Interlude: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Kate Schechter is running late for her flight from London to Oslo when her check-in desk at Heathrow erupts in a ball of flame. As Kate recovers from her injuries in hospital she briefly encounters the strange Nordic man who had held her up in the queue, miraculously unharmed despite being at the centre of the blast. Meanwhile Dirk Gently, holistic detective, sleeps in and misses an early appointment with his new client, a man convinced a green-eyed monster with a scythe is coming to collect on a contract - a man who has been decapitated in a locked room...

This was a quicker read than the first Dirk Gently book, possibly because there are fewer plot threads. There's one main storyline, though just like in the original, they don't all get resolved and combined until a handful of pages from the end.

Let's be clear: I like this book. It's fun. But it feels unfinished; there's a plot in here, yes, but there's not really a story with a beginning middle and end. Ideas are introduced and then forgotten about: early on Dirk discovers his deceased client has a young boy living in his attic, who breaks Dirk's nose, but we never find out any more about the boy. He discovers a vital clue - an envelope - at the same time, and then for no particular reason waits for most of the book to open it. Then, too, there aren't many clues as to the nature of some of the mysterious objects encountered; they're explained at the end, but there's no way to determine what they are by yourself beforehand. The main antagonists are almost throwaway characters, given exactly one scene of any substance and then dispatched (again in the last few pages) without ceremony.

Dirk at least shows up early this time out, and since he's actively investigating the events, has a much more active role than in the previous book. He's almost as unlikeable, but much more relatable; his tricks and misdirections much more commonplace.

Thankfully we have Kate Schechter. She's an interesting character, a good example of Adams' ability to write interesting women without resorting to cliché; she's likeable, has quirks we can get a handle on, and frankly investigates things in a much more satisfying manner than the actual detective in the book. She doesn't have any other women to talk to (all of Adams' books fail the Bechdel Test for the same reason), but at least she doesn't fall in love with either of the male leads: she is wary of Dirk, and though is intrigued by Thor (the actual god, and the man at the check-in desk) she's never taken in by his charms.

But even Kate is abandoned once her part in driving the narrative is done, though that part seems a little arbitrary. It's never clear why Thor seeks her out, and he leaves her behind when he rushes off tofinally confront his father Odin - but then that doesn't really pan out either. I said the book doesn't have a beginning middle and end; what it has is a beginning, which is good, a middle, which is good, and then an anticlimax, which technically explains most of what's been going on, but leaves you unsatisfied.

The Dirk Gently books are a stab from Adams at writing a more traditional narrative, and remain laced with his great humour and clever ideas, but really they're probably the best evidence that as a novelist, he made a great writer of non-fiction. I love his work dearly, but I can't honestly say this is a great novel; it's very funny, and has great ideas, and I'll read it again some day and enjoy it, but the detecting is too slow, the resolution too sudden, and the bits left out too annoying for it to be on top of anyone's reading list.

But I still miss you, Douglas. I would love to know what you'd have written next. Well, aside from Mostly Harmless and (possibly) The Salmon of Doubt, I mean.

Interlude: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Richard MacDuff, the software genius behind a program that turns corporate accounts into theme music, returns to old college at the behest of Reg, an eccentric old professor. He is startled to find a horse in the bathroom of Reg's rooms, then horrified that he forgot to pickup his girlfriend Susan, sister of his employer, and finally moved to climb up the wall to Susan's flat and sneak in to steal the answering machine tape on which he's left an embarrassing message. But all of that is just the beginning of a strange web of coincidences which will require the services of a certain holistic detective.  

I was inspired to read this again by the upcoming BBC series, and also recently re-reading the first Hitchhikers novel for the first time in years. On a recent trip to visit my parents I retrieved my 1989 paperback edition from my grandmother's shed, along with a bunch of other stuff I intend to get around to re-reading, and all my various editions of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. (At last count, I own five (soon to be six) of the first novel, three of the second and third, and two of the last two. Add an extra if you count the first volume of the terrible comic book adaptation; I don't.) I first read this book around the age of 10, and I was a bit young to take it all in properly, so it was a great pleasure to revisit.

Things I noticed this time around:

• The plot is much more coherent that I recall, though a few bits - notably the electric monk and the murder of Gordon Way - seem a little left in the cold compared to the main narrative. The main bits are still clearly cribbed from two of Adams' Doctor Who scripts - mostly City of Death, with a bit of Shada thrown in for flavour - but it's really just the skeleton that's been robbed.
• Dirk himself isn't mentioned until Chapter Six, where we get Richard's version of his backstory; we don't encounter him at all until Chapter Fourteen, when he's a voice on a telephone; and we don't meet him in person until Chapter Sixteen. Once he arrives, however, he is the force that propels us to the conclusion, though frankly it's hard to get a handle on him and Richard is the real protagonist, inasmuch as the book has one. Dirk's fun, but it's hard to imagine him being the main character; I'll have to re-read The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul to remember how he fares there.
• While there are some great funny lines in here, the book is remarkably serious; this is much less frivolous than Hitchhikers. Whole passages are amusing but grim, or amusing but poignant, and the greater grounding in reality gives the characters more weight. It's not just Arthur Dent rattling about reacting to an insane universe; there are only two truly eccentric characters, and everyone else is real and flawed.
• The conclusion feels...rushed. Even knowing the basics of it, it seems half-finished, and I was amazed to find myself 20 pages from the end before a climax. And indeed, the conclusion seems to skip the climax entirely, going from crisis to having tea after the resolution in the space of a paragraph or two. Indeed, how the protagonists save the day is merely hinted at; the specifics are not revealed. It's a terrible way to end an otherwise excellent book.

So great fun, but flawed. I can't imagine, based on the novel, how a television series about Dirk can possibly work, unless they invent new stories using just the idea of the character. Even then we're going to need someone who isn't Dirk around, because - while enjoyable - he's more-or-less an insufferable prat, despite his dubious talents. But I'll leave you with my favourite gag, from page 109:

What kind of tie would you wear if you were a private detective? Presumably it would have to be exactly the sort of tie that people wouldn't expect private detectives to wear. Imagine having to sort out a problem like that when you'd just got up.