Having listened to this book a second time, I now (I think) understand it.
But I'm not sure if that's a good thing. When I was more hazy on the plot and conclusion, this book seemed a whole lot more impressive to me.
I enjoyed it. Of course I did. It's Douglas Adams, but now that I understand the story (mostly), it feels like it falls a little flat.
It feels like it's missing that little something that propels it into 3d, multidimensional wonder.
The story feels too simple- which is hilarious to me because when I first listened to it, it seemed super complicated!
The issues I had were in the storyline, but the characters in this book were amazing.

Douglas Adams is great at writing these hilariously quirky characters that you fall in love with.
There is the Arthur- esque Richard Mcduff who gets caught up in all of the mayhem, the wacky professor Reg, who may or may not be older than he looks (a little inside joke for you if you've read the books), and, of course, Dirk Gently (or Svlad Gelli, depends who you ask) in all his glory as a private investigator, running his holistic detective agency and being wonderfully absurd.
There are also great supporting characters, such as Dirk’s secretary, Janice Pearce, who doesn't work for him anymore due to not being paid, but sticks around to make sure he realises that fact, by answering the detective agency's phone like this, n  ”Good afternoon she said, Wayne Wright's brute emporium, Mr Wayne Wright is not able to take calls at this time, since he is not right in the head, and thinks he's a cucumber, thank you for calling.”n


Dirk as a character is brilliant. n  ”There is no point in using the word 'impossible' to describe something that has clearly happened.”n

I liked Reg and Richard too, though.
What was really interesting about this book for me was when we are introduced to Dirk's viewpoint of the n  ”interconnectedness of all things”n, it's a classic Adams viewpoint, something that sounds wildly silly, yet can be interpreted to crop up a lot in real life, which gives it a bit of an edge.

n  n    "Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible."n  n

The narrator of this audiobook is very good and did all the characters very well.

Definitely give this a listen/read if you want something crazy, imaginative, and full of humour, even if it doesn't quite wrap up well enough at the end.




Some of my favourite moments:

When Reg finds a horse in his bathroom at the college with Richard.

n  n    ”A horse?’
’Yes it is,' said the Professor. 'Wait—' he motioned to Richard, who was about to go out again and investigate— 'let it be. It won't be long.'
Richard stared in disbelief. 'You say there's a horse in your bathroom, and all you can do is stand there naming Beatles songs?'
The professor looked blankly at him."n  n

I now know that Isaac Newton invented the cat flap!

n  n    "Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"

"The what?" said Richard.

"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity, and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ..."

"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."

"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissed shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." ... "You see?" he said, dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap ... ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see."n  n

First read

⭐️ 4.2
this book is so crazy I don't even know where to start with a review...
There are so many good ideas in this book. It's all so wonderfully crazy and silly.
I really enjoyed this book, but at the same time, it was pretty confusing.


my review of:
The long dark teatime of the soul


⭐3.5
14+
cws: spookyness, ghosts, guns

Lectura con el grupo 221 b Baker street



Falta de ritmo, largos tramos aburridos, personajes muy poco interesantes, pasajes largos desconectados casi por completo de la trama principal y un misterio falto de elementos para interesar al lector son la formula para el desastre de este libro.

En la ficción hay algunos recursos que son díficiles de trabajar, a mi parecer uno de los más complicados son los viajes en el tiempo, no importa cuanto humor le imprimas, y vaya que Adams le pone mucho, este puede llevar a estrellarte y aquí simplemente no funciona, no tanto porque este mal manejado sino porque terminá sin desarrollarse, le faltán páginas para hacer que realmente sirva al punto de que se siente como si el libro hubiese terminado a la mitad de la historia.

La mayoría de los personajes me daban igual y si bien Dirk fue un personaje que me agrado y del que quería conocer más no aparece hasta pasada la mitad del libro y, con él, comienzan a suceder cosas que podían ser interesantes pero que al final no se desarrollan lo suficiente como para levantar la historia y al final sólo dejan la sensación de que las cosas se pusieron raras.

