Ég er auðvitað rosa partial til þáttanna með Elijah Wood (

Started with promise but was ultimately too scattered and not funny enough to be great. The whole part about Dirk's background and real name seemed unnecessary. And ultimately Dirk pans out as a pretty minor character. I'm a much bigger fan of his Hitchhiker books. This one was just marginally okay.

RTC. Bookclub book of the month September.

Funny - I enjoyed this!

I HATE THE WAY BBC TREATED DOUGLAS ADAMS. This guy deserved his own show, but they even didn't let him make his own DW stories in peace: "wE rAn OuT oF mOnEy" "yOu CaNt Go To PaRiS" etc.

This book is basically a doctor who story named Shada, that they never got to complete because MONEY! Also, the ending was kinda (spoilers!) Like the ending of City of Death (another DW episode that Adams wrote). And sure he didn't explain EVERYTHING at the end, but srsly, it was obvious. And I loved how the story was full of pieces that at first seems like they had nothing to do with each other, but at the end they all came togethet and made a whole picture. Adams was really brilliant in that way.

I wish Adams was still around to at least write in modern era of DW

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.

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.

Probably best to already be a Douglas Adams fan before trying this one. You have to appreciate his absurdity and accept that much of the story won't make sense in the traditional way of a novel. Parts of this are pretty darned hilarious, and the characters are memorable.

Just noticed I'd never marked this as read.

This and it's sequel remains my favourite of Adams books. Just... Perfect

Might be time for my bi-decade reread

‘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...

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.

2.5

So, I picked this up because it was a BotM in one of my groups and I was in the mood for something light and funny. I wanted real laugh-out-loud kind of humor, but, unfortunately, I thought there were only a few chuckles or wry grins, but I don't think one single vocal laugh in the whole book. Well, not for me, anyway. And most of the humor was towards the beginning and started petering out as it progressed, so... yeah...

As for the story itself - it's an odd little thing in which we don't actually meet the title character until a bit more than halfway through (or at least that's what it seemed), and while he was kind of interesting I just didn't care all that much about the overall story.

The one character that I wanted to see more of was the Electric Monk and his horse (ok, I guess that's two characters), but after they served their purpose, so to speak, we don't see all that much of them, and that was disappointing.

Overall not a terrible story, but I'd hoped for so much more than random zaniness which felt forced in places and often disconnected.

Meh.