Douglas Adams, �The Salmon of Doubt�
There was a lot of trepidation involved with this book when it came in. It is a rather new book, released after the untimely death of Douglas Adams in 2001. The subtitle is Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time, and so I thought this was the sixth book in the ever-increasing trilogy. A few cursory glances at the cover blurbs made me fear this was completed by some other hack, much like the seven or so Mario Puzo novels that have magically appeared since that author�s death.
But still I bought the book. Then, as I read the introduction, I got the impression that this was a continuation from the Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective series, of which I�ve only read the first novel, so I was suddenly thinking I shouldn�t be reading this as I might miss something.
Further into the introduction the perspective changed yet again, and it now looked like people broke into Adams computer and rifled through his notes, looking for something � anything � that could make a few more bucks out of a dead horse. Or in this case, a dead person.
Thankfully, this was none of those things. What we get instead are dozens of articles previously published in small periodicals, replies to fan letters and e-mails, and some random trains of thought that he just happened to save for one reason or another.
I don�t know if anybody else noticed this, but Adams is at his funniest in fits and starts. His best stuff on the hitchhiker series plays like small skits on Saturday Night Live, with one exception � he�s usually funny. But if you piece those skits together and look at the work as a whole, the truly memorable things are the smaller skits. And so this book is perfect for Adams� style.
There was just so much here that made me laugh, and what�s best is that it comes from observations that almost anybody could make but never thought to do so. My personal favorite at the moment comes from the cabbie who ponders the fact that nobody has ever leaped into his taxi, shouting, �Follow that cab!� Ergo, all the cabs must be following him.
It�s also neat to see somebody who is unequivocally an atheist and makes no apologies for it. I really can�t remember the last time I saw or read anybody of celebrity status take such a position. Of course, this also makes me wonder what all those priests and religious references were doing at his funeral.
The last eighty pages or so are a collected Dirk Gently story, and I�m almost reluctant to say that it�s very funny. I say I�m reluctant because I�ve realized my own habit of once discovering an author I like, I buy everything they ever produce. And unfortunately, there is nothing else by Douglas Adams that I can get. Meanwhile, John Grisham and Sue Grafton show no sign of letting up.
It�s a cruel, cruel world sometimes.
