  |
||||||
|
|
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (Book Review)© Christopher B. Jones
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul When we last left super sleuth Dirk Gently he had just uncovered a time-traveler, taken on an alien, and saved life as we know it. And the fee? No Charge. So how can he top that? By taking on God, of course. But which god? In this hilarious sequel to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams's hero continues his holistic ways and stumbles onto an incredible secret: Norse gods are living amongst us. But that's not all. There's also some business about a contract, a hit single, a psychotic eagle, and a Coca-Cola vending machine. As always, Adams has managed to gather a large collection of trifles and assemble them into a hilarious, engrossing story. A quiet war between said detective and his cleaning lady over his dirty refrigerator may sound boring, but there's something about nothing that just sucks you in. Look at Seinfeld. When Dirk spends an entire chapter looking for a pack of cigarettes, you actually find yourself turning the pages to see where the search leads him next. I called this a sequel, but actually The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul has little to do with the first book. OK... there are a few carry-overs—his feisty secretary is here, as is his holistic approach to investigation. But as a whole this is an entirely different story, and a more delightful one at that. The holistic bit is not played up quite as much as it was in the first book, and it's a real pity. Dirk's slogan, "We solve the whole crime. We find the whole body. Phone today for a whole solution to your problem," is still burned into my mind. In Tea-time the references to his holistic methods mostly take the form of acts rather than sermons delivered to clients. His driving method, where he chooses a car that appears to know where it is going and then follows it until it reaches its destination, for example, relies heavily on the principle. While he rarely ends up where he wanted to go, he does usually end up somewhere he needed to be. Or at least somewhere more interesting than where he was headed. But even without the heavy focus on the interconnectedness of all things, this is a fantastic story. Adams's imagination never ceases to amaze. Why does Thor carry a Coke machine around with him? Who else but Adams would have thought of such a thing? Other Adams elements also come into play. The transformation of one thing
The copyright of the article The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (Book Review) in Science Fiction & Society is owned by Christopher B. Jones. Permission to republish The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (Book Review) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|||||
|
|
||||||
