Douglas Adams - classic or dud?

You're saying "his stuff is mostly about food" as if it was a problem. :)

I've rambled excessively about Bourdain in other threads here - read the books several times, ate at his restaurant in NYC, and am dutifily burning DVDs of A Cook's Tour which is still my favorite show on the Food Network (next to David Rosengarten's Taste).

Have you read his fiction, or just Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour? I have Bone in the Throat floating around here, somewhere, though I've not read it, yet.

I've been pretty much boycotting the Food Network (except for A Cook's Tour, of course) since last year some time, when Iron Chef did a show with turtle as the theme ingredient. Still makes me upset to think about it, though I know it's not a rational response.

But also because -- for the first time in about a decade, maybe more, I dug out my old audiobooks of Stephen Moore reading abridged versions of the first four Hitchhiker's books to act as a soundtrack for my spring cleaning over the weekend. It's a pretty great job by Moore, who of course did Marvin in the radio/TV/record versions, but he was also able to give each of the other main characters his own spin rather than simply replicating the work of Simon Jones et al.

More importantly, however, is that after many years away from the book versions of the story -- I usually dig out the radio series once a year for a listen -- I realized two clear things about Adams' work. First, a large part of my writing style in terms of humorous fiction writing comes from him and his various picaresque spins, grotesques and playing with the language. I say this not to claim I'm equal to his writing ability or that I'm slavishly following in his footsteps, but to note with a pleasant shock as to how clearly and carefully his work was inculcated into my way of working with words. I'm quite positive I use the word 'bemused' in general from a part where Adams wrote: "'Catch it?' said Arthur, then frowned in bemusement...' -- read very well by Moore and instantly returning to memory upon replaying it.

Secondly...he was, quite simply, an extremely fine writer. In the same way that something like Peanuts reads one way at one age and then another way later on, moments in the books that once seemed only amusing or slight take on newer casts, suggest new depths, reveal that Adams definitely had a lot on his mind but was able to deftly suggest many things as a result, in a framework that he more or less stumbled into after Hitchhiker's initial success on the radio, and which eventually became his core metier. From a distance, for instance, the seeming 'disappointment' of So Long not being a 'classic' Hitchhiker's story becomes an appreciation of the book's own virtues, at capturing feelings of desire and love, of suggesting something as awesome as a break between two near identical worlds, of creating a whole new conception of reality out of an instruction on a toothpick box. There's a part near the start of the book where Arthur looks out from his house and finds himself connecting with all around him, almost being able to sense other minds, in a way that's both empathetic and regarding from on high, that's very captivating to me.

Then there's something as imaginative, sad and amusing as the story of 'the Reason' in the epilogue from Life, the Universe and Everything, which somehow reduces the story of stupidity and war into a simple but sad fable, one without resolution. Listening to it was almost like heaving a great sigh, one with both warmth and melancholy, the latter predominating. Ed on one of the movie threads noted that Adams' universe in his fiction was one where humanity wasn't at the center, not even on the barest fringe, in a larger construct of existential action -- it reminds me, very much, of H. P. Lovecraft's similar conceptions, but Adams had so much which Lovecraft lacked. If Agrajaj is a Lovecraftian horror down to the name, his scenario of being constantly killed by Arthur Dent is still cosmic japery, and Lovecraft could never capture at all the simple joy of being in a beautiful park with someone you love on a late summer afternoon.

All that and he can be just so funny, making me laugh out loud when talking about the sun shining down on the burglars of Islington.

This cast list is quite impressive as well. Jackie Mason! Stephen Fry! Jonathan Pryce! Boycie! Plus cameos from David Dixon and Sandra Dickinson, who were Ford & Trillian in the TV series. Excellent.

I'm really having to hold back from reading through all his books, right now, because I'd like to see the movie without having every sentence of his work imprinted on my brain. I think around the time I read first read his work was around the time I started enjoying words and writing a lot more, phrases and structures of sentences...

And I always loved the stories of him taking a year to write the first couple of pages, which would be immaculate, and spending the rest of the time in the bath... and then being spurred in to action by the editor after having completely missed the deadline. But those first few pages would be spotless with not a word out of place.

I always loved the one with Fenchurch when I was younger. My chief annoyance with Mostly Harmless back then is that she was not there, and hardly dealt with at all...

Thanks! And to Forksclovetofu too. :-) I was trying to hold back a bit from rereading/listening before the movie but eventually thought 'the hell with it' -- why deny oneself?

Dirk Gently radio series starts this Wednesday.

"You are very fat and stupid and persistently wear a ridiculous hat which you should be ashamed of."

Classic.

HARRY. FUCKING. ENFIELD?

