Volume One of the Trilogy of Five
Foreword by Russel T Davies
First published 1979, this edition 2016
Published by PAN Books
180 pages
ISBN: 978-1-5098-0831-1
1/5 stars
Will I read more by this author: NO.
Genre: science fiction
Keywords: UK 1979, towels, digital watch, forty-two, don’t panic, dark humor, cynical sarcasm, Earth custom built planet, Marvin the moody computer,
In 2003 the BBC undertook ‘The Big Read Survey” in which three quarter of a million ordinary people, not professional book people, voted about which novels where the most influential. The first two books on the list are Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, two books that are among my absolute favorites. The fourth book on this list is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, so I thought that perhaps I would enjoy to read it as well! When it was published, I was in my last year of medical school and had no time for it and somehow never got to read.
So, what is the book about?
There are two persons: Alan Dent, an earthling, and his friend Ford Prefect, an alien, a hitchhiker from a faraway universe who got stuck on earth for 15 years, but he has found that towels are a most massively useful thing. Ford writes the hitchhiker’s guide to the universe, that tells you everything there is to know about anything, all though much of it is out of date. On the outside of this electronic book there is the most useful piece of information: “don’t panic’. About Earth it was written: mostly harmless. But that was not important because Earth was eliminated to give way for a highway for interstellar distance travelling. In the last second Ford rescues Alan to a passing spaceship. You insert the Babel fish in your brain then you can understand all languages of the Universe.
The greatest computer in the Universe is called Deep Thought was tasked to come up with a simple answer to Life, the Universe and Everything and after 7.5 million years of calculating, gave the answer: 42.
A quote: once you know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means (page 153)
By the way in the book Earth was a custom-built planet, made for the white mice, as an improved computer, designed by Deep Thought. Do you know why there are many mice in the laboratories around Earth? The mice want confuse earthlings about everything and control their knowledge.
There is a moody computer named Marvin, reminded me of Hal in “2001, A Space Odyssey” by Arthur C Clark, 1968.
My thoughts:
I find the book silly, ridiculous, not funny at all, it was difficult for me to finish it, but I did. I do not like the dark humor or the cynical sarcasm, perhaps that is a generational gap, I am too old for that kind of humor. I do not get what all the buzz is about.
If you want to read about intergalactic travel, read ‘The Little Prince’ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1945, I my view it has general human wisdom that is much more profound.
About the author:
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author; he worked at the BBC. The Hitchhiker’s guide was originally a radio show turned into a book (a trilogy of five books, hmmm not very funny in my opinion).
Aa much better read.
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