Douglas Adams (1) (1952–2001)

Adams, Douglas. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. 1987. Dirk Gently No. 1. Pocket, 2002.
As a writer, Douglas Adams is like a juggler who keeps running chainsaws, cream pies, and baby bunnies in the air, always risking several disasters at once--and always pulling it off with aplomb. Consider: a ghost, a time machine, an immortal old professor, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the British telephone system, a computer programmer, a magazine editor, a holistic detective agency, an ancient show more alien, an electric monk, his horse, and a sofa stuck on the stairs. Somehow it all comes together at the end. 5 stars. show less

Dit boek is geen dijenkletser, het heeft een veel subtieler soort humor, waar niet iedereen van houdt. Ik vind het echter geweldig. Het is bizar, sarcastisch en enorm goed geschreven. Geen snackboekje, maar een zeer pikante vijfsterren maaltijd door een topkok die absoluut zijn dag had.

Arthur Dent’s house is unexpectedly demolished to make room for a highway, and then his planet is, too. Thankfully his friend Ford Prefect is actually an alien, and hitchhikes them both off of Earth just in time. Very improbably they end up on Heart of Gold, a state-of-the-art spaceship recently stolen by the two-headed, three-armed President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox. Heart of Gold is powered by improbability, and they use it to locate the most improbable planet of all… the show more mythical Magrathea, a planet that creates designer planets for rich people.

What can I say? It’s still a perfect book. So funny and much of it has aged so well. The short chapters and excerpts from the fictional Guide make it very readable. On this read I especially loved how funny Zaphod is, and the scene toward the end making fun of cops who think they are not like other cops. ("I don't go around gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it afterward in seedy space-rangers bars, like some cops I could mention! I go around shooting people gratuitously and then I agonize about it afterward for hours to my girlfriend!") I own the 6-book omnibus so although I’ve read the whole series a few times this is the first time I’m appreciating the first book on its own instead of as a chapter in the larger story. It’s more cliffhanger-y than I remember - the characters escape from the current sticky situation and are safe on Heart of Gold, but we still don’t know why Zaphod stole the ship or why he messed with his own brains.

Unfortunately I am docking it half a star for how criminally underwritten Trillian is, but did you know that she’s canonically not white? Funny how the adaptations always leave that part out. show less

What can I possibly say about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that hasn't already been said? That reading it in the original language takes the fun to a higher and more complete level, adding nuances of bitter irony that have completely disappeared in the Italian translation.

La Guida galattica per autostopisti è solo apparentemente un libro umoristico. O meglio, è un libro umoristico, ma non solo. In realtà ha una serie incredibile di chiavi di lettura, che lo rendono attuale e show more perfettamente godibile ancora oggi, cosa che spesso non accade con la hard SF degli anni '70. Sicuramente alla base della scrittura ci sono esperienze hippy e una certa dose di LSD, e si sentono tutte, nei colpi di scena e nelle scenografie, così come nella filosofia dei personaggi (memorabile ed assolutamente esilarante è il robot depresso Marvin, che con la sua depressione provoca il suicidio della macchina di supporto dei poliziotti galattici venuti ad arrestare i protagonisti).
In realtà la Guida ha molto a che fare con il mondo odierno, con il consumismo, la pubblicità e la globalizzazione, e da questo punto di vista è profetica. Ma soprattutto ci lascia un messaggio fondamentale: "Non lasciatevi predere dal panico"! show less