The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Before reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, my sum total knowledge about Douglas Adams was: he wrote a few Doctor Who stories[1], something about 42, a guy in a bathrobe lying in front of a bull-dozer, dolphins singing “so long and thanks for all the fish,” and something about a restaurant. (I did watch the 2005 Hollywood movie, and while I remember it being very good, I don’t remember much about it.) I hadn’t realized the actual novel is only about two hundred pages (the version I got from the library takes on 100 more pages talking about the casting and making of the movie, from which I learned that forget about ever getting anything done in Hollywood). But they were a delightful two hundred pages, and as soon as I can I’ll read the rest in the series.

I had known about but had forgotten the delightful irony of Arthur Dent’s house being bull dozed for a bypass before the Earth is about to be blown up to make way for an intergalactic bypass. I had forgotten about the words DON’T PANIC. I had forgotten that Babelfish, the wonderful translation program that gives you hilarious rubbish, had come from this book; when Ford Prefect stuffs the Babel fish in Arthur’s ear, for some reason I envision one of Dr. Seuss’ yellow cartoon fish. It’s Adams’ solution to not having a TARDIS to translate. I had forgotten that the answer to everything is 42, but the question is more mysterious. I had forgotten that mice financed the creation of Earth, the only supercomputer superior to Deep Thought. You have to ask yourself: HOW did he come up with this stuff?!

The thing about Douglas Adams is he is delightfully random, but in a sophisticated way, because it’s a random that’s backed up by considerable knowledge of physics, linguistics, and philosophy; as the Doctor says, “The things one must know.” The word bulldozer wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to connect with. The bulldozer outside the kitchen window was quite a big one. He stared at it. “Yellow,” he thought, and stomped off back to his bedroom to get dressed. I love the idea of spontaneous falling custard, galloping petit fours, a bowl of petunias and a helpless sperm whale. Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now. And obviously, the “ballpointoid” universe with its “ballpointoid” life-style is roaringly funny to me, a pen purveyor. (Why don’t the fountain pens have their own universe? What about the mismatched socks?)

Strangely enough, I was reminded of Alistair Lock’s audio plays Take-Over Bid and Planet Without a Home (technically, it should be the other way around but I heard the plays before I read the book). Especially because I heard the Computer (Eddie) with a chipper, bland American accent as the Computer in Lock’s plays has. There are some other similarities between the two, which is good, since I think both are hilarious.

There isn’t much more to say; the plot isn’t linear, and it’s hard to say much without having read the continuation of the series. Just read it yourself!

[1] I started watching “City of Death” but the tape ran out; I’ve never seen “Pirate Planet” and won’t until I can get the entirety of Key to Time so I can watch it in sequence; “Shada” was never finished but I’ve watched it as much as I was able.