Strange Fiction:
A Postmodern Reading of Douglas Adams’
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
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Introduction
“What do a dead cat, a computer whiz-kid, an Electric
Monk who believes the world is pink, quantum mechanics,
a Chronologist over 200 years old, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (poet), and pizza have in common?”
- Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams’ 1987 novel, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is as eclectic as
the novel’s descriptive tagline suggests. Thus, it is quite difficult to establish which
genre/s it belongs to. Futuristic devices, supernatural forces, clumsy romance, and
witty humor are but a few of the elements that grace the pages of this novel. However,
in spite of the novel’s multifaceted nature, one could place it within the genre, albeit
not exclusively, of detective fiction. Although the novel does not belong to a
traditional category, it does contain elements that were standardized during the prewar era, the so-called Golden Age of detective fiction. These elements include
murder, red herrings, multiple suspects, and the essential eccentric detective, in this
case, Dirk Gently. However, it seems that Adams includes these traditional elements
for the purpose of exploiting and/or satirizing them. In her article, ”Detection and
Literary Fiction” Laura Marcus discusses postmodern fiction: ”Postmodernism does
not, of course, merely return to pre-war detective fiction, but ’exploits detective
stories by expanding and changing certain possibilities in them’” (250). Adams
explores the realm of possibilities, or perhaps even of impossibilities, in his novel.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency also belongs to the sub-category of
postmodernism that G.K. Chesterton termed, ”the ’metaphysical’ detective story”
(Marcus 254). In postmodern literature, Marcus states that, ”the metaphysical
detective story in particular, gives us not familiarity but strangeness, ’a strangeness
which more often than not is the result of jumbling the well known patterns of
classical detective stories’” (250). Adams perverts, not only individual elements, but
the overall structure and narrative traditionally associated with detective fiction. In
this essay the way in which Adams undermines and parodies the classical detective
novel framework will be explored from a postmodern literary perspective.
Metafiction Detective Fiction
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“So what of the horse, then, that actually held opinions,
and was skeptical about things? Unusual behaviour for a
horse, wasn’t it? An unusual horse perhaps?”
(Adams 4)
Metafiction, from a Lacanian perspective, is when a “novel undercuts or queries its
own realism” (Barry 109-10). Adams use of metafiction is noticeable in his
employment of meta-narration, which occurs early on in the novel. Meta-narration
according to Gérard Genette is “a narrative within the narrative” (Barry 227). In Dirk
Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency the narrator addresses the reader directly about the
Electric Monk’s horse, creating a separate dialogue with the reader and establishing a
sense of instability. Traditionally detective fiction has purported, within the texts
themselves, that the stories are based in reality; the reader is not meant to think of the
narration as questionable. For example, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story, ”A
Study in Scarlet” Sherlock Holmes references Edgar Allen Poe’s fictional detective,
C. Auguste Dupin, as an unrealistic character who he himself holds in low esteem:
No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to
Dupin,’ [Holmes] observed. ’Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior
fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an
apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and
superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means
such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine (24).
Doyle effectively maintains a sense of reality within his fictional work.
In Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction Patricia Waugh
defines metafiction as:
A term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically
draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the
relationship between fiction and reality. In providing a critique of their own
methods of construction, such writings not only examine the fundamental
structures of narrative fiction, they also explore the possible fictionality of the
world outside the literary fictional text (2).
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In Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency Adams bends this structure by
intentionally blurring historical events and places with fiction, which effectively
questions the boundaries between fiction and reality. Furthermore, he consistently
questions his own narration, which reminds the reader that they are in fact reading a
fictional story, yet this paradox introduces a new reality. For example, the narrator
poses questions, seemingly to the reader, then proceeds in either dismissing or
answering them. In either case the reader is given a piece of information to consider.
Furthermore, Adams narrational style lends itself to parody. Parody, by its very
nature, disturbs and questions its subject and as Waugh suggests, “parody renews and
maintains the relationship between form and what it can express, by upsetting a
previous balance which has become so rigidified that the conventions of the form can
express only a limited or even irrelevant content” (Waugh 68). Adams use of parody
in combination with his narrative style leads to an alteration of the the traditional form
of detective fiction and to the breaking and satirizing of the rules which were
standardized during the Golden Age era.
Golden Rules are Meant to be Broken
”’What is this?’ he added, pointing to Richard’s plate.
’A pickled herring. Do you want one?’
