94 of 97 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hitchhiker's Guide to Reality, March 30, 2001
This review is from: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Mass Market Paperback)
This book, and its predecessor "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", are heavily under-rated due to the major success of the Hitch Hiker "trilogy" by Douglas Adams. But in a way, they're the better ones. Especially this one.
I won't bother telling the story, because frankly I cannot. Now, I've been reading this book in about monthly intervals for years, but I still find something new each time, and I still have trouble keeping track of the story. Don't let that keep you, though. Yes, it *is* mildly confusing, but it all works out after a couple of times of reading, and it's great fun from first time, page one. Besides, it's worth the effort: there's many a topic for an evening of thinking in there.
But that's not what you buy it for.
Then there's the business of the Norse Gods walking the Earth, just like your average John Smith. Sort of. Thor naturally makes more of a nuisance of himself, but anyway, the notion of everything that the human race ever chose to believe in being true, and staying true long after we've ceased to need it to be true as well, is an astonishingly moving one. "Immortals was what you wanted, and immortals was what you got", complains one of them bitterly. And rightly so. What would you do if you were an immortal, omnipotent being whom no-one believes in anymore? Chances are, you'd sell your immortal soul to appear in a soft-drink commercial. Once you accept the fantasy part of it, it all snaps in place with logical precision, and even going to Asgard becomes an accepted way to spend the evening.
But that's also not what you buy it for.
The most outstandingly entertaining thing about the book is, of course, the humour, which is more like what you buy it for. Douglas Adams is an expert for making a pun in a couple of words and leave you laughing longer, and louder, than many other humourists could in an entire page. The incredible lightness of it all is only apparent if you ever tried to write humourous stuff yourself, and thus know how hard that is. No wonder that there are so precious few books from this author. And no wonder that many try to emulate him, and fail.
Still, this isn't entirely comedy, and that's a good thing, too. Yes, the Hitch Hiker books give a couple of insights into Life, the Universe and Everything as well -- but the Gently books give more of it, and more practically applicable examples of it, even to those of you who know where their towels are.
One of my favourite examples is the way that one of the (mortal) key characters, Kate Schechter, explains how her name is spelled: "Two E's, two C's, two H's, and also a T, an R and an S. Provided they're all there, the bank won't be fuzzy about the order they come in -- they never seem to know themselves." Okay, it's funny, but there's more to it than that: it's the kind of humour you can only really understand with a name like hers -- or mine --, which makes me wonder how someone with an instantly spellable name like Douglas Adams, of all people, found out about it.
All in all, this is everything you could want: Hugely entertaining, but in an intelligent way, and not boring however many times you take to it. A must-have-read!
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Adams' best so far?, February 16, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Mass Market Paperback)
Most people seem to prefer the more obvious slapstick of the early Hitchhiker's books, but I've found myself enjoying Adams more and more as he's matured. Many of the situations in this book are outrageous and silly, and there are plenty of the one-liners that are Adams' trademark ("It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression 'As pretty as an airport,'" the book begins) but there are very few passages intended solely for the purpose of eliciting a laugh. Everything's integral to the story, and it all makes sense in the end, although Adams doesn't hand you the answer on a silver platter. This novel is part social commentary, part Rubik's Cube (how DO those piecses fit together, anyway?), and part humor. It took me several re-readings to get the bit about the concentric circles on the eagle's wings, but it was worth it. If you enjoy exercising your mind through the contemplation of the absurd, you'll enjoy reading -- and re-reading -- "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul."
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wacky and Fun But Missing Something at the End, February 19, 2004
Kate Schechter should have taken the signs the universe was trying to give her. That's what she tells herself as she shows up at the airport for a trip to Norway in spite of all the warnings. Still, she is unprepared for the check in desk to be blown through the roof just after she misses her flight.
Meanwhile, Dirk Gently has hit a low. He has almost no money and no clients. Except the one he's forgotten about who promptly gets himself killed. Now Dirk feels responsible for not taking this guy's claims serious and wants to track down the green eyed monster. As if that weren't enough, he and his cleaning lady are having a war over who will open his fridge first, an out of order soda machine keeps appearing and disappearing, and he's being stalked by an eagle. What these seemingly unrelated events have to do with each other provides plenty of wacky entertainment.
I am still only mildly familiar with the books of Douglas Adams, and I simply must correct that. This fantasy novel was wonderfully strange and entertaining. The opening bits about the airport and Kate's trip had me laughing out loud. The laughs slowed down over the course of the book, but they were still plentiful. Maybe it's my normal reading of mysteries, but my only real complaint was an ending that was really more confusing then enlightening of what had gone on before.
Actually, I listened to the audio version of this book, read by the author. These can be hit or miss, depending on the author. Douglas Adams did an exceptional job of reading, throwing just the right tones and inflections in for the best effect. About the only complaint on this part was that the scene changes were so sudden and abrupt that it could confuse you for a few seconds even when you're paying attention.
Whether you get your hands on the audio version of stick with the traditional print version, this is a wonderful title sure to entertain. I must move more of his books higher up my to be read pile.
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