Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

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It's a hit!

I want an electric monk.

As Douglas Admas tells us in this book, every civilization creates mechanical devices designed to save us from our labor.... (show more)

I want an electric monk.

As Douglas Admas tells us in this book, every civilization creates mechanical devices designed to save us from our labor. We have diswashers to wash our tedious dishes for us, VCRs to watch those tedious television programs so we don't have to, and finally the Electric Monk to believe on those things we can't be bothere to believe in.

Is that cool, or what?

As strange as it sounds, the Electric Monk is actually integral to the plot. But this plot is complex enough to deserve it. The main character, more or less, is Richard MacDuff, an up-and-coming young computer programmer who has several unique problems. The first problem is that of his couch - it's stuck in the stairwell and, by all logic as affirmed by the best computer modeling systems, should never have gotten where it was in the first place.

The second problem is that he's wanted for the murder of his bosss. He didn't do it, of course, but that kind of thing doesn't really impress the police. And, of course, there's the problem with the woman he loves, Susan, who just so happens to be the sister of the boss whom Richard is accused of murdering.

Add into all that the titular Dirk Gently, if that is his real name. Dirk is a man who, since college, has unswayingly, constantly denied having any kind of psychic powers whatsoever - which caused him some problems during his university days when he managed to correctly predict, down the the comma, the contents of a major exam.

Now older and weirder, Dirk runs his Holistic Detective Agency. His work rests on one simple principle: the Fundamental Interconnectedness of All Things. Based on a common misunderstanding of quantum theory, Dirk believes that all things are fundamentally connected to all other things, no matter how tenuous those connections might appear to the unaided eye. So during the course of, say, looking for a lost cat, it is entirely possible that he may have to go down to the beach in Bermuda. Because, fundamentally, all things are connected. And billable.

Then there's the matter of a time machine hidden in Cambridge and the temptation that can arise from having one. With what amounts to a TARDIS, one could go to any point in time and space. You could visit ancient lands, pet extinct animals or, if necessary, fix something that had gone terribly, terribly wrong. It's tricky, but it can be done. And if you're the ghost of an alien whose simple mistake – putting his trust in an Electric Monk, for example – consigned it to billions of years of insubstantial solitude, a time machine might be very tempting indeed.

There's really no good way to summarize this book. As Douglas Adams is fond of doing, there seem to be several plotlines and events which, at first, seem to ha ve no relation to each other. But as you read, you find out that the Electric Monk isn't as funny as we thought he was, that putting a salt shaker into a piece of pottery can cause more problems than you think, and that you should always be afraid of people with nothing to lose.

As Dirk claims, all things in this book are fundamentally interconnected, even if it's not obvious at the moment.

Yes, even the couch. (show less)

 

 

by Chris Gladis

No, it's a flop!

I picked this up through one of those random eBay auctions, where you get like 20 books for $20. Finally decided to read it since it had been sitt... (show more)

I picked this up through one of those random eBay auctions, where you get like 20 books for $20. Finally decided to read it since it had been sitting on my shelf for awhile. Conclusion, could have probably done without it. I didn't dislike it per se, I just didn't really care much about any of the characters. The concluding pages were interesting, where Adams links all the components together, but for the most part I just did not care about what happened and finally just slogged through it, even though its not really that long. (show less)

 

 

by Bill

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  Douglas Adams was a good writer, and this is a good book, however, I cannot put it in the same league as his Hitchhiker's Guide books.

  My mind wandered a few times while reading this one. I also got engrossed in another book I was reading at the same time, and I often read this one in spurts - reading for a few days and then not coming back to it until a few more days had passed by. That happened often, so I never really got into a groove reading this one. I think I'm going to keep it... (show more)

  Douglas Adams was a good writer, and this is a good book, however, I cannot put it in the same league as his Hitchhiker's Guide books.

  My mind wandered a few times while reading this one. I also got engrossed in another book I was reading at the same time, and I often read this one in spurts - reading for a few days and then not coming back to it until a few more days had passed by. That happened often, so I never really got into a groove reading this one. I think I'm going to keep it and give it another shot later this year.

  Still, that said, Dirk Gently has some crazy originality to the story, and Adams's style is one of a kind. The tale is a mystery, but certainly not the sort that anyone could ever figure out on his or her own. It includes things such as time travel, a recently murdered man now transformed into a ghost, the mathematical properties of music, as well as an electric monk, a horse in a closet, a professor several hundred years old, and the bizarre predicament of a sofa permanently wedged into a hallway. Many of these elements are vital to the story, while others exist evidently for sheer headscratching amusement, but they all keep it interesting.

  It's just a darn shame Adams died at age 49! God only knows what else he would have written. (show less)

   

   

  by Dave Lombard on Aug 02, 2009 at 03:52AM

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  The five books that make up the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (I know, I know) are my favourite novels of all time. However, Dirk Gently is my favourite character that the late Douglas Adams created, just piping Ford Prefect and Marvin: the paranoid android to that particular title.

  In his first outing, the holistic detective that bases his investigations on the fundamental interconnectedness of everything becomes embroiled in a case where he immediately realises that two aspects... (show more)

  The five books that make up the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (I know, I know) are my favourite novels of all time. However, Dirk Gently is my favourite character that the late Douglas Adams created, just piping Ford Prefect and Marvin: the paranoid android to that particular title.

  In his first outing, the holistic detective that bases his investigations on the fundamental interconnectedness of everything becomes embroiled in a case where he immediately realises that two aspects are actually impossible. Fortunately the word impossible is not found in our hero’s dictionary; in fact, everything from herring to marmalade appears to be absent.

  In a case that pans out to include ghosts, electric monks, horses inexplicably in second storey bathrooms, murder, pizza, clairvoyance, a stuck sofa, a visitor from Porlock and a university professor adept at conjuring tricks in a plot that a mere mortal such as I would only ruin if I attempted to summarise. This is one of those books that you just have to read, although background knowledge of the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge would be beneficial in this case. (show less)

   

   

  by Steven 'Mino' Mitchell on Jul 09, 2009 at 08:57PM

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