Monday, October 17, 2011

Summer reading competition: The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams


From www.BookLore.co.uk:
"Some factual information for you. Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?"
"How much?" said Arthur. 
"None at all," said Mr. Prosser.

When space travel writer Ford Prefect tells earthling Arthur Dent at a pub in England that his world is about to end, Dent responds “This must be Thursday... I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” The bartender, within earshot, announces “Last orders, please.” This deadpan gallows humour fills the pages of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and enables the book to be weighty and thought-provoking without being overly sentimental. Themes that would make for long passages of deep existential rumination in another context - the end of the world, inter-dimensional travel, and of course “the Answer” to the elusive question of the universe - are hilariously rendered in pithy exchanges through the collective wit of Adams' characters.


As a work of comic science fiction, The Hitchhiker's Guide lacks the rigor of so-called “hard” science fiction, but it is not mere wordplay either. Such ideas as the Heart of Gold (a ship that uses an “Infinite Improbability Drive” to travel at superlatively high speeds) or Magrathea (a planet inside of which other planets are constructed), while they might be scientifically implausible, nonetheless still provide some great food for thought. Also, there's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself, an encyclopaedic travel guide of the cosmos which Ford Prefect writes for, and from which one can learn anything from what to drink in this or that part of the galaxy to why a towel is the most important item in any traveller’s luggage.


With its hodgepodge of intrepid travellers and the uncanny events that befall them, The Hitchhiker's Guide manages to be fun and exciting almost effortlessly. The crew with whom the protagonist Arthur Dent hitches a ride includes, among others, a two-headed, three-armed president-of-the-galaxy-turned-renegade, and a congenitally depressed super-intelligent robot. To top it all off, at the point when the characters set about their impromptu voyage, the possibilities are literally endless (on account of the “Infinite Improbability Drive”). The Hitchhiker's Guide is the apotheosis of adventure story.


In a genre that often lends itself to overwrought serials, where authors ride the wave of a thoroughly original idea to an ineffectual and creatively desiccated end, Douglas Adams' sensational first instalment in his now famous Hitchhiker series goes so far on so little that a desire for much much more is entirely justified.

William Longinetti (19th April 2010)

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