’Thank you, no, ’ said Dirk, […].’There is, […] no such
word as ’herring’ in my dictionary’”
(Adams 184)
A distinct set of characteristics concerning the detective novel was formed during the
Golden Age. Readers came to expect a certain amount of dependability in detective
fiction; among those expectations were murder, which occurred early in the story,
clues, detecting, suspects, and the reader expected to experience a satisfying chase
and solution to the crime, justice even. In Ronald Knox’s “Ten Commandments” from
the preface to The Best Detective Stories of 1928-29 he declares the essential elements
of a good detective story:
1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not
anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of
course.
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
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4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which
will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an
unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
7. The detective himself must not commit the crime.
8. The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.
9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the
reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be
slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have
been duly prepared for them.
As mentioned previously Adams uses parody to great effect and in doing so he
succeeds in breaking at least half of Knox’s commandments and no doubt a fair few
on any other list of detective fiction rules.
Beginning with rule number two, Adams employs both supernatural and
preternatural agencies. The first character introduced in the novel is an Electric Monk
who comes from another planet and is essentially a robot with special abilities:
The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video
recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the
bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television
for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks
believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly
onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe
(Adams 3).
Shortly after the Monk’s introduction the reader is introduced to the victim, Gordon
Way, who returns immediately after he is murdered, as a ghost, to contemplate what
has occurred. Furthermore, the cause of the novel’s central crime as well as several
other strange events is due to the presence of a ghost that belonged to a creature from
another planet and is older than life on earth.
Moving on to rule number four, there are not any poisons in the novel, but the
presence of an “appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end,” is
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arguably present (Knox). The professor’s time machine, or rather his apartment that is
the time machine, is not a typical element in crime fiction and its workings certainly
require a fair amount of explanation.
Dirk Gently’s ideas are born, at times, from pure intuition and at other times from
chance occurrences of which one could term improbable accidents, which effectively
breaks rule number six. For example, Dirk admits that he came to the conclusion that
the secret to the professor’s conjuring trick was a time machine was based on a
conversation with a child:
In the end I asked a child. I told him the story of the trick and asked him how
he thought it had been done, and he said, and I quote, ‘It’s bleedin‘ obvious
innit, he must’ve ‘ad a bleedin‘ time machine.‘ […] But he was the one who
solved it. My only contribution to the matter was to see that he must be right.
He had even saved me the bother of kicking myself (Adams 200).
Quite simply, the child made an offhand comment which Dirk Gently, in turn, made
an outlandish deduction from and his deduction proved to be correct!
Finally, in the case of rule number one, it is hard to say clearly whether or not this
rule is broken for the crime is never officially solved. However, if one assumes that
the Electric Monk is responsible for the murder of Gordon Way then the first portion
of the rule is fulfilled, but the second part is most definitely broken, for the reader is,
in fact, privy to the monk’s thoughts. The monk even divulges details of his crime (or,
at least, his alleged crime):
There was, he remembered, an odd function call he had had last night, which
he hadn’t encountered before, but he had had a feeling that it might be
something he’d heard of called remorse. He hadn’t felt at all comfortable
about the way the person he had shot just lain there, and after initially walking
away the Monk had returned to have another look (Adams 129).
The reader is kept in contact with the Electric Monk, his thoughts and feelings,
throughout the novel. The discussion of this rule, the idea, of an unsolved murder in a
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detective novel leads to the discussion of the novel’s overall framework, the crime/s,
the detecting, and the conclusion.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Framework
“‘Miss Way,’ he said, ’the police are interested in knowing
who murdered your brother. I, with the very greatest
respect, am not. It may, I concede, turn out to have bearing
on the case, but it may just as likely turn out to be a casual
madman’” (Adams 182)
The Classical framework of a detective novel begins with a crime, usually murder,
which is followed by detecting by a detective, and is then concluded with a solution,
which most likely includes justice. Certainly, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
contains crime, detecting, and a conclusion. However, in this case, the detective is
rather more eccentric than usual, the crime, the murder that the reader believes is
central becomes a side item, and a solution to the crime never really occurs.
