Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

I've never read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I did enjoy the television series, so I was pleased to see that our library had the BBC Radio 4 dramatization of the book. It's quite different from the show, but funny as was Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Dirk Gently (not his real name) does have certain unusual abilities, but his detective practice mostly involves finding old ladies' lost cats. His secretary, Janice Pearce, wants to be paid, as does Gently himself. Richard Macduff, a former classmate of Dirk's at Cambridge, is in a lot of trouble because he is suspected of having murdered his employer, Gordon Way. Richard's girlfriend his Gordon's sister, Susan Way. Susan has a socially awkward acquaintance (I would hardly call him a friend) named Michael Wenton Weakes. Michael will prove quite useful to one of the book's ghosts.

Professor Reg Chronotis is more than he seems. Detective Sergeant Gilks is not the brightest copper on the force, but Macduff fears him. The Electric Monk is an android with a built-in-need to believe. His best scene is when DS Gilks is interrogating him.

I don't know if fans of the book will enjoy this, but this fan of the show did. I would recommend it to fans of science fiction humor and mysteries.

Note: A famous piece of classical music will have the composer misnamed early in the drama. Why will become clear at the end. ( )

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency tells the tale of an Electric Monk, an old college professor who's apparently paid to do nothing, a computer programmer whose software makes music out of accounting figures, his overbearing and eccentric boss, his sensible but nearly fed-up girlfriend, and, of course, a private detective who swears that because of the fundamental interconnectedness of everything, it's perfectly reasonable to attempt to charge people for trips to Bermuda in search of their lost cats. When the eccentric boss is unexpectedly gunned down and the programmer seems to be the police's top suspect, Dirk takes his new client on a wild adventure to clear his name, discover the true culprit, and maybe even save the world. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, Dirk Gently does not eliminate the impossible, and in this case he might just be onto something.

Douglas Adams is an author well known for his humorous and light-hearted writing style, and this book was no exception. Although he's better known for his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, I found the two Dirk Gently books (this one and the sequel The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul) to be easier to enjoy, as I personally had a difficult time getting over the fact that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy opens with the destruction of Earth. Don't get me wrong, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy still got a few good laughs out of me, but the Dirk Gently books are more my cup of tea.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency starts out very slowly and requires a good deal of patience and concentration before it really starts to ramp up, in my opinion, but I found that when I did give it that focus I was very much rewarded. In fact, this is the sort of book where the astute reader can pick up on vital clues and get the satisfaction of seeing all the pieces fall in place by the ending. It rewards the reader who goes slowly and enjoys every little humor-laced paragraph along the way.

And for me, one of the main attractions is that it did make me smile throughout rather than getting dragged down into sadness while the characters faced their struggles. Certainly, it's important to read books on serious topics, but there's also such a thing as too much. Sometimes all you want is to balance it all out with a book that just makes you feel good. This is that kind of book. I recommend it to anyone else who's looking for the same. ( )

Why didn't I read that years ago? The book amused me greatly.

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 alien, an electric monk, his horse, and a sofa stuck on the stairs. Somehow it all comes together at the end. 5 stars. ( )

Hér segir frá því þegar Dirk Gently er fenginn til að rannsaka sérstætt sakarmál. Réttara sagt þá treður hann rannsókn sinni upp á fórnarlambið þar sem snillingurinn Dirk áttar sig á því að viðkomandi er að framkvæma eitthvað sem er honum mjög óeðlilegt. Og enginn nema Dirk áttar sig á því að töfrabragð ruglaðs prófessors, pizzur, dauðir kettir, heimsendir, skáldið Coleridge, draugur (réttara sagt 2 draugar) og margt fleira er tengt á útúrfurðulegan og flókinn máta sem enginn skilur nema náttúrulega Dirk sjálfur.
Douglas Adams er sennilega þekktastur fyrir sögu sína The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy og skemmtilegan húmor sinn í þeirri sögu. Bókin Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency inniheldur sama léttruglaða grínið með ýmiskonar furðulegum tengingum og innskotum höfundar. ( )