The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
By Douglas Adams
Another book whose story starts with something related to the great and wonderful Andrew Gustav Schneider. He gave this to me during our hours of sitting in JFK airport waiting for our flight to London to take off. A reading from my favorite British author for our trip to Britain.
Of course, I didn't get to read it in Britain because I picked up Edward Ruthorfurd's epic novel London at St. Paul's the second day we were there, and spent the rest of the time buried in that 1300 page wonder. (It's amazing, but not for the faint of heart.) So instead I had a book by my favorite British author to recover from my trip to Britain. Just as good really, maybe better.
Note: Anyone that has not yet read all four books in The Hitchhiker's Trilogy, stop reading this now and rush to your local library, you are missing out on great and wonderful things.
Now, when I first looked at the book, I was fairly sure that I hadn't read it. Then, at some point on the vacation, while Andrew was making fun of the lovely (10 feet of visibility) view that we'd enjoyed from the top of Mt. Snowdon in Wales, he made some joke about the clouds wanting to be close to me. He said that he remembered reading about a character like that, he thought in a Douglas Adams book, and all of a sudden I decided that I in fact HAD read this book and that it was the mystery about the Norse Gods... and that little antidote about the clouds wanting to be close to someone was in this book, something about the rain God...
I was about half right. I did read this at some point in the past, although long enough ago that I had pretty much forgotten it all. It is the mystery about the Norse Gods, but the thing with the guy who the clouds want to be near wasn't in here. Maybe it is somewhere in Hitchhikers. If you know where it is, it would be nice of you to share.
Anyway, this book does live up to the amusement that I expect from Adams on some levels. There is no shortage of one liners or cruel little observations about all the irony in the world to keep you amused. It doesn't have the same glory as Hitchhikers, but really, that would be quite a challenge.
If you are an Adams fan, you've probably already read this, and if not, I suppose you should. If not, I wouldn't start here, instead, read other things first, become an Adams fan, and then read this.
Sad to admit, but one of the coolest things was the fact that things kept happening in places where Andrew and I had been on our vacation (the main character's flat appears to be located on the same street as the car rental place, which was a longer than anticipated walk uphill from King's Cross, leaving me with a feel for the neighborhood.)
Well those places and Asgard, home of the wise and wonderful Gods of Norse mythology.
I do love the idea of Thor walking around frustrated that people don't believe in him anymore... I bet Zeus is pissed too...