The detective is usually the character that is most central in a detective novel, yet
Dirk Gently does not appear until one third of the way into the book. At first it seems
as though Dirk Gently is going to investigate the murder of Gordon Way, however the
reader soon learns that he is more interested in the conjuring trick of the professor’s;
he is not at all interested in finding Gordon Way’s murderer. Furthermore, his
methods and explanations are often questionable. For example, he misleads Richard
into believing that he is wanted for Gordon’s murder, he then brushes that detail aside
when he seeks Richard at his girlfriend’s house, “I apologise most humbly for having
misled you, er, somewhat, but I knew that what I had to find out lay far beyond what
the police would concern themselves with” (Adams (183). This is after he informs
Susan Way that he isn’t the least bit interested in finding her brother’s killer. He
wants Richard to accompany him to the professor’s house at Cambridge, but his
reasoning is, as usual, rather vague:
It disturbs me very greatly when I find that I know things and do not know
why I know them. Maybe it is the same instinctive processing of data that
allows you to catch a ball almost before you’ve seen it. Maybe it is the deeper
and less explicable instinct that tells you when someone is watching you. It is
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a very great offence to my intellect that the very things that I despise other
people for being credulous of actually occur to me (Adams 183).
Richard agrees to go along with Dirk in the end and the novel’s real mystery unfolds
from there, in the last quarter of the book. The conjuring trick does turn out to be the
key to the unveiling of the professor’s time machine, which is the answer to many
puzzles, including the murder of Gordon Way.
Typically in crime fiction, the criminal is brought to justice or at least the case is
solved. However, in this case, the criminal/s are not brought to justice and it is never
perfectly clear as to who is guilty, yet the reader is, curiously, no longer interested for
the adventures of the time machine, most notably, the saving of the world, distracts
the reader’s attention.
However, in an ironic twist, the Electric Monk is brought to justice, so to speak.
He returns to the gas station where Gordon Way’s murderer entered the trunk of the
car and begins to believe that a police officer, who is investigating Gordon Way’s
murder is, in fact, God. The police officer arrests him due to his strange behavior:
The Monk watched in transfixed awe. The man, he believed with instant
effortlessness […] must be a God of some kind […]. He waited with bated
breath to worship him. In a moment the man turned around and walked out of
the shop, saw the Monk and stopped dead. The Monk realised that the God
must be waiting for him to make an act of worship, so he reverently danced up
and down twisting his fingers in his ears. His God stared at him for a moment,
caught hold of him, twisted him around, slammed him forward spreadeagled
over the car and frisked him for weapons (Adams 180).
Even if the reader assumes the Electric Monk actually carries out the murder of
Gordon Way, the solution is muddled. First, the monk does not seem to understand
the concept of murder, on his planet, after being shot, one simply gets up again and
carries on as usual and second, the ancient ghost encourages the belief that the monk
should shoot someone.
Essentially, the novel’s framework breaks free from that of traditional detective
fiction in many ways and in spite of, or perhaps because of this it succeeds in
maintaining the reader’s attention.
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Conclusion
“A thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time
travel-romantic-musical- comedy-epic”
- Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams succeeded in creating a detective novel that parodies and flouts the
traditional aspects of detective fiction; he succeeded in creating a postmodern,
multifaceted detective novel. His narrative style proves to be postmodern in its
questioning of the confines of fiction and of the Golden Age narrational norms.
Beyond narration, Adams breaks many of detective fiction’s most sacred rules. He
intentionally satirizes the detective figure and his detecting methods, and he makes of
folly of the Golden Age taboo that required the author to completely avoid the
employment of supernatural forces. Furthermore, Adams use of a time machine and
an Electric Monk requires the reader to think beyond the typical patterns of detecting,
to put it mildly. Finally, the simple fact the the actual crime was never solved and the
probable murderer was never brought to justice outside of an ironic turn of events
completely breaks the structure, the overall framework of traditional detective fiction.
In conclusion, the eclectic nature of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, the
novel itself, marks a break in tradition, both from the Golden Age of detective fiction,
and from the easily defined, single genres that have dominated literary history. In
short, the novel is truly innovative in all its bizarre glory!
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Works Cited
Adams, Douglas. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. London: Pan Books,
1988.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3
ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. “A Study in Scarlet.” The Complete Sherlock Holmes. London:
Vintage Books, 2009. 19-25.
Knox, Ronald. “Ronald Knox: Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction.” Gotham
Writers’ Workshop. Aug. 6, 2010. <http://www.writingclasses.com/Information
Pages/index.php/PageID/303
Marcus, Laura. ”Detection and Literary Fiction.” The Cambridge Companion to
Crime Fiction. Ed. Martin Priestman. New York: Cambridge University Press,
2009. 245-267.
Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction : The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious.
Florence, KY: Routledge, 1984.