A Wonderful Tribute. (The Salmon Of Doubt - Douglas Adams)

Member Name: emmaball

Product:	The Salmon Of Doubt - Douglas Adams
Date:	01/02/03 (131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gives an insight into a great mind, A fun read

Disadvantages: The last book by Douglas Adams

Those of you who are Douglas Adams fans will know that this book is a collection of writings and interviews with the author and also the first eleven chapters of the book that he was writing at the time that he died in May 2001. I'm not sure how you go about reviewing a book like this but I’m going to have a go anyway because it may inspire people to buy a copy.

I have been a fan of Douglas Adams since I first picked up a copy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when I was about 10. From the first page I was completely riveted. I remember sitting watching the $64,000 Dollar Question (a quiz show for those that can't remember or don't watch television) when I was about 11 and one of the contestants chose the Hitchhikers books as his specialist subject. My family were utterly amazed when I sat there and answered every single question correctly. I think I even amazed myself. But by then I had read the books several times each.

Anyway onto the book itself.

The first three quarters of the book is devoted to numerous interviews and articles that Douglas wrote. These are fantastic as they give a wonderful insight into what kind of man he was. Though I have been a fan of his books for many years I knew very little about the person behind them, this book gives an insight into him. He comes across as the type of person who would try anything once and enjoyed life immensely. Some of these articles are quite bizarre and range from his first ever published writing (a letter to a comic when he was twelve) to his attempts to ride a mantra ray and explore the Barrier Reef. Some are very comical, others informative but there are a few that give a profound sense of loss. In a couple of the interviews he explains that he had lots of ideas for another hitchhikers book. Sadly that book will now never exist. As well as giving an idea of the kind of man that Douglas Adams was the book also paints an interesting portrait of Do
uglas Adams the writer. It is clear from many of the interviews that writing did not come easily to Douglas Adams and that it took a lot of sweat and tears to create the wonderful stories that he wrote. In an interview entitled "Interview with the Onion A.V. Club" Douglas says of hitchhikers "I'm pleased with the way it reads. I feel it flows nicely. It feels as if it were easy to write, and I know how difficult that was to achieve". I agree that those books are lovely to read and do not appear that they would have been difficult to write, it is interesting to know exactly how much work went into them.

Anyway I'm sure you want to know about the chapters from the new book. This was to be a Dirk Gently and according to the Editors Note, what has been published has been stitched together from a number of different works in progress. I really enjoyed the eleven chapters of this story but it was weird reading. I have never picked up a book before with the knowledge that I will never know how the story ends. It's kind of hard to read something knowing that you will never finish it and that it will end abruptly. It does appear to be a little disjointed in places (though this is to be expected). Still as I say what there is is good and is a credit to the memory of Douglas Adams. It is of course entirely possible that had the book been completed that it would have beared no likeness at all to what has been published, but we will never know.

There is not much more that I can say about this book. Fans of Douglas Adams will each interpret it in their own way and that is entirely how it should be. For those who are looking for an introduction to his work, I would not recommend this as a starting point. It is a wonderful read and incredibly enlightening but the Hitchhikers or Dirk Gently books are a much more fitting introduction.

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