Book review: The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams
Hearing about Douglas Adams’ untimely death was certainly a shock to all of his fans, myself included. I had been a big follower of his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, I had greatly enjoyed his Doctor Who scripts, and his Dirk Gently novels simply get better and better on every read-through. The thought of a world with nothing more forthcoming from Douglas Adams is simply not a happy one.
However, upon hearing about the posthumous release of what fragments existed of his incomplete final novel, I’ll admit that I was slightly skeptical. From all reports, Adams was quite a perfectionist, and it seemed clear that whatever was pieced together from his hard-drive would be nothing like what he would have eventually completed. But now, having read the book, I’m glad that I did so, despite its fragmented style and incomplete status. It’s given us a last look, and for that alone we should be grateful.
The book with the words “The Salmon Of Doubt” on the cover is actually a hodgepodge of various articles, essays, introductions, speeches, odd thoughts and other writings of which the incomplete novel, The Salmon of Doubt, is only a small part. The non-fiction portion (which accounts for most of the pages) reveals a very witty and intelligent author, who was quite outspoken about those topics close to his heart, and who put those views forward in a thought-provoking and amusing way. The editor has gamely attempted to organize this collection into groups of similar topics, but to be honest it doesn’t feel organized at all. This is basically just a random compilation of different writings all thrown together into a single volume. Douglas Adams had far-ranging tastes and interests, and while you will see some recurring topics (his love of the Beatles is omnipresent), you won’t find any real sense of coherence. But you will find a lot of intelligently argued and hilarious essays on subjects as diverse as technology, the environment, P. G. Wodehouse, atheism, and other people’s dogs.
Reviewing what exists of The Salmon of Doubt is a very difficult task. There are a lot of plot points and threads that obviously aren’t wrapped up or even properly started. What is here is great, but would that level of quality be maintained? Would the plot be continued in a satisfying manner, or would all the clever hints that were dropped be discarded? It’s impossible to determine how the rest of the story would have gone. The editors give us as much information as they could, but even Douglas Adams apparently hadn’t decided whether it would continue to be a Dirk Gently book, or if he would switch it over to his Hitchhikers universe. The only real way I have of reviewing the tiny (80 pages) block of The Salmon of Doubt is to say that I did enjoy reading it, I’m heartbroken that there isn’t any more of it, and I’ll certainly reread this in the future. If only it wasn’t so short.
If you had any misgivings about reading an incomplete work, then I can only try to persuade you to go ahead and devour this anyway. A tantalizing fraction of a Douglas Adams book is still better than no Douglas Adams book at all. The non-fiction writings are provocative and the Hitchhiker humor is displayed on every page. Take a final stroll through the last words of Douglas Adams; you’ll be very sorry that the ride is over, but you’ll be glad that you got on board.
So long, Douglas, and thanks for all the wit.
This review was originally posted in July 2002.
