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Subject: Re: Help understanding Dirk Gently ending. I'm stumped! ( 4 of 8 )
Posted by Ira


Yeah, Mike's right. This is a subject that has been talked about quite a bit in alt.fan.douglas-adams. It's not in the MFAQ but I know it's in the FAQ.

This is the bit in the FAQ about it:
In the book, Kubla Khan has a second part. The book is not actually set in our existence. It is set in an existence in which the second part of Kubla Khan exists. This second part of the poem tells the ghost about the existence of the time machine and how to travel back and stop the ship from exploding. As we well know the explosion of the ship is what caused life to begin on this miserable little planet of ours. When Dirk and Reg realised this they simply went forward in time to when Coleridge was writing the second part of Kubla Khan and stopped him. Dirk just interrupted him and talked so much that Coleridge forgot what the second part was going to be about and therefore could not finish it! This change of history sent reality back into our perspective and the human race lived on (Yay, yippee!).

Thanks to all involved in writing the FAQ (I'm not listing your names.)

Anyway, the only part that's never been fully explained is why the ghost actually needed to know about the existance and location of the ship when it was his ship. It has been theorized that in all the millenia he had simply forgotten. Perhaps Douglas knows that much.

Ira


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