I want very much to like this. I suspect I will not. This is deeply saddening.

i wonder if a single week of my life goes by that i don't think of something from THE DEEPER MEANING OF LIFF. i'd reckon not.

I haven't read the second Liff book, but if only for the first (a.k.a. the best toilet book OF ALL TIME) Douglas Adams = classic.

who evens asks this?

just bought dirk gently novels hardback omnibus, which is classic in itself.

I think Robert Sheckley and Douglas Adams must have the same accountant.

THE PIRATE PLANET

wherein dr. who solves his big problem by having a shrewdness of unfortunate-looking telepaths push down a plunger on a demolition rig WITH THEIR MINDS

I forgot this was on :( Any good?

timer record from itv digital box let me down.

listenagain link on above webpage though.

I think The Pirate Planet shows how few ideas he actually had, because an awful lot of it ends up recycled into Hitchhikers. See also Dirk Gently, which was almost entirely recycled from his last Doctor Who script (not completed due to BBC strikes). This is further confirmed, to a lesser or greater degree, by his brother in the documentary on the disk where he more or less says Douglas had a ridiculously productive period that lasted about a year then did more or less nothing new after that.

I can appreciate his work, but don't buy into the Cult of his Awesomeness at all.

I agree.

I think for a lot of people Douglas Adams is like their first love: in time, they've naturally moved on to better and more sophisticated things but he will always have a place in their heart because it was the first time they came across this type of writing or humour.

(How patronising is that? But it's what I suspect though)

See also Dirk Gently, which was almost entirely recycled from his last Doctor Who script (not completed due to BBC strikes)

It's a mixture of Shada and City Of Death.

I rather liked the first episode of the radio series. It was rather altered from the book, but it would have to be. I never really worked out quite why Dirk was watching Susan's flat at the start of the book; they seem to have put some reasoning in for this in the radio version. I did like all the "this is an alternative universe" hints near the start, though.

xpost

name some of the better and more sophisticated things, though.

does the deeper meaning of liff have entirely different content from the meaning of liff or is the former simply an expanded version of the latter?

expanded

though maybe they dropped some weaker ones too, I dunno, I never bought it

hm, does anyone know for definite? it's impossible to find out online! even amazon is kinda muddled about it.

Uh?

Douglas Adams may be gone, but his Hitchhiker's Guide series will continue. At the helm will be Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl fantasy series. In a recording on his website, Colfer says:

"This is one of my favorite series of all time.... As a teenager I would run around quoting lines from this to get me through my teen angst... Now all of these imaginary endings that I had for years -- as you may or may not know, Douglas Adams never finished the series, so I finished it in my head -- now I'm finishing it in real life."

When Adams died suddenly of a heart attack at 49, he had written five Hitchhiker's Guide novels, the last of which blew up several key characters. But he had plans for a sixth, according to The Guardian. The proposal for the sixth book -- to be titled "And Another Thing..." -- was sanctioned by Adams' widow, Jane Belson.

um, how much more of an ending can you have when every major character introduced gets blown up at the end

This is one of those mysteries I don't want to know the answer to.

It wouldn't take much to zap them to another planet or something just before the explosion, but still. I bet this is wank.

mostly harmless was mostly bad anyway. it should have really stopped with fish, which I think is the best one.

^^^

Definitely the sex scene was hilarious.

fish was the most human and endearing of his books, it seemed to have a real heart and his writing was pretty good in it. fenchurch was a great character. but i guess she was based on an ex which is why she just vanished in the next book.

I really hated Random.

(although the last time I read Mostly Harmless, I enjoyed it)

Agreed on Fish as being a really lovely stopping point (if it had been). God's final message really did sum it up.

so you people liked all that stuff about Dire Straits then?

I might talk about another song, but I fully appreciated him trying to convey the feeling of how a song can hit you/mean something to you. (I'll take it over everything Nick Hornby's written on the matter, say.)

i like dire straits

so FUK U

God's final message really did sum it up.

OTM. I enjoyed MH. I will probably read this as a tribute rather than an extension of the story.

Matt DC could they really have them teleported miraculously away in time? What happened to the kid? Could she keep the story going?

Wasn't there a dude who wanted to punish Arthur for repeatedly killing him in every single life? Who zapped him straight onto another planet in a previous book?

(I agree this would be RUBBISH but hey)

61 all this time later is still so young :(

OTM RIP

I know, that's the thing that still gets me.

It's actually been playing in the back of my mind since I saw the Doodle last night. He was remarkably young when he started out and it sounds like he managed to pack a lot into his relatively short life (as well as a lot of baths, reportedly).

https://youtu.be/5TNXaCBAjpo

new Dirk Gently series

Max Landis - classic or dud?