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.

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.

(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.

“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.”

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.

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

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!

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.

I had to re-read this because I'm insane but I'm happy to be so because I still loved it.

Total truth time: it's not quite as funny or as sharp in the individual zinger lines as Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, but the long-running story gags are fantastically wicked and cruel and even profoundly sad.

It's also more of an adventure tale for Dirk later on, but primarily, it's all a mystery. Sometimes, the plot is as much of a mystery, too, but I don't care. :) After the rising of new gods in Asgard and the fate of soooo many pebbles, and the dark, dark fate of a Coke machine, who really cares? The novel is brilliant and creative and so darkly funny. It's enough to make me despair for modern literature, and this came out in '88!

Here's another awesome tidbit. It's the novel that I first thought of when I first read American Gods. All the greatness of seeing Odin on the page or Thor blowing up an airport is all here and the characterizations are brilliant.

Can I even say that it's even more brilliant after knowing the legends much better? You bet I can! I read this when I was 14 years old the first time and let's be frank... I didn't know crap. I learned most of what I knew about Thor from this book and the fact that there was some silly Marvel comic that I wasn't even tempted to read was about it. And now? Soooooo Nice! :) Even the little In-Jokes about the gods are all here. It's a bit more erudite than I expected it to be. :)

But it's also so funny! Do I love eagles even more now? You bet! Am I even more annoyed with Yuppies? You bet! Do I want to run out and get some 300 count sheets and snuggle in them, perhaps get an eyepatch and avoid big strapping men with hammers? You bet!

Poor Dirk. I have to admit that his Horoscope is always dead-on. :)

My one complaint is that there wasn't a whole series made out of this. I still wonder just how amazingly cool it could have been to have a full bookcase full of these and point to it as the most amazing thing EVAH.

*sigh*

Some authors just overflow with goodness. Douglas Adams was one of them. *sigh*

I am not going to write a full review of this book.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently #2) by Douglas Adams just hasn't quite worked for me as much as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. While this is a solid story I definitely preferred the full cast dramatization I listened to for book one. I would like to try the tv adaptation one day in the future.

[Short review from memory until I re-read at a later date]

(Memories of this is that it was extremely funny and very enjoyable. I can't imagine why I only gave it three stars, but there must have been a reason. In my head Dirk will always look like Stephen Mangan now.)