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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Anxious book group - Dirk gently
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
Morning friends,
* 've no idea if there's a form to this, * 'm writing on a kindle before going off on holiday. * 'm be back around the 15th and will post questions.
Dirk gently's holistic detective agency is by Douglas Adams, and involves a deep mystery... And it's laugh out loud funny. Computer geek meets time traveller, etc. Remember Douglas wrote episodes of Dr who, and that he was pitching funny sci fi long before 'men in black' hit cinemas.
He is genuinely clever, and understands the science he talks about. And makes up the rest.
Enjoy.
[ 18. September 2014, 08:32: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I started re-reading this yesterday and am really enjoying it; I must have read it first shortly after it first came out (in 1987). I'm amused by all sorts of things I missed entirely the first time.
[ 01. August 2014, 06:26: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Local library branch is closed today: book is being transferred from downtown and I should get a phone call tomorrow to go collect it.
Wasn't the book serialized on Radio 4 a few years ago? I know I physically read other books such as the one about the restaurant with the improbability drive, but not this...
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
Local library branch is closed today: book is being transferred from downtown and I should get a phone call tomorrow to go collect it.
Wasn't the book serialized on Radio 4 a few years ago? I know I physically read other books such as the one about the restaurant with the improbability drive, but not this...
That sounds like one of the later hitchhikers with Slartibartfast and his ship which was an Italian Restaurant, it was about the people of Krikkit. I don't remember Dirk Gently being on the radio but I'd love to hear it if it was.
Dirk Gently was made into a TV series though, and very good it was too ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I'm off on holiday and might take this book with me, I read it first whilst living near Old Street, right by some of the locations.
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
The electronic library clerk threatened to get me the audio version, but then I spoke, at length, with a real live human librarian and she stated that the print version would be available for me shortly.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Dirk Gently was made into a TV series though, and very good it was too
Well, there was a TV series that had characters with the same names, but it bore no resemblance to the book whatsoever.
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
Posts: 12860 | From: The Valley of Crocuses | Registered: May 2001
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spike:
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Dirk Gently was made into a TV series though, and very good it was too
Well, there was a TV series that had characters with the same names, but it bore no resemblance to the book whatsoever.
Well, I enjoyed it I know it didn't follow the 2 books but I liked the characterisation.
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
Got my library copy, will read it later.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
Posts: 5257 | From: me to you. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I'm in- read this years ago I think, so look forward tore-reading and the discussion,
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I'd like to join in with this. I first read it more or less as soon as it came out (I actually bought the hardback!) and still love it. I started reading it yesterday and I'm about 10 chapters in.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
I did hear the radio series the year we met, CK. The old link provided went nowhere: it's all bollocksed up and nothing plays.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Collecting my copy at the local library in a couple of hours when the branch opens: I got a call yesterday!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I agree that the TV series was quite different from the books, but I liked it for itself and was very sorry they never made more. I felt it captured the quirky spirit of the books even though plot and characterization were quite different. I also though Mangan & Boyd as Gently & MacDuff made the perfect Bizzaro-World counterpoint to Cumberbatch/Freeman as Holmes/Watson.
I don't know if a TV series that stuck more closely to the books would have worked as well since, though I love the books, I find the actual Dirk Gently character pretty aggressively unlikeable. The similar-but-different character played by Stephen Mangan had many of the same annoying characteristics (and some new ones) but a kind of likeability as well -- though perhaps mainly because he WAS played by Stephen Mangan.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spike:
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Dirk Gently was made into a TV series though, and very good it was too
Well, there was a TV series that had characters with the same names, but it bore no resemblance to the book whatsoever.
It was fun, though, and undeservedly let go fallow.
I prefer Dirk Gently to Arthur Dent in book form, but it is difficult to beat the radio version of Hitchhiker's.
ETA:Yay Trudy! Wonderful breakdown.
[ 07. August 2014, 15:09: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
It is the first Dirk Gently book we are discussing, isn't it.
Because if it is, the last paragraph in Chapter 7 has what must be one of the most exquisite cliff hangers ever.
