Pros: Just when I thought I'd never read any more unpublished Adams prose, here some is!
Cons: A bit maudlin, due to Adams' death. And the title story is, of course, incomplete.
The Bottom Line: The title story is almost more interesting for who wrote it than for its content, which is lamentably unfinished. I wish I could read the rest of the story.
pharder's Full Review: Douglas Adams - The Salmon of Doubt: Special Editi...
If I have to explain my title, you have no business reading this book. First go read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" -- all five books of the trilogy. Then read "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul". Then, when you can properly appreciate it, read this book.
"The Salmon of Doubt" is Douglas Adams' last published book, released after his death. His editor poked around the hard disk of Adams' Macintosh, found this stuff that had never been published, and decided he could package it together into a book.
Depending on your frame of mind, the part of this book that comprises prose by Douglas Adams may be sandwiched between entirely too much sad lamentation of his passing. The lamentation is, of course, understandable. But I don't want to remember Douglas Adams sadly. I want to remember his wit and humor. So you may want to skip the Editor's Note, the Prologue, the Introduction, and the Epilogue. Entirely too many logues for me. Then again, those pieces do contain interesting bits of information about the life of a much missed man.
But Adam's writing is just what you'd expect. Both the fiction and nonfiction pieces fully show his wit and humor.
His nonfiction shows a side of him that you won't have been aware of if your only acquaintance with Adams was through his novels. It turns out that he also had a serious side, expressed through environmentalism and conservationism. He even wrote a nonfiction book titled "Last Chance to See", which I think I'll have to find somewhere. He was very upset with the way we're trashing our planet.
But as you read through the book, you'll be constantly looking forward to the title story, "The Salmon of Doubt". The editor's note at the beginning of the book describes how this story was assembled piecemeal from several unfinished fragments that he found lying about. The unfinishedness comes through clearly. First, there are several rough spots in the writing. But more seriously, the story just stops. There's no ending. In fact, it's not really clear just how much is missing. It could be that the whole story as presented is only the first major portion of a full-length novel. Adams could have developed it in that direction.
Another minor annoyance is that the title is never explained. It's mentioned in the Epilogue that Adams at one point was planning to publish a book named "The Salmon of Doubt", but he didn't yet know which book he would hang the title on. But what did it mean? Adams never before published a book with a title that wasn't immediately meaningful. With a little Internet searching, all I can come up with is that Adams said it was "meant to be a silly title". He succeeded. But I still want to understand the mental gyrations that ended up with picking that title. Frustration!
Let's not dwell on negatives. There are way too many positives.
Like the short piece in which Adams laments the complete inability of Americans to make a good cup of tea. He does give advice on how to do it, so maybe we can remedy this shortcoming if we try really hard.
And somewhere in the book -- I can't find it right now -- he had a witty comment about the phrase "it turns out". It turns out that "it turns out" is a pretty cheap device for making it look as if you knew what you were talking about. If you find that comment, you'll see what I mean.
Then there's the set of three rules, on page 95, that describe our reaction to new technologies. I won't quote them. Read the book.
And the title story, though incomplete, is fascinating.
From the unfathomable imagination of Douglas Adams, this is his internationally bestselling final book; a zany collection of essays, articles, anecdot...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
From the unfathomable imagination of Douglas Adams-his internationally bestselling final book; a zany collection of essays, articles, anecdotes, and s...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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