BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Salmon of Doubt’ by Douglas Adams (2002)

Poor Douglas Adams. Poor, poor, poor Douglas Adams. I mean ‘Poor’ in the sense of lamentations, not literally: the man was amazingly filthy-stinking rich for what little actual work he did. The fact that he, himself, would admit his financial gains far outstripped any justification from his actual talent is one of the many things that I like about the guy. There are many things to like about Douglas Adams, not the least of which was that he was a genuinely funny man. On the other hand, for those of us who liked him, there are some things not to like about him. The most immediate of these would be the fact that he’s stupidly dead at only 49 years old. At an age when most writers are hitting their personal stride and peak years, he dropped dead of a sudden and unforeseen heart attack while at the gym.

Another thing to dislike about him is that he seems to have really lost any interest in writing.

I say this based on the fact that I have read “his” last “Book:” The Salmon of Doubt. You’ll notice some “Quotes” in that last sentence. ‘Doubt’ was touted as Adam’s last book, and it both is and isn’t. He wrote virtually every word in the book, but he didn’t compile it, nor did he intend for it to be compiled, nor is it, really, a ‘book’ per se, unless one looks at it in the absolute strictest definition of the word. (Cover, binding, pages = book. And you will please forgive my run on sentences. I’ve just been reading Douglas Adams, and his style is infectious.) Conceptually, it’s not a book. It’s a grab bag of Adams paraphernalia, the literary equivalent of an album of B-sides and studio outtakes. There’s a couple dozen interviews, some essays, a couple speeches – all of which are pretty funny and intellectual and give us a window into the man – a couple short stories (Neither of which is very good), and a lengthy fragment of his unfinished novel, ‘The Salmon of Doubt.’

In the end, I was disappointed. Actually, I was disappointed in the beginning, moderately bored through the middle, and horribly disappointed by the end. It’s not that this is a bad book (or anthology or compendium or what have you), it’s just that in the end, it drives home the fact that Elvis has left the building, and isn’t coming back. Let’s use a musical metaphor, shall we? If Douglas Adams was the Beatles, then Mostly Harmless was Abbey Road. His untimely death – like that of John Lennon – means we can never hope for a ‘reunion’. Reading ‘Salmon of Doubt’, then, is like listening to scratchy bootleg four-track recordings of Ringo Starr singing “No Pakistani:” it’s a touching, yet sad attempt to get one last fix out of something we once held dear.

Which is fine and good and sad, and I’ve got no problem with it. I’m glad someone took the trouble to compile this, though, like the Beatles Anthologies a decade back, it isn’t really terribly fulfilling. Had someone not put this book together, I probably would have eventually tracked down most of this crap myself, and it presented some things I never knew existed, like “The Private Life of Genghis Khan.” (And