I leave that for now, I don't want to spoil it for those who have not got that far yet.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Good choice. It still has not been totally resolved in Chapter 9...
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
I am overwhelmed with reading material so it looks like I won't be joining in the discussion this month, sorry.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
Posts: 5257 | From: me to you. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I'm afraid I finished Dirk Gently on Friday and enjoyed it so much I started reading the sequel straight away. Hope I can remember which one we're discussing when we start....
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Gasp. You're all discussing one of the greatest books ever.
Must find a copy!
EDIT: In case those 2 lines seem odd together, my sister owned the copy that I used to read. I don't believe I ever got around to buying my own, even though I did think it was absolutely brilliant and the best thing Adams had written.
[ 19. August 2014, 03:13: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
hi everyone - my laptop seems to have some kind of issue in which certain keys bring up an explosion of adverts, so I'm struggling a bit.
Questions:
1. It's been so long since I first read this book, I can't remember what wasn't clear at the time - and yet I do remember thinking, 'oh, yes!' at many, many points. Did anyone reading it for the first time realise what was going on, ahead of the explanations?
2. How do you feel about Dirk Gently?
3. Does Reg remind you of a Dr Who?
4. If you were unfamiliar with the poem and the music talked about, does that impact on your understanding and enjoyment of the ideas? Did anyone go away and listen to Bach for the first time after reading this book?
5. I still don't know which bits of the poem shouldn't have been there, and ultimately weren't.
6. don't take any of these questions seriously and just enjoy discussing the book [once, the Atheist association of America asked Douglas if he had anything to say to their members, and he replied, 'hello! How are you?']
eta: it's available on kindle.
I think I should be saying something profound, but it's currently beyond me.
[ 19. August 2014, 07:55: Message edited by: Taliesin ]
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I finished it a couple of weeks ago, devoured it very quickly.
Some of this is going to be difficult to discuss, because it was such a long time ago that I came across Dirk Gently the first time, and I am sure I remember quite a lot of the sequel, because I was remembering chunks as I read this book. But I am glad I revisited it because lots of stuff made much more sense - I've visited Trinity College and the Cambridge colleges in the meantime (I probably visualised the old Inns of Court for rooms the first time, which wasn't far off). It was also weird how much stuff that was cutting edge and the realms of science fiction then is pretty much there.
Bach - ah well, any one else remember Gödel, Escher and Bach (1979)?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
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Posted
it's been on my bookshelf since 1979. I've read it a couple of times.
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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
it's been on my bookshelf since 1979. I've read it a couple of times.
That is (1) remarkable given that it was published in 1987, and (2) oddly in keeping with some of the book's themes...
Oh wait. You're not talking about Dirk Gently are you? You're talking about the other one.
[ 19. August 2014, 10:57: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
Yes, Adams was so ahead of his time, it's only the fact that he's clearly discussing a technology (computers) still in the hands of specialists and inaccessible for most of us that one realises it was written nearly 30 years ago.
I actually really like the character of Dirk, and love the story of his college days, when he was accidently too good at fake predictions. I also love his relationship with sargent Gilks.
The only truly dislikable character in the whole book is Michael Wednesday Week.
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I've got reservations about the character of Dirk. (I can't help thinking I'd like him better if he didn't wear that flappy leather coat, but that's probably more about me than him.) He reminds me a bit of P.G.Wodehouse's character Ukridge, who's always out to borrow money for his latest get-rich-quick scheme. One thing about him I do like is his apparent psychic ability, which annoys him intensely.
The Professor is lifted from one of Adams's Doctor Who scripts - Shada - which was never finished due to industrial (in)action at the BBC. In it, Professor Chronotis, an elderly Cambridge don, turns out to be a retired Time Lord, whose TARDIS is his college rooms. I find Reg the most likeable character in the book. I'm never quite sure whether he's an amiable bumbler, or just pretending to be, but his dialogue is priceless. (I love the bit where he says his memory consists mainly of smells and earrings - hence his vivid memories of Cleopatra.)
