 The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul is Douglas Adam's second Dirk Gently novel. Gently is a private investigator, actually a holistic private investigator. That is, he believes in the total interconnectedness of all things. Therefore, his detecting methods involve pulling together the most unusual and apparently unrelated things and finding the common link. While the first book, Holistic Detective Agency, was fun and clever, Teatime seems to be too over the top. Adams has certainly given Gently some strange and apparently unrelated events but he doesn't tie them together in a clever way. Instead of explaining it all in "our" world, Adams moves the whole shebang off to a parrallel universe populated by norse mythological creatures. Once in that world we don't expect things to necessarily make sense so the tension of the juxtaposition of strange events is significantly reduced.
Here's a quick summary of the story. We start with a god-like temper tantrum at the Heathrow airport. When a gentleman (we later learn that this guy is Thor) is unable to get a plane ticket to Norway he calls lightning bolt down to destroy the ticket counter. Shortly there after Dirk arrives late at a client appointment only to discover that his client has been hideously murdered. Dirk discovers a crazy kid upstairs in his client's house. The kid is hauled away and never again appears in the story. After viewing the crime scene Dirk leaves and makes arrangements to replace his refridgerator. He and his housekeeper are in the middle of a standoff about who will clean in. Dirk's response is to simply buy a new fridge. The old fridge shows up in the parrallel world somehow but the connection isn't made clear. While in his client's place Dirk found an envelope. Much of the rest of the day he spends trying to open the envelope. Once he does he finds it's a contract written in an unknown language.
Dirk spends the rest of the day meandering around town and his appartment. Somehow, though, a crazy eagle has decided to attack him. Through some deft moves Gently is able to trap the eagle in his appartment while he gets out on a quest to find some cigarettes. On this quest he finds himself following a pack of homeless people as they escape through a portal into the parallel world that is where the Norse gods live.
Once in this other world Gently discovers the real problem. I'll let you read the book to figure it out.
Adams left several items unresolved and didn't show how they linked into the rest of the picture. In particular, the crazy kid and the dirty refridgerator never ended up making sense. I acknowledge that I might not be clever enough for this book. Maybe it takes a genius-like craziness to see the interconectedness of the events and objects in this book. If so, then I missed it.
After enjoying Holistic Detective Agency so much I was really looking forward to this book. Sadly, it disappoints. After reading this I think I've gotten my Douglas Adams fix for quite some time now. |
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