Oblivious to the fact that Towel Day was almost upon me, I picked up a copy of The Salmon of Doubt at Chapters the other day. The book is a posthumous collection of Adams’ work; things like short stories, articles he wrote for magazines over the years, and even several chapters of a sequel to the Dirk Gently series he was working on when he died. I’ve read through roughly half of the book, and so far it has been a great way of getting to know the man of Douglas N. Adams, who advanced such concepts as the SEP field (mentioned in a previous post’s comment) and the infinite improbability drive. One part of the book’s foreward really stood out - to me, it perfectly describes Adams’ works and how I feel about them.

Douglas has in common with certain rare artists (Wodehouse again included) the ability to make the beholder feel that he is addressing them and them alone: I think this in part explains the immense strength and fervour of his ‘fan base’, if I can use so revolting a phrase. When you look at Velazquez, listen to Mozart, read Dickens or laugh at Billy Connolly, to take four names at random (it always takes a great deal of time and thought to take names at random for the purposes of argument), you are aware that what they do they do for the world and the results are, of course, magnificent. When you look at Blake, listen to Bach, read Douglas Adams or watch Eddie Izzard perform, you feel you are perhaps the only person in the world who really gets them. Just about everyone else admires them, of course, but no one really connects with them in the way you do. I advance this as a theory. Douglas’s work is not the high art of Bach or the intense personal cosmos of Blake, it goes without saying, but I believe my view holds nonetheless. It’s like falling in love. When an especially peachy Adams turn of phrase or epithet enters the eye and penetrates the brain you want to tap the shoulder of the nearest stranger and share it. The stranger might laugh and seem to enjoy the writing, but you hug to yourself the thought that they didn’t quite understand its force and quality the way you do - just as your friends (thank heavens) don’t also fall in love with the person you are going on and on about to them. - Stephen Fry