all the good events and ideas and just kinda pushes them to the side for the character he thought would be the breakout, and who's instead kind of the anchor that makes it all drag.
I have the second book in this series but I'm not sure I'll get to it. This book's a really pure Half Good - if I could give it a 2.5 instead I would - and while I'd guess that now that the first has been used to introduce everyone at far too long length, maybe the second can get to a further exploration of what's possible with them and we can see more? It just didn't give me a good enough hook to want to keep going. I don't regret reading it, but I still wish it had been better.
He's a little bit of a Zaphod type character - all madness to the people who know him, but he's got it all figured out somehow in the end!
It's a shame because before that, there were cool ideas introduced, or at least fun ideas I wish could have been taken to a more interesting conclusion. The death of Gordon Way, for example. After he dies, the writing about his adjustment to being dead was pretty engaging - he was so lost and unsure. He couldn't feel heat or cold and just kinda was. At some point he realized what he wanted most was to sleep but also realized that he couldn't. Stuff like that gave a more human and relatable aspect to being a ghost that I could get into.
Similarly, the misadventures of the Electric Monk in modern England. I mean we've all seen fish out of water stories, 3rd Rock that are all about aliens trying to deal with the weirdness of living on Earth, but the fact that this one's also a religious character based around believing anything it's told and all, there's a lot you can do there!
Which the other thing about it is that there's a lot of wildly disparate things being worked with here, and of course there was never going to be a satisfying conclusion that wrapped up: Richard and Susan's relationship issues; Richard's programming subplot; Gordon's ghost trubs; the Electric Monk being lost on earth; Michael's getting possessed; the professor who was a time traveler/could also go through space because he's basically a Doctor apparently. Dirk's whole thing is that he believe in the interconnectedness of all things, but really for the sake of the book this just means "Dirk wraps it all up super nicely in like a chapter."
Which he's then one of those super problem characters that I never particularly liked, who will just kinda happen to know what's going on and show up and be able to handle it all. He's a sort of deus ex machina. He senses all things are connected. He does things like when he doesn't know the answer, he just writes scribbles and says "I wrote the answer, it's just in a language I don't understand and now I just have to just figure out the language!" and so of course he does just that. By writing a character who's just about finding interconnections, you write a character who's just going to bring all of these coincidences together.
And he suuuuuuuuuure does. The last like 20 pages are so full of things just getting so nicely and tightly wrapped up at such speed that some plot points are brought up AND finished in these pages. Just a nice little bow on it, man.
While there is still humor in it, and I liked how some of the themes did come together, all in all it's just kind of a shrug of a book. Adams has a weak spot for writing really strong characters (though he can write excellent GIMMICK characters), but at least in Hitchhiker's, the plain every-man-ness of Arthur was something that could be appreciated. Here there's no one to really catch onto, so you're just getting the events and ideas and charm of the prose to latch onto. It's a shame, then, that it takes all the good events and ideas and just kinda pushes them to the side for the character he thought would be the breakout, and who's instead kind of the anchor that makes it all drag.
I have the second book in this series but I'm not sure I'll get to it. This book's a really pure Half Good - if I could give it a 2.5 instead I would - and while I'd guess that now that the first has been used to introduce everyone at far too long length, maybe the second can get to a further exploration of what's possible with them and we can see more? It just didn't give me a good enough hook to want to keep going. I don't regret reading it, but I still wish it had been better.
3.5 stars
fun, genre-bending mystery/sci-fi novel. a bit hard to follow, but that's adams for you. characters aren't very developed but the plot is interesting and sometimes a bit of mindless fun is what you need-- off to watch the tv show now!
fun, genre-bending mystery/sci-fi novel. a bit hard to follow, but that's adams for you. characters aren't very developed but the plot is interesting and sometimes a bit of mindless fun is what you need-- off to watch the tv show now!