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Dirk Gently

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Douglas Adams
(1952-2001)

THAT Douglas Adams?

The guy with the BBC show and the Vogons and the towels and the three-armed Betelgeusians?

Yup, that Douglas Adams.

So now he’s writing about trenchcoats, fedoras, smoky jazz, and femmes fatales?

Well, no…

Even in an era of maverick and increasingly non-traditional P.I.’s, DIRK GENTLY defies description. He’s the shabby proprietor of a “Holistic Detective Agency”, and his main tools include logic, illogic, coincidence, leaps of faith, his unshakeable belief in the interconnectedness of all things, and what I can only describe as contrarian psychic powers. Thus armed, he finds missing cats, explains mysteriously exploding airline counters, gives directions to Nordic gods who got stuck on Earth enroute to Valhalla, gives aid to an airline worker who’s been transformed into a vending machine, does the occasional bit of legwork on behalf of pagan deities, and, oh yes, with the aid of long-suffering sidekick Richard Macduff, saves the human race from extinction every now and then. (His greatest contribution to Western civilization, or at least to English lit majors, is that he manages to find an actual explanation of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.” I really wish I’d caught up with these books before I finished college).

The books’ plots, such as they are, are fun–but as ever, Adams’ true strength lies in his digressive and hilarious riffs on, well, just about everything. If you want actual linear plot movement, this probably isn’t the place to look. They’re well worth a search, though, if you’re after a refreshing change of pace from traditional P.I. fare.

POSTSCRIPT

Author Douglas Adams died unexpectedly in 2001, but the legend lives on. In 2002 there was a new Adams collection called The Salmon Of Doubt, which featured (among other things) a story fragment that’s the beginning of a third (and now-never-to-be-completed) Dirk Gently novel. This story fragment (from which the collection takes its title) relates a case in which Dirk becomes certain he’s been hired by a client who:

This makes Dirk’s investigation a trifle more complicated, but the semi-intrepid Gently has never been one to let a few odd circumstances get in the way of his holistic detecting…

Sadly, just as the loopy narrative seems to be taking off, it comes to an abrupt halt. Adams fans will want to check it out, of course, but newcomers will probably get more bang for their buck by checking out Adams’ other works first. (That’s my opinion, anyway….)

POST-POSTSCRIPT

In 2010, the producers of the BBC’s acclaimed Sherlock (a sly revising of Doyle’s great detective) decided to “do” Adams’ holistic private eye. The result may be a little skimpy on the deeper philosophical insights of the novels, but they sure nail the freewheeling goofiness, having great fun with the characters, with Stephen Magnan as a frantic, bug-eyed, wild-haired Dirk being a particular delight. Try imagining Stephen Moffat’s Sherlock as run through the Monty Python meat grinder and you’re almost there. Alas, after the pilot, they only made three episodes.

POST-POST-POSTSCRIPT

2015-16 saw a serious expansion of the Dirkiverse.

IDW Comics launched a string of mini-series, dispatching our man Gently to such exotic locales as San Diego, Africa and his own past. Presumably he brought his own towels.

But the on-going comic series was just the first salvo, and was soon followed by a stage play and another TV series, this one starring Samuel Barnett as Dirk, with Elijah Wood as his reluctant assistant Todd.

EVIDENCE

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Respectfully submitted by Victoria Esposito-Shea, with occasional editorial interuptions by Kevin Burton Smith. Postscript by Rudyard Kennedy.

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