The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988)

I'm not sure whether this is the effect of not being jammed into half a train seat by someone twice the size of me, but The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul seemed less funny but more absorbing than the first book. It helped that it included Norse gods, I think. I had no idea that Douglas Adams had tangled with them.

On the other hand, I don't really think that as much seemed to happen, somehow. Less plates seemed to be spinning. I think that was a good thing for the narrative, but it seemed to make the second book different in tone from the first... (And then I wonder if that was just because at no point did I have to stuff my Kindle back into a bag and run to get off a train because I was about to miss getting off at the correct station. I suspect I'm more influenced by the circumstances in which I read books than I realise.)

So... on some levels, I enjoyed this more than the first book, and on some levels, less. Quite an odd feeling.

I do like the nine tenths of the subconscious being given over to penguins. ( )

I love this story and it's great fun to read!

“What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? ‘Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ ”

“I reject that entirely,” said Dirk sharply. “The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbably lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something that works in all respects other than one, which is that it is hopelessly improbable?...The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don’t know about, and...there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality.” ( )

Secondo libro incentrato sulla figura dell'investigatore olistico Dirk Gently; dato il mestiere del protagonista, questi romanzi sono una scatola per ogni qualsivoglia assurdità collegabile ad altre assurdità in modo più o meno casuale.
Questa traduzione ha il pregio, rispetto al volume precedente (di altro editore), di non essere costellata di irritanti punti esclamativi a ogni frase che mi ha permesso di affrontare la lettura con serenità.
La trama è sconclusionata (ma piacevolmente e diverte), il vero mistero è: perchè gli scrittori inglesi sono sì attirati dalla mitologia nordica? ( )

Very, very funny mystery. I liked this a little bit better than the first Dirk Gently book, probably because this had more of a coherent plot line. While it’s not as laugh-out-loud as the Hitchhiker’s series is, and that Dirk Gently is more of a prat, it’s still a very enjoyable read. ( )

I love Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency the best of any of Douglas Adams's books, so it's always disappointing when I follow up with The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. I always want it to be more of DG's HDA, but despite having the same character of Dirk Gently, it's almost a completely different type of book.

You see, one of the things I liked about the first part of this pair is Dirk Gently being such a strange figure who does strange things, and the reader has no idea what to expect from him. Richard, the narrator of the other book, is the long-suffering straight man and Dirk is one of the people who pulls him around. But in The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, our narrator is Dirk himself, and he becomes the long-suffering straight man that strange things happen to.

I just don't think Dirk Gently has the same wild appeal when he's forced to be the narrator. As in the other book, there are secondary narrators - both the pragmatic women character - that offset the main point of view, but it works so much better for Richard than for Dirk. (On the other hand, if we didn't have him as a narrator, we wouldn't get the scenes of Dirk's waking habits, and his refrigerator, and the owl stalking him, and that'd be such a pity.)

The plot of the book is fine and great, but every time I finish reading it, I just feel so disappointed with Dirk Gently as the narrator, like it would be so much better if he were acting on the narrator again, that I never really think much about the plot other than it sure does take place at night, and I love everything about Odin and the hospital where he lives. ( )