I liked the way Bach was worked into the plot. It was only reading it this time that I noticed how excluded he is in all the bits where music is being talked about, right up to the crucial point. Adams's description of the "new" music reminded me a little of Salieri in the movie version of Amadeus.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Taliesin:
3. Does Reg remind you of a Dr Who?
The story was originally intended to be a Dr Who series, so it's entirely feasible that Reg is an adapted version of The Doctor
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
Posts: 12860 | From: The Valley of Crocuses | Registered: May 2001
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
Adeodatus wrote
quote:
The Professor is lifted from one of Adams's Doctor Who scripts - Shada - which was never finished due to industrial (in)action at the BBC. In it, Professor Chronotis, an elderly Cambridge don, turns out to be a retired Time Lord, whose TARDIS is his college rooms. I find Reg the most likeable character in the book. I'm never quite sure whether he's an amiable bumbler, or just pretending to be, but his dialogue is priceless.
Well, that would explain a lot!
Which doctor(actor) found him? I found his total confusion, inability to remember the ends of his sentences etc when he first meets Dirk out of proportion to how he is the previous day at the dinner, and how he is at the end of the book, but I only noticed it this time around. I don't think it's essential to the plot, I think it was just an opportunity for humour. And I do remember crying with laughter the first time around... probably the 3rd and 4th as well.
I'm afraid of analysing too much - it wasn't meant to be, so a lot of the humour devices are random and don't stand up to scrutiny, like the monk. I'm just interested to hear how people respond it.
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Questions:
1. It's been so long since I first read this book, I can't remember what wasn't clear at the time - and yet I do remember thinking, 'oh, yes!' at many, many points. Did anyone reading it for the first time realise what was going on, ahead of the explanations?
My wife and I probably read it for the first time about 20 years ago. I remembered virtually nothing from the first reading except for the characters of Dirk, Richard, Susan and the late Gordon Way. It was a surprise to find out the the old don's rooms were actually a time machine near the end of the book. I did not remember the other characters at all!
2. How do you feel about Dirk Gently?
I found him rather slimy and unscrupulous, rather bent.
3. Does Reg remind you of a Dr Who?
Now that you mention it, perhaps one of the early Doctors who were elderly.
4. If you were unfamiliar with the poem and the music talked about, does that impact on your understanding and enjoyment of the ideas? Did anyone go away and listen to Bach for the first time after reading this book?
a) I was not overwhelmingly familiar with the poem by Coleridge but am sure I have heard it in its entirety in the not-too-distant past if not read it all the way through as well.
b) Being a former church musician who still sings in a choir, albeit one that specializes in Irish music, I am very familiar with Bach and may still sing a bit at Christmas-time. I was v. young when I heard Bach for the first time, probably when I took piano lessons at age 9...
5. I still don't know which bits of the poem shouldn't have been there, and ultimately weren't.
Me neither - I'd have to re-read it all the way through. I'm sure I have it here somewhere...
6. Not taking the questions too seriously - just glad I finally finished the bloody book! It is very early in the morning here, but I would have been up and about this early anyway today...
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
My favourite line of Dirk's is:
'Come,' he said... 'let us go. Let us leave this festering hellhole. Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.'
still makes me laugh, every effing time.
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I knew Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner before I read the book originally and found the thought that Samuel Taylor Coleridge had been under the influence of aliens hilarious. The way that Adams could riff on ideas like that is why his books have survived.
This time around I wondered why Bach was singled out as so sublime. I suspect it was the connections that were being made with Escher, fractals and other mathematical understandings, and that was very much of the Zeitgeist when I read it so I didn't particularly find that unusual the first time.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I'm afraid the bit of the book that has permanently lodged in my mind is (and this may not be 100% accurate): "The word impossible is not in my dictionary! In fact everything between herring and marmalade seems to be missing."
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Taliesin:
Adeodatus wrote
quote:
The Professor is lifted from one of Adams's Doctor Who scripts - Shada - which was never finished due to industrial (in)action at the BBC. In it, Professor Chronotis, an elderly Cambridge don, turns out to be a retired Time Lord, whose TARDIS is his college rooms. I find Reg the most likeable character in the book. I'm never quite sure whether he's an amiable bumbler, or just pretending to be, but his dialogue is priceless.
