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Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

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Post  Jaz Fri Mar 09, 2012 4:35 pm

Did you ever read this book

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency   Dougla10

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
is a humorous fantasy detective novel by Douglas Adams, first published in 1987. It is described by "the author" on its cover as a "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic".

The book was followed by a sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. The only recurring major characters are the eponymous Gently, his secretary Janice Pearce and Sergeant Gilks. Adams also began work on another novel, The Salmon of Doubt with the intention of publishing it as the third book in the series, but died before completing it.

A BBC Radio adaptation starring Harry Enfield was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on October 2007. A second series based on the sequel was broadcast on October 2008. A 2010 television adaptation by Howard Overman for BBC Four borrowed some of the characters and some minor plot elements of the novel to create a new story of the same name.

Writing

The genesis of the novel was in two Doctor Who serials written by Adams, City of Death, (in which an alien tries to change history at the cost of erasing humanity from existence), and in particular the cancelled serial Shada, which first introduces a Cambridge professor called Chronotis who is hundreds of years old. He has been living and working at a Cambridge college for centuries, without anyone noticing due to his eccentric time machine. In Shada, Chronotis's longevity is due to him being a Time Lord, and his time machine is an early model TARDIS. These trademark elements from Doctor Who were removed by Adams for Dirk Gently. Shada, which never aired due to a production strike terminating its filming, was later released on VHS with Tom Baker narrating the unfilmed segments, and later completed as a webcast with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and John Leeson as K9.

A number of elements in the novel were inspired by Adams' time at university. For example, one plot thread involves a sofa which is irreversibly stuck on the staircase to Richard's apartment; according to his simulations, not only is it impossible to remove it, but there is no way for it to have got into that position in the first place. In a similar incident that occurred while Douglas Adams attended St John's College of Cambridge University, furniture was placed in the rooms overlooking the river in Third Court while the staircases were being refurbished. When the staircases were completed, it was discovered that the sofas could no longer be removed from the rooms, and the sofas remained in those rooms for several decades.

The South Bank Show revealed that Adams based Chronotis' rooms on the rooms he occupied in his third year at university. Likewise, Richard's room – filled with Macintosh computers and synthesisers – was based on Adams' own flat (visited and photographed by Hi-Fi Choice Magazine). The piece of music by Bach that is heard aboard the satellite is "Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ" from the cantata "Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden", BWV 6 (also an organ chorale BWV 649). Adams has stated that this is his personal "absolutely perfect" piece of music, and that he listened to it "over and over; drove my wife completely insane" while writing Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Plot summary

Dirk Gently's plot is non-linear, partly because time travel is one of the main elements of the story.

Four billion years in Earth's past, a group of Salaxalans attempts to populate the earth; however, a mistake caused by their engineer – who used an Electric Monk to irrationally believe the proposed fix would work – causes their landing craft to explode, killing the Salaxalans and generating the spark of energy needed to start the process of life on Earth. The ghost of the Salaxalan engineer roams the earth waiting to undo his mistake, watching human life develop and waiting to find a soul that it can possess. The ghost finds it can only possess individuals that fundamentally want to do the same task it is trying to accomplish itself. Otherwise, it is only able to influence the individual in subtle ways.

In the early 19th century, the ghost discovers Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and influences the writer to add a second section to "Kubla Khan" and alter parts of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" to describe how to correct the problem that destroyed the landing craft in the distant past. The ghost then begins seeking out someone whose hardship can be influenced by Coleridge's work. It later discovers that Professor Urban "Reg" Chronotis at St Cedd's possesses a time machine disguised as his quarters. In the late 20th Century, during the annual St Cedd's dinner reading of "Kubla Khan", the ghost influences Reg to use the time machine to perform a bit of trickery for a young child at the dinner, while the ghost lures another Electric Monk into Reg's quarters. Upon return to the present, the ghost finds the Monk unusable for its purposes. The Monk then goes off to kill Wayforward Technologies II's CEO, Gordon Way, due to a misunderstanding.

The ghost later tries to influence Richard MacDuff, a former student of Reg and current employee of Gordon Way, who was also at the Coleridge reading. Richard finds himself breaking into the apartment of Susan Way—his girlfriend and Gordon's sister— to erase an answering machine message. His actions lead the police to consider Richard a suspect in the murder of Gordon. Richard discusses this with his former college friend Dirk Gently, who claims to be a "Holistic Detective" believing in the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things". Currently on the case of a missing cat, Dirk examines Richard and finds him to have been in a hypnotic-like state, and determines that Richard was temporarily possessed. Richard recounts the events from the Coleridge reading, including Reg's trick; Dirk, after consulting with a child, concludes that the only way the trick was possible was with a time machine. The two approach Reg, who admits to this fact.

Meanwhile, the ghost has found Michael Wenton-Weakes, a recently-fired editor of an arts magazine. Through subtle influences the ghost makes Michael read Coleridge's works and convinces him to kill Albert Ross, the editor who replaced him. Both now have sought to erase those that supplant them, and the ghost is able to fully possess Michael's body. The ghost, in Michael's body, arrives at Reg's quarters while Dirk and Richard are there, and demands Reg use his time machine to return back 4 billion years in the past. They travel back, and ghost-possessed Michael, using a make-shift environmental suit, sets up to repair the damage to the Salaxalan craft. While they watch, Richard receives a call from Susan from the 20th century on Reg's phone, a quirk of the time machine due to the phone company. Richard learns of Ross's murder, and Dirk quickly surmises the ghost's plan, which if successful will erase the formation of life on Earth. Realising Michael was influenced by Coleridge's works, Dirk instructs Reg to take them to the 19th century, allowing Dirk to interrupt Coleridge long enough to disrupt the ghost's possession and prevent the second part of "Kubla Khan" from ever having been written.

Upon arrival back in the 20th Century, Dirk, Richard, and Reg find humanity as they expect it but with very small, subtle changes. Reg also discovers his time machine no longer functions, after having the telephone company repair the phone line to his quarters. Dirk learns that the missing cat was never missing in the first place as a result of their actions, and charges the client a small amount for the finding of the lost cat, adding "saving the entire human race from extinction – no charge".

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Jaz
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Post  Jaz Fri Mar 09, 2012 4:36 pm

If you lazy like me to read everything that I have cut/paste above, just know one thing:

It is one of the most funny book I ever read!

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Post  satanic58 Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:03 pm

Jaz wrote:If you lazy like me to read everything that I have cut/paste above, just know one thing:

It is one of the most funny book I ever read!

Douglas Adams is to crazy for me to read. I'm a fan of fantasy and sci-fi, but his stories are insane and utter chaos.

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Post  Real Mayer Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:18 am

What kind of books do you like to read?
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Post  satanic58 Sun Sep 09, 2012 4:03 pm

China Mieville is a so called "new age" author and my favourite writer.
However, it gives a lot of SciFi-authors who are the best, but reading Douglas Adams made my brain a mess.


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Post  Real Mayer Mon Sep 10, 2012 2:17 pm

If you new age you surely love HP. Lovercraft, do you?
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Post  Jeremy Swiss Wed Sep 19, 2012 5:02 am

What is it?

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Post  Real Mayer Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:46 pm

It is Sci Fi with monsters. alien
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