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Review of Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time (Ballantine Books, 2003): Douglas Adams, a radical atheist who passed away in 2001, is best known for creating the humorous science fiction masterpiece The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which has been incarnated in books, radio and television series, and recently film. Though Salmon of Doubt shamelessly capitalizes on publicity generated by Adam’s death to publicize a film well worth avoiding, the book contains much of value. Besides a collection of Adam’s published fiction and nonfiction, Salmon contains chapters of his last unfinished novel from which the collection gets its name. Much additional unpublished material was fished from Adams’ fleet of Macintosh computers in which lie some 2,579 pieces of writing. Monty Python’s Terry Jones thoughtfully provides an introduction to the new edition as well as an introduction to his introduction (to the new edition). Naturalist Richard Dawkins gives a tribute in which he describes finishing an Adams’ novel only to flip to page one and read it all over again. The Salmon is a fitting tribute to Adams’s views. Worth noting is an interview conducted by American Atheists in which Adams discusses his views in no uncertain terms. Some memorable lines in the book are these: The agenda of life’s important issues has moved from novelists to science writers, because they know more. (p. 160) The whole business of religion is profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously. (p. xxvii) America is like a belligerent boy; Canada is like an intelligent woman. Australia is Jack Nicholson. (p. 45) In England it is considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It’s worth bearing this in mind when visiting. (p. 69) |