Al final para mi la historia no funciona y es interesante en un 30% pero el resto es malo, inconcluso y con un humor extremadamente forzado por momentos.

n  "Creamos lo increíble. Hagamos lo imposible."n

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.

I recently re-read Dirk Gently, since the first time I read it was in the seventh or eighth grade, and so I really didn't remember much of it. I must say it is absolutely fantastic. It is one of the few books which as I read it I was imagining what you could do for a film version. I think it would be a fantastic work to bring to the big screen, particularly after the modest success of Hitchhiker's...

That said, I love Douglas Adams. The man was a genius at creating characters, and the Gently series might be more endeared to me than the Hitchhiker's.

Maybe I'm not in the right mood for Douglas Adams, because I didn't enjoy this as much as The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I found the writing funny, but it just wasn't cracking me up, y'know? Might give it another go someday.

Also, they really spit on the source material in the BBC America TV adaption. The only things they have in common is the name Dirk Gently (Show Dirk is very different from Book Dirk in both appearance and personality) and the time travel element. They didn't even use time travel the same way. Like, couldn't you name your show something else rather than try to mooch off Adams's name?

To be honest this is the first time I have read Douglas Adams Dirk Gently books and I have to say it was more of a challange than I was expecting. Now I know that Douglas Adams is famous for his Hitch-Hikers series which took absurdist science fiction to new heights (am sure the more scholarly out there will tell me what the correct term is) but that is such a well know and loved story - that it can almost tell itself.

However with Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency I felt that the absurdity was cranked up a little too high - part of the early story I struggled to follow as they seem to jump around far too much either in subject or dialogue or in some cases location.

Now true it does all come together and form a cohesive story and quite a fun one to be honest however it took its time and that was a struggle. I agree with many readers out there if a story does not "click" then move on - after all there are far too many books out there to waste on those you do not enjoy and this book did skate very close to that however it pulled it back just as quickly.

Will I read the next in the series - probably but I am going to have to build up to it so do not expect it any time soon.

I reread this with the Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club this month and really enjoyed it. It's not as laugh-out-loud funny as the Hitchhiker's Guide books, but it's delightfully weird, and I love the way everything wraps up.

1988 The plot gets a bit muddled at the end, but I dearly love this book. And the sofa.***Sept 10, 2012This may be one of the few books that is more rewarding to re-read. Now all those random scenes make sense.In fact, my reading pal at the mini mart and I were talking yesterday about how hard it can be to read Adams the first time. That you have to just stick with it, and hope it makes sense at the end. [It won't, it'll still be muddled nonsense, but it'll be funny nonsense] This reading what I particularly enjoyed were all the bits about music and computers and cats. These may have been my favorite bits before, but I failed to record that. I also particularly noticed the idea of extinction, echoed in Last Chance to See.And the sofa issue.Personal copy

Look, I really loved the Hitchhiker series, and I quite enjoyed this one, but my general impression is that it feels a bit... dated, especially in the humor. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun romp, and some of the things it's trying to say are eternal.

I listened to it on audiobook and it was quite fun! It really started to pick up near the mid point and then it barreled through, full force, to the end. Richard was very much the straight man protagonist (in the comedy sense, though in the hetero sense as well). And... did I like Dirk Gently? I'm not sure! He's kind of a dick and I particularly hated how he didn't pay his secretary, what a shitty boss!

One particular highlight was Richard's article on music and measuring soundwaves, and how there is a lot of beauty in that. I didn't like how he called Susan 'hysterical' near the end. I also didn't like the cops joking about cop violence, that was a very very dated joke.

I did enjoy everything coming together at the end and, like I said, there were some pretty good observations on humans and their behavior. I will read The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul (mostly because this pen pal sent it to me probably 18 years ago and I never read it, oops).

This book was nothing like I expected, but at the same time I wasn't surprised. It's very reminiscent of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, however it's different enough to be it's own thing.

The detective aspect of the story is very minimal and the plot is strange, but it has the chaotic cleverness that Douglas Adams is so good at, and it made me laugh out loud several times. I'm glad I read it, and I'll definitely read the sequel.

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

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