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Dirk Gently #2

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

douglas adams

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Kate Schechter would like to know why everyone she meets knows her name - and why Thor, the Norse god of thunder, keeps showing up on her doorstep. It takes the sardonic genius of Dirk Gently, detective and refrigerator wrestler, to get to the bottom of it all. Was the passenger check-in desk at Heathrow blasting through the roof really an Act of God? (And if so, which?) What is going on at Woodshead Hospital? And why is a severed head spinning on a turntable, its body sitting amiably nearby? Only the sleuthing of Dirk Gently can uncover these mysteries, and only the absurdist wit of Douglas Adams can recount them with such relentless humor.

0 pages, Audio CD

First published October 10,1988
Series
Dirk Gently
Places
united kingdom, london england, 

This edition

Format
0 pages, Audio CD
Published
January 1, 2006 by Phoenix Audio
ISBN
9781597770088
ASIN
1597770086
Language
English
Characters More characters
  • Dirk Gently

    Dirk Gently

    Dirk Gently bills himself as a "holistic detective" who makes use of "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things" to solve the whole crime, and find the whole person. This involves running up large expense accounts and then claiming that every item ...

  • Thor

    Thor

    ...

  • Kate Schechter

    Kate Schechter

    ...

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About the author

Profile Image for douglas adams

douglas adams

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Douglas Noel Adams was an English author, humourist, and screenwriter, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG). Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy developed into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime. It was further developed into a television series, several stage plays, comics, a video game, and a 2005 feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.
Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990) and Last Chance to See (1990). He wrote two stories for the television series Doctor Who, co-wrote City of Death (1979), and served as script editor for its seventeenth season. He co-wrote the sketch "Patient Abuse" for the final episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. A posthumous collection of his selected works, including the first publication of his final (unfinished) novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.
Adams was a self-proclaimed "radical atheist", an advocate for environmentalism and conservation, and a lover of fast cars, technological innovation, and the Apple Macintosh.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
32(32%)
4 stars
32(32%)
3 stars
36(36%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
TheLazylonewolf
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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This is very hard for me, you know? I love Douglas Adams; I adore his phrasing, his word structure, and how he manages to make things seem funny,ridiculous, menacing or heartbreaking. I've loved the Hitchhiker books, and he continues to be one of the writers I care for quite immensely.

This is why rating this book as 3/5 is so sad for me, this book started off great, with plenty of intrigue and mystery, and a bunch of characters that seemed interesting and off their rockers (in other words, regular Adams fare). So, I thought I was going to love it, and I did!

But then I came to the last few chapters, and it seems like someone was on Adams's case, asking him to finish the damn book. The whole thing seems hurried, with characters jumping around and events taking place so fast that you couldn't even tell what had happened until you've read it again. His randomness, which is endearing when used carefully, is tossed about everywhere, as he ties up every single loose end in a matter of a few paragraphs.

I won't lie; I felt cheated by the end of this book, and I don't like to be cheated.
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SailorCardKnight
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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Adams' bizarre book is more of an adventure than a mystery, and more of a picaresque than an adventure. It's true, this plot wanders and is flimsy at times, but Adams always makes up for it with clever insights and hilarious jokes. Minor events mushroom at the end to unexpected relevance, a very bold literary move that would be a sign of laziness if these moves didn't work and we didn't recognize Adams' competence as a writer from the execution of his humor throughout. Fantasy readers and Adams' fans will have an easier time with some of the leaps in logic (such as what happens to a god when nobody believes in it), and most readers shouldn't expect a hardline plot after the first hundred pages of inaction and wild action. You go along with Adams because of his creativity, exhibited in such things as derogatory horoscopes, depressed deities and a philosophical calculater. His writing style is so absurd that, unless you don't hitch onto the entertainment value and profound ramifications, you ought to appreciate the absurd plotting that works as its product.
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sacora
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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(See another version of this review on my blog: http://examinedworlds.blogspot.com/20...)

Typical inspired zaniness from Douglas Adams! While I still think the Hitchhiker's Guide books are my favorites, there are some great things about the Dirk Gently books. Dirk himself is an absent-minded savant versus the everyman ordinariness of Arthur Dent; funny things happen to Dent, but Gently is often the source of the humor in these books.

In this second book, we get more on the idea that all things are interconnected, which is a hilarious idea if you think about it. The new character, Kate, just wants to get a pizza delivered in London and makes some hilariously fortuitous bath soap purchases.

We also get the idea that the Norse gods have fallen on hard times since nobody believes in them anymore, which is perhaps a reflection of Adams's atheism in real life: if you think about it, who would really want to be a god when you can have clean linen? Perhaps the simple, mortal life isn't so bad, and you don't need to go on hankering after something more grandiose. The universe is a pretty grandiose place as it is, albeit somewhat less so with Adams's untimely passing in 2001.
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NigmaShady
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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“The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks.”



