The Salmon Of Doubt
Douglas Adams
No-one should die young but there are some people who really shouldn’t. Especially if they are as funny as Douglas Adams and it takes them as long to write books as it took him (apparently he once said “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”)
The Salmon of Doubt is his last book, published after his death in the summer of 2001. It’s made up of files found on his computer and consists mainly of articles he wrote for magazines, interviews with him, and a couple of short stories (including one about Zaphod from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). Plus there are numerous epilogues, prologues, forwards and introductions and finally, tucked somewhere near the back is the real jewel – the first eleven chapters of the Salmon of Doubt – a third novel about Dirk Gently, sole practitioner of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
For once Dirk is happy; an anonymous client has been paying him although he’s not sure why, and so he is off stalking strangers. Desmond the Rhinoceros is less happy, but then he has a very good excuse, and Thor the Nordic God of Thunder is furious, but he always is.
It’s infuriating not knowing what Adams was planning for the rest of the book (beyond “jokes, lightly poached fish, and the emergent properties of complex systems”) but there are so many nice ideas and little sub-stories that it’s very funny despite that.
The rest of the book is funny too, if in rather varying degrees. For some reason its rather bafflingly arranged in three sections “life, the universe and everything” which is quite annoying because not all of Adams’s major passions: computer, scuba diving, conservation and music will appeal to everyone.
Some of it is a bit dated and most of it has been published elsewhere but it nicely creates a semi auto-biography. He comes across as a likeable, interesting man with an amazing ability to stand back and point out quite obvious things that you’d never noticed. This ranges from observations about religion and evolution to little things like the amount of time it takes to say the letter W and the lack of explanation for la in the do-re-mi song.
If you’ve not read any of the other books, don’t start here but if you’re a fan you should enjoy it even though the eleven chapters of The Salmon of Doubt are tantalisingly slim.
Of course if you don’t like Douglas Adams books don’t bother - but you’re seriously misguided (or an accountant) and should probably try them again.
Pan; ISBN: 0330323121