Well, that would explain a lot!
Which doctor(actor) found him?
Tom Baker. Shada was to have been the final story of Tom's last-but-one season, i.e. it would have come after Horns of Nimon. The story sort of fell at the last hurdle - most of the filming was complete when a strike at the BBC made finishing it impossible. It exists, I think, as a reconstruction with spoken narrative linking the missing bits. Also, Gareth Roberts novelised Adams's script about a year ago (I haven't read it yet).
It's not the only self-plagiarism going on in Dirk Gently - the idea of the alien trying to travel back in time to prevent his mistake is taken from Adams's script for City of Death, which was shown in 1979. (In the credits, the writer is "David Agnew", but I think it was really a collaboration between Adams and the producer.)
The one bit of the plot of Dirk Gently I've never really understood is why Coleridge had to be involved at all. What was it in the second part of Kubla Khan that was essential to the plan?
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
the comment about marmalade is on the same page as my effing quote.
And one of my original questions was, can anyone identify the bits of poem mentioned, are aren't there (any more ??) because they were prevented from being written. So if you read the actual Rime, you won't see the bits pertaining to the spacecraft because Dirk made him think about an albatross instead?
Douglas loved Bach, even more than he loved the Beatles. He wrote programme notes for an edition of the Brandenburg concertos. He was an atheist, but he believed Bach was directly channelling something - life itself, probably.
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Taliesin:
Did anyone go away and listen to Bach for the first time after reading this book?
What is this Bach you are talking about?
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Last ever sig ...
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
Seriously? JS BACH, German composer from the baroque period, wrote more music than was actually possible for one lifetime...
I can only suggest you spend a little time on Google and you tube, since any description of mine is likely to be incomplete, at least.
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
Taliesin, did you perhaps notice balaam lurking somewhere near the vicinity of your leg? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Balaam, naughty, naughty. You should not talk about My Man™ like that! ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Taliesin:
the comment about marmalade is on the same page as my effing quote.
So?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
Synchronicity, and the interconnectedness of all things.
(To question above)
And thank you, I should have realised the paradox and or time displacement joke, but I got in last night slightly inebriated after an evening with in laws, so what can I say? ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
A few random thoughts.
I thout I'd read this in the late 1970s, as my friends at the time were all keen Douglas Adams fans and I'm sure I remembered discussing it with them. Turns out it wasn't published until 1987, which makes it unlikely I had read it before,. The fact that none of it, apart from the discussion of Schroedinger's cat for some reason, was familiar makes that rather likely.
I found it all a bit irritating, a bit like Pratchett. I can enjoy the jokes, some of the general wiritng and some of the plot, but I find the whole thing all too bitty for my taste.
I didn't think fo Dr Who in regards to Reg, but could see Jim Broadbent playing him. He was the charatcers I liked the most, and I liked the whole time travelling idea and the fact that Bach didn't exist in the earlier version of the world.
Did anyone else think Janice got a raw deal? I've just read The Cuckoo's Calling by JK Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith), and the secretary in a much more important charatcer, not just a foil for a few jokes.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
The one bit of the plot of Dirk Gently I've never really understood is why Coleridge had to be involved at all. What was it in the second part of Kubla Khan that was essential to the plan?
My impression is that it was a description of the alien's ship, so that he would remember how to fix it properly when he got the chance. After "the Man from Porlock" caused Coleridge to forget it all, the alien was no longer able to fix the ship and hence the world was saved.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I just thought I'd drop in to say that I downloaded the Kindle version of Gareth Roberts's Shada. Professor Chronotis is alive and well and living in this novel-of-the-scripts, set in Cambridge in 1979. I don't know whether Roberts or Adams is responsible, but he's even retained his little joke when making tea - "Milk?" "One lump or two?" "Sugar?"
I'm only a couple of chapters in, but it's a delight, and very Adams-y.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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