The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Following on from the weird and wonderful mess of interconnectedness that is the first Dirk Gently novel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul again creates a recognisable London, but one where the strangest and sometimes most horrific things can happen. 

Beginning with a mysterious explosion at Heathrow airport, the book chronicles a bizarre chain of events that encompasses Dirk in a tangled case of impossible and legendary proportions including a bed-ridden Odin, an enraged Thor lumbering around town with a Coca Cola vending machine, strange eagles causing domestic disturbances, the delivery of pizza, and the removal of an old fridge. 

Praise of Douglas Adams. In a literary world where paranormal love triangles, and oppressive or dystopian stories are swallowed to prepare us for the impending apocalypse and awkward social interactions with vamps and werewolves it will obviously entail, fresh, funny, intelligent, and indeed weird is truly the way to go. 

Gods have been reappearing in contemporary culture quite keenly of late, Thor being the most prominent as he’s a smouldering specimen that makes up a part of Marvel’s Avengers. They’ve also popped up in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, as well as Gaiman’s American Gods, which has been turned into a series. 

Adams’ approach to representing immortals in contemporary society is both sad, but highly believable. In a world where no one believes or has need to believe in gods, the poor creatures just exist as tramps and bag-ladies: people without identities who must live off what they can scavenge. Without birth certificates or passports, in our world these guys literally don’t exist and it’s quite a clever scene in the book where Dirk actually ponders this and then a sadder one when he discovers that St. Pancras Station is filled with homeless immortals. 

Unlike the detective story vibe of the first novel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is really more of a shit-happens novel. Whilst it begins with a clear detective beginning: a gruesome murder, it slowly takes the genre and completely dismantles it so as to become something else entirely. By the climax, you’re rather confused as to how the murder is connected to the ‘Acts of God’ that are happening around the city, the only link being a green guy with a contract and a scythe. It takes the form of more of a revenge story, building up this wonderful tension and suspense, which then somehow diffuses during the climax in a way that you don’t see coming. 

Come to think of it, that’s the brilliance of this novel: so much stuff happens and is connected by all these little things like a Sherlock Holmes story, except that Adams doesn’t let you see the connection. He doesn’t even give you a tiny insignificant lick of a hint that something might be significant to the story, so you don’t go ‘ohhh’ until right at the end. 

There are still sections that I’m confused about, but what I do know is that I absolutely was hooked by this novel: it made me laugh, exclaim excitedly in public (I read as I walk to work), and speak aloud to myself. The brilliance is in its bizarreness and if you’re a reader who can just read and let the words take you somewhere, then I would highly recommend The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. 

Author: Douglas Adams 

Published: 1988, William Heinemann Ltd