Boek
Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, The
Auteur | Douglas Adams |
Eerste Uitgave | 1984 |
Uitgave | 1998 |
Uitgeverij | ISIS Publishing |
Vorm | audiobook |
Taal | Engels |
Duur | 6 uur 33 minuten |
Gelezen | 2004-02-05 |
Score | 7/10 |
Inhoud
Unabridged. Audio Length: 6 hours and 33 min.
Kate Schechter would like to know why everyone she meets knows her name - and why Thor, the Norse god of thunder, keeps showing up on her doorstep. It takes the sardonic genius of Dirk Gently, detective and refrigerator wrestler, to get to the bottom of it all. Was the passenger check-in desk at Heathrow's blasting through the roof really an Act of God? (And if so, which?) What's going on at Woodshead Hospital? And why is a severed head spinning on a turntable, its body sitting amiably nearby? Only the sleuthing of Dirk Gently can uncover these mysteries, and only the absurdist wit of Douglas Adams can recount them with such relentless humor.
Bespreking
The Gods are alive and kicking
Why would the Norse God Thor be hanging around Terminal Two of Heathrow Airport trying to catch the 15.37 to Oslo? That is exactly the question Dirk Gently, a special kind of detective who uses his spiritual insight for his investigations, needs to get answered as fast as possible. Somehow the exploding Heathrow Airport ticket counter seems to be connected to Dirk's latest -and late- client, found only this morning with his head quite independently revolving atop the hit record "Hot Potato". It is time to get his holistic view on the world in practice, because the hostile attentions of a stray eagle and the murderous dirty refrigerator make the life of our intergalactic sleuth less attractive than he is used to.
When reviewing any book written by Douglas Adams, you are immediately forced -by some unseen intergalactic force- to compare it to the Hitchhiker's Guide series. No need in trying to resist this urge, so here it goes: The Gently books are probably not as hilarious as the Hitchhikers Guide series, yet they are still very funny. Voila!
Now that that has been cleared, it is time to formulate some useful comments. Be warned! When you decide to read The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul know that you will have to immediately reread it once you turn the last page. The storyline is so complex and mind bogglingly absurd that you will conclude more than once that Douglas must have been completely stoned while writing this novel. But don't panic! In the end everything comes together in an apotheosis of pure grandeur. The denouement is so perplexing that you can only continue by rereading the complete novel.
The jokes and gags are not the strongest point of the book, but the absurd situations and the entertaining storyline compensates this easily.
Since The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is the sequel to Dirk Gently and the Holistic Detective Agency, I guess it is recommendable to start with the first novel, although I did not do this and still had some great fun.