simont | (no subject)

(no subject)

I re-read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency the other day, and was rather startled to find what appears to be a genuine continuity error. In most books this wouldn't be cause for remark, but this book in particular seems so careful about its continuity the rest of the time (particularly given the nature of the story) that it was quite a surprise.

Sarah, the little girl we encounter being bored at a formal dinner at the very start of the book, has blonde hair when described by the narration, but when Dirk gets a description of her from Richard later on it says she had dark hair. Gosh, ooh etc.

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Perhaps she had dark blonde hair. I've heard people claim that's a colour.

Or, was any great time-altering done between the two descriptions?

I suppose you could use time-alteration as an excuse. The only instance of it in between is Reg's trick with the salt cellar, which does actually indirectly involve Sarah; but it wouldn't seem plausible that a side effect would be to change her hair colour but nothing else about her!

Maybe Richard is not a reliable source? ;)

I heard recently that the sofa thing was based on a genuine incident, where, rather than time travel, some building work happened between sofa insertion and attempted removal.

I'm saying nothing, just pointing at

mpinna.

Though implausibility is a hallmark of time-travel side-effects in general and of douglas adams and dirk cjetjtlyy in perticular :)

I think even Mike would be hard pressed to change his hair colour within the duration of a Formal Hall!

Given that the description in question was obtained under hypnosis and a great meal was made of how much detail Richard was able to describe perfectly accurately without consciously being able to recall it, I don't think that holds water either. You might just get away with it as an after-the-fact excuse, but I still think the descriptions were intended to be consistent and would have been if DNA (mayherestinpeace) had been paying better attention.

However, the other unexpected side effect (Mrs Sauskind never having lost her cat right at the end) is impeccably thought out by comparison: one random event (the cat getting lost) happens differently and only things after that are altered as a result (she therefore never did business with Dirk, although Dirk himself still has the memories from the older reality due to having been on the time trip).

In what way does the book state that the information's accurate?

We had that when we bought the house in Bristol. She said would we like her to leave the bed in the attic. It was only later that we discovered this was because it couldn't be got out of the attic without dismantling the bannisters (which she'd had to add at the last minute to get the retrospective planning permission sorted).

Well, Dirk is certainly in no doubt of its accuracy, since he uses Richard's testimony under hypnosis to conclude that a physically impossible event had taken place during the dinner, which you'd think would be a pretty large conclusion to draw if you weren't certain of the reliability of your witness!

Ah. Yes. Hadn't checked to see where that was in the book...

Someone can be certain of an erroneous position, though - many people have been convinced of the accuracy of hypnotic recall, when in point of fact it's very error-prone.

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