So the title The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Souli s so fantastic! And the randomness, quirkiness and interesting meditations of Douglas Adams's detective, Dirk Gently, matches the tone set by that title. The novel even features the Norse Gods in the modern world (reminding me of Neil Gaiman's American Gods). Definitely a different take on Thor than you'll see in the superhero movies. The mystery/plot(s) are less the point here than simply taking the journey. In that respect, there's a commonality with Adams' more famous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Getting to the restaurant at the end of the universe, for instance, is more important than the destination. For me, the randomness can be too random at times and not at all connected to plot, but again, I know that wasn't the point. I enjoyed! 3.75 stars.

“It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport.”
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its_yeeshu_69
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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This is not one of Adams’ best. I sincerely hope it’s his worst because if there is a worse novel by him out there, it must be atrocious.

An explosion at an airport leads to the involvement of the world’s unfunniest detective on a barely coherent case that consists, as usual with Dirk Gently, of him doing absolutely nothing. I was going to write “and the inevitable solution of the case” but I can’t even remember there being a solution. I didn’t even care by the end.

By this point in the author’s life, it seems Adams had used up all his humour. Much of what passes as humorous is fairly banal. I think I saw something funny once but I’ve now forgotten which page it was on so you’ll just have to dig for it yourself.

I think this is such a shame. Adams was a comic genius and one of the most original comic thinkers that the UK produced in the 20th century. The original Dirk Gently novel had some memorable moments, but the sequel is, as sequels so often are, only useful insofar as it makes the original look good. Knowing Adams, that may have been the point.

If you’re not an Adams fan, I wouldn’t bother with this. There are a lot of better books out there. If you are an Adams fan, I wouldn’t bother either. There are a lot of better books by Adams out there.
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RikiMeistr
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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Ok? I guess?
Its not BAD, its just.... ehhh?
Some bits were good some were bad, some were just plain and boring
I felt like maybe the book was too short? like suddenly at 80% EVERYTHING happens
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PetiteAni
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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Sarò subito sincero: se avessi letto questo libro in solitaria, molto probabilmente il voto sarebbe stato un 2 (e quindi grazie Chiara).

Ma la verve e l'assurdo umorismo di Adams ben si prestano a una lettura in compagnia: ci vuole una spalla all'altezza, per apprezzare appieno le tante insensatezze che costellano questo strampalatissimo romanzo.
Sono inoltre ragionevolmente certo che l'incomprensibilità di quasi tutto ciò che è scritto qua dentro può condurre a voli pindarici più o meno costruttivi. Affrontare in due tali cervellotiche elucubrazioni, con buona probabilità concorrerà a limitare l'emicrania derivante dalla lettura. Siete avvisati.

Il talento di Adams nel piazzare scene completamente slegate tra loro senza soluzione di continuità, per poi ricollegare tutti i fili, è sicuramente unico. Purtroppo ho trovato che in questo caso l'autore si sia fatto prendere troppo la mano, lasciando il lettore totalmente spaesato fino alle ultimissime pagine (anzi, anche oltre...). Per riuscire a cogliere tutti i rimandi e le scene apparentemente senza senso, questo libro necessiterebbe probabilmente di ben più di una lettura. Ma questo ha reso la prima un po' troppo ostica, per essere considerata totalmente piacevole.

Io adoro l'umorismo e l'inventiva scatenata di questo scrittore (la Guida Galattica è probabilmente uno dei miei libri preferiti), ma in questo caso (come nei capitoli meno ispirati della saga principale) ho notato notevoli alti e bassi, con capitoli riuscitissimi ed estremamente gradevoli, alternati ad altri decisamente sottotono e forzati, sia come comicità che come lunghezza.

Un punto a favore è segnato grazie ai personaggi: Dirk Gently e compagnia (fino ai personaggi più marginali e secondari) sono caratterizzati in maniera originale e godibile. Dal protagonista fino all'ultima delle "comparse", ognuno è a suo modo memorabile e inserito in scene e dialoghi davvero surreali e spassosi.

In definitiva ho trovato La lunga oscura pausa caffè dell'anima eccessivamente disorganico (per quanto questa mancanza di ordine sia assolutamente voluta e costruita sapientemente) e disomogeneo in quanto a qualità e a divertimento generato. Ciò non toglie che sia stata sicuramente un'esperienza interessante, nella sua completa e totalizzante follia.

Il mio consiglio è questo: se non conoscete Douglas Adams, provate prima di tutto  tGuida galattica per gli autostoppisti (Guida galattica per gli autostoppisti, #1)  o  Dirk Gently, agenzia investigativa olistica (Dirk Gently #1) . Se apprezzate quelli, potrete trovare qualcosa di positivo anche in questo libro. Altrimenti rivolgetevi altrove: ne va della vostra salute psicofisica!
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thinker25
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 31,2025
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The one and only sequel to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is funnier, at least in the first half, and no less eccentric than its predecessor. A favorite highlight here is the female lead character attempting to explain the concept of "humor" to the director of a psychiatric institute.
Unfortunately in the second half humor is all but forgotten as Adams attempts to satisfactorily tie together all the crazy plot elements - attacking eagles, stubborn vending machines, murderous demons, bumbling Norse gods, etc. - with some measure of coherency, and succeeds only to a degree.
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