Talk:Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
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I intentionally did not put a plot synopsis of the book in the article. I feel that a spoiler warning would not be sufficient to stop people from reading the synopsis, and that it would be a shame to ruin a book that is this complex. (Summarizing up to the canal scene might be acceptable.) Besides, with the way the book is written, every detail begs to be summarized (especially if the summary reaches the end, where all the details come together), so the book is its own best summary.
I also think that the character descriptions serve the purpose of a plot synopsis -- to get the tone and character of the book across. Paullusmagnus 13:50 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I was under the impression that the poem of import in the book was Rime of the Ancient Mariner, not Kubla Kahn. --Jherico 23:16, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- They're both relevant, but "Kubla Khan" is the really significant one. --Paul A 02:40, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Corrected article to reflect this.--Jmstylr 14:59, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
I have no idea what is meant by the end of this line: 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has been compared to Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid because Dirk Gently is actually based on the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things"—which is virtually the same thing as the chaos theory.' Godel Escher Bach was certainly not about chaos theory, it explored mathematical formalism, truth, proof and the emergence of meaning and possibly consciousness from self-reference. Chaos theory describes the unpredictable behaviour of a system with total sensitivity to initial variables, a totally different topic. --Remy B
- See here: http://www.forum2.org/tal/books/dirk.html The reviewer Tal Cohen e-mailed Douglas Adams about this, and he said that although he had read Hofstadter's book, he didn't feel it was connected really.
- SPOILERS TO FOLLOW?
- One thing that, as far as I know, none of the discussions of the ending of DGHDA have mentioned is the true significance of the "albatross" - i.e. the new editor of Fathom magazine, described in the book as "A.K. Ross" or "Al", i.e. "Albert Ross". The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, following Dirk's conversation with Coleridge, attains the structure we know today, with the part about killing the albatross. However, Wenton-Weakes is already heard complaining about "the part with the bird" making no sense, before Dirk goes back and plants the albatross idea in Coleridge's mind. How is this, I wonder? Umop ap!sdn 11:31, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)