Ο Ντερκ Τζέντλυ είναι μια ευχάριστη έκπληξη!
Φαντάζομαι ότι για την υπόθεση δεν μπόρούν να γραφούν πολλά όχι λόγω σποϊλερ όσο λόγω του ότι η υπόθεση του εκτείνεται ταυτόχρονα σε διαφορετικούς χρόνους και τόπους και η εμφάνιση των πρωταγωνιστών σε αυτά τα χωροχρονικά σημεία επηρεάζει την προηγούμενη και τη μελοντική εξέλιξη του έργου. Είναι και αυτή η βρετανική τηλεφωνική εταιρία που δεν παρέχει ικανοποιητικές υπηρεσίες όταν διασπάται το χωροχρονικό συνεχές, είναι και ο Σρόντιγκερ με τη γάτα του, υπολογιστικά συστήματα, καλόγεροι που πιστεύουν για να μη χρειάζεται να το κάνουμε εμείς και ...
Το βρήκα εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρον και σίγουρα ο Adams θα έχει και συνέχεια γιατί σίγουρα δε μπαίνει στους συνηθισμένους συγγραφείς αλλά ούτε και στους επιτηδευμένα παράξενους!

La prima parola che mi viene in mente per descrivere questo libro e': cazzeggio. Solo cosi' penso possa essere definito un romanzo del genere. Non l'ho capito? Puo' darsi! Non l'ho apprezzato? Ancora piu' probabile! Se si escludesse la buona vena ironica (british direbbe qualcuno) che prosegue per tutta la narrazione, rimarrebbe ben poco. Solo la simpatia (sprecata) dei due personaggi principali impedisce di passare dal cazzeggio alla cazzata.

4 1/2 stars

Douglas Adam's humour and quirky style is on full display in this delightfully convoluted and complex novel that really has to be re-read to be fully appreciated. A realistic approach is probably to waive all thoughts of a clear understanding on your first go through and just enjoy it for laughs. I certainly did.

The gem of a book brings together aliens, electric monks, ghosts, dead poets, crazy Cambridge professors, possibly insane detectives, a long suffering girlfriend who I thought was fantastic and a plot which doesn't proceed in a strictly linear fashion just to add to the confusion.

Like I said though, don't worry about it making sense on the first go through.

Edit: Reread and upgraded my rating very slightly to 4 1/2 stars

n  Stavolta non ci sarebbero stati testimoni.
Stavolta c'era solo la terra morta, un rombo di tuono e l'inizio di quell'interminabile pioggerellina da Nordest che sembra accompagnare buona parte degli eventi cruciali di questo mondo.n

Se è vero che l'incipit di un romanzo sia fondamentale, in quanto già riesce a metterti in sintonia con le corde di tutta la narrazione, quello di Douglas Adams è la perfezione. L'empatia tra me e Dirk Gently è iniziata subito, dalla prima pagina, tanto da domandarmi se io e tutta questa storia non fossimo destinate ad incontrarci, per via della fondamentale interconnessione di tutte le cose.
L'investigatore più assurdo di tutta la storia dei possibili investigatori che la letteratura abbia mai prodotto (e di tizi strambi ne sono usciti fuori parecchi), nasce dallo strano connubio di fantascienza, giallo ed umorismo; quello che ne esce fuori è Dirk Gently, descritto talmente sommariamente nell'aspetto fisico - tanto che non ne abbiamo che una confusa e poco delineata idea - quanto minuziosamente dal punto di vista caratteriale per farcelo apparire come assolutamente fuori di testa.
Ammetto che alcuni punti della trama mi hanno lasciato un po' di perplessità, ma sono curiosa di scoprire cosa si nasconde tra le pagine dei volumi successivi. Lettura assolutamente consigliata, se non altro per lo strano alternarsi di comicità e riflessioni di una profondità commovente.
In verità è una mente rara quella che può rendere ciò che finora non esisteva di una ovvietà accecante.

In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn
A science fiction book decree
With plot purloined from Doctor Who
A cross between a witches' brew
And a nice cup of tea.

So several chapters serially were wrote
Until the text was finished, good and whole
A sovereign remedy or antidote
Against the long dark teatime of the soul

And there were geeks who answered alien prayers
While moving house accompanied by their boxes
And there were sofas stuck upon the stairs
In curious angles causing paradoxes.

But oh! the changes made to history
A tricky deed for any witch or warlock
Even when travelling by time machine
And claiming to be resident in Porlock

A ghost and an Electric Monk in a dream I saw apart
They were the most eccentric pair
I've come across 'most anywhere
But still they touched my heart

If I could piece together
The fragments I find now
Then all around would marvel
And open-mouthed avow

Weave a circle round him thrice
And never mind his extra head
For he of Adams books has read
And fables heard from Paradise

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.

Ég er auðvitað rosa partial til þáttanna með Elijah Wood (

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.

Adams, author of the bafflingly popular The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series as well as this whimsical genre-buster and its sequel, seems to have mastered the oximoronic art of writing funny books that are actually not very funny at all. There are some wacky English characters who fall somewhere on a spectrum between Jeeves and Fat Charlie's brother Spider, and an unusual plot which plods along aimlessly and manages to make 260 pages feel like 1000, and you may smirk a couple of times but actual laughs are unlikely. Don't feel bad if you get confused by the end; Adams himself said: "All I can say is that it was as clear as day to me when I wrote it and now I can't figure it out myself."

I liked this a lot more than I expected to. I had read the author’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about 20 years ago and, while I remember finding it mildly amusing and clever at times, I also found it too unrealistically silly to take seriously and didn’t much care for it. My memory of that book is too fuzzy for me to say if this book is significantly different in style, or if I’ve just become more tolerant of the type of humor. I do think Pratchett’s Discworld series taught me how to enjoy silly books now and then.

I really didn’t find this book overly silly, though. It was very funny and I giggled madly through quite a bit of it, but the humor mostly felt like an integral part of the story. In the past, I've had more trouble when the story just feels like a vehicle for the humor. The electric monk was the only part I considered to be completely absurd, but he was funny so I forgave him. :)

This is a science fiction story, set mostly in the present day on our world at around the time it was published in 1987. A computer programmer named Richard seems to be having a lot of strange things happen lately. There’s a couch stuck in the stairwell to his flat that nobody can figure out how to move up or down, he has an odd visit with a former university counselor, and a rather shocking experience while he’s driving, and so on. If I attempt to give any more detail than that, I think it would spoil the story.

There are a lot of different elements packed into a fairly short book, but it was all coherent and easy to follow for the most part. I did think the resolution was very fuzzy. I understood the gist of it, but I think it was stretching things a little and failed to take into account other possibilities. Overall though, I enjoyed the book and I loved the humor.

It's funny, I thought I had read this before--I'd bought a used copy years ago and had kept it on my shelf fondly along with the Hitchhikers Guide books. And then I started to "re-read" it for book club, and a) hated the first chapter (about the Electric Monk) and b) realized that I never had read it before, probably because I read the first chapter and was like "wtf is this" and put it down FOREVER.

I'm glad that I persevered this time around, though, because it really is a fun and clever story.

(I probably still don't like it as much as the Hitchhikers Guide books but that's fine.)

4 stars