The Salmon of Doubt   by Douglas Adams

Sept 2005     Unresistedly bought in a Detmold Bookstore.

My thoughts were, "Oh! Look at that! A Douglas Adams book I've never read, or even heard of! What a pleasure!!!" And only later was it "-Ah... I see now. Uncompleted, and published post humously." I can't say that the death of this, one of my favorite writers, came as too much of a shock. It was sad, but as I'd read his seven best known books at least three years previously, and as I hadn't heard anything New about him at all for a decade at least, I wasn't even so sure that he was still alive anyhow. Well... just to show how out of date I really am, it seems that Douglas Adams died of a heart attack in the spring of 2001. Anyhow though... this book is a collection of chapters that Douglas had written for the (unfinished) novel, "The Salmon of Doubt," as well as a good collection of letters, speeches, and ... other works of his. It was intended to give a feeling of who he was, and how he worked... and some of a view of which ways his thoughts could go. It surely did all of this, but I was so busy being amused, entertained, and... transported to a higher level, by his writing, that I couldn't focus on the character of the author himself.

I wonder, if I read it all again, right now, could I focus on the personality of it's creator? I don't think so. I would still be too swept away by the genius of the text. The sentences are... Crafted. Douglas was a craftsman. And the partial novel was... madness. (This is always a very GOOD thing in Douglas's writing. It was madness akin to genius. Every time that we have to see something new, from a revolutionary perspective, it will appear at first as madness; Incoherent, unconnected chaos.) But in this book, the loose ends are not tied up at all. We don't know how the human race was going to become extinct, or how the "Dave" character was going to come afterwards. We don't even know what Dirk Gently is going to say to the Rhinoceros. But the setup is all there, and then releases the mind, to go off, creating mad fantasies on it's own, about what could possibly happen next. I think of it just as... a book I started reading at a friend's house, and couldn't finnish before I had to leave. So it stays in my mind like that: A book I haven't finished reading yet, with a large number of ideas, concepts, and situations, which are floating through my mind. (Thinking of it as a book that will never Be finished is just too depressing. Un unfinished, and unfinishable book is a sad, tearful thing.)

It was also a pleasure to read some of this book to Pamela, when she was around last weekend. It was a chance to laugh together. Also, it was a great satisfaction for me, to know that I could share my craziest, and most off the wall sense of humor with her. (I've known enough people who can't follow Douglas Adams, that I know I shouldn't expect everyone in the world to marvel at the mind, which came up with the Hoovooloo, (-A hyper intelligent shade of the colour blue, which had been refracted into a special prism, built just for [The Ceremony.])

The book starts with a bit of Biographical information, about Douglas growing up, what his experiences, inspirations, and trials were were. This was... All good writing. What can I say about it. I could identify with much of it, (Of course I could, so could anyone who is sensitive to good writing. That's one of the things that makes the writing "good.") Then there was a good collection of assorted ... short things, that Douglas wrote. Articles for magazines, letters, pages for the Douglas Adams website, Newspaper articles, and so on. They all made me laugh... and most of them made me think too.

Very much of it was about technology, because Douglas was a man very much interested in technology, and the frontiers of computer gizmos. His other interests that you come across in this collection, are nature preservation, (or would it be accurate to say ecology? Evolutionary theory?) And science in general.

One of the thoughts that I found myself pondering, -although it was not directly from his text, but a side-tracked cognitive backwater I found myself in... But wait... here's another sidetracked thought: Douglas writes with a great number of asides, and with a great deal of extraneous thoughts thrown in. In short, there are many sidetracks in his writing. I was wondering then, if reading this, we feel more liberated, if not indeed encouraged, to get sidetracked ourselves. If we feel that the "rule" of straight thought and story-telling has been cast aside, are we then more free to associate the writing with other things? To make connections with other ideas from other circles of our lives? This is perhaps why I found myself going from a mention of Astrology, in the unfinished novel, to the following though:

Predicting the future MUST be impossible. The future cannot be predicted. There Can be no fate; We MUST all have free will. "Why," I thought, "Do people go to fortune tellers, or to Astrologers, wanting to have their futures foretold?" Well, why else? So that they could avoid doing stupid, or unpleasant things. So that they could live their life in a better way. BUT... then the future that was foretold for them is false. They change their actions, so that they live in a better future. (Yes, this could all be counteracted, and fate rules supreme in the end; meaning that whatever the people do, will have no effect, and the result will be the same regardless. But then, the people are all contradictorily stupid: believing in fate -which tells them what the future will be, and then NOT believing in fate, by thinking they can change it.) So, at best, a fortune-teller could predict a POSSIBLE future. But, well, anyone can predict the Possible. With a bit of thought, they could even refine that to prediction of the Likely. Has that made sense?

The only way a prediction can get around this, is by dealing ONLY with nature, and saying nothing at all about actions of people. If it claims "Your basement will flood in the fall." or "the apple will be mouldy in exactly three days," then there's no room for human interference. -But the second one doesn't fit then, does it? We could put the apple in the refrigerator, or into the freezer, or dehydrate it, or can it, or so on, and on, and on. The only thing that comes to my mind, is the weather, which we are not able to effect. Everything else, would be a Possible Future only. -And I don't think that any astrologers are so daft as to predict the weather. -It's a GIVEN that that's random and unpredictable.

One other odd idea I've had, which I might be able to blame this book for: Omnipotencey. Isn't it every child's dream to have the power to do Anything? To be the ultimate Emperor and be able to tell everyone what to do, and have the freedom to do anything they wish? And to have anything they wish? What this dream lacks though, is responsibility. And we, (Adults,) would like to think of ourselves as beyond that, and realistic, and capable of thinking of others. But is it really so? Don't we all still harbour a dream of having One Wish? Just one? Even if that wish is to win the lottery, it's Our wish. And wouldn't it be great if we could have One Wish?

What all of this is ignoring, is the responsibility. If we could be omnipotent, for one second, or for a lifetime, wouldn't we have a responsibility to go with it? If we had ONE WISH, wouldn't it Have to be for the good of the world? Wouldn't it Have to be the One wish, that will make everyone happy? A person with One Wish, would be the only person alive, who could create world peace. So wouldn't that person have the responsibility to do so? And if one were to have super-powers, and be able to do Anything, wouldn't they then have the responsibility to help, all the time, every day, all the people in the world who were mere mortals? Woludn't such a person be Imposed upon to become Superman? At the beck and call of every person who's in need.

But, does this argument apply to Every bit of power then? Is not every power gained by a person joined with a responsibility to those who don't have the power? Wouldn't being the leader of a country mean that you'd have to take incomparable responsibility of caring for the countless millions of people in that country? (Unless you happen to be a power-craved, corrupt twit like... pick-your-favorite-corrupt-leader, -mine is Bush. Then it's power with no responsibility. Then it's just an opportunity to gorge yourself at the country's expense. Perhaps it's him that young boys think of, when they picture ultimate power, and no responsibility at all to anyone.)

Anyhow, this really wasn't meant to become a political critique. I hope that I can be forgiven. It seems that Douglas's book has encourage my mind to Think. And could there be any greater praise for an author than that?