Sofa Cushions
Having finished The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book one of five, I am happy to say it will be a pleasure to continue on with the rest of the series.
Arthur the displaced Earthman drifts about the galaxy caught up in something that he knows is far beyond his control. The entire setup seems as if Douglas Adams outright forgot the plot, but this is just not true. Some would complain, but the rest of us know his methods are necessary for the story we are dealing with here.
It is told through mainly Arthur, a human who was somewhat-willingly abducted by a hitchhiking alien just before Earth’s destruction. He has become a drifter, not so much confused as bedazzled by the extent of what he did not know before. Thus, the story unfolds in a rather peculiar way. But, this is intended and should be understood as intentional. If you don’t see a plot, it is because the main character isn’t yet in-the-know about this strange new perception of the world.
It really is a dose of delusion. But the good kind that keeps you reading on into the dead of night. With just the right amount of crazy, you are pulled into a witty and revealing story of Earth’s creation. Though the silly nature of the story doesn’t come across as being anything other than ramblings of farfetched characters and situations, it settles down nicely when it subtly makes you look at life's big questions in a new light.
The story grabs you with outlandish statements such as, the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything can be found by a super intelligent computer program called Deep Thought. And after processing the question for seven and a half million years, it finds the answer.
But is there really something there? Or as Arthur puts it, “….All through my life I’ve had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was.”
Old man Slartibartfest says, “Maybe. Who Cares? Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.”
These types of statements are what makes this book remarkable. To sum up something so extraordinary into such a simple statement is great writing. It helps us understand life itself for our own benefit. Yes, you can continue to wonder, but let’s face it. You may never know. You will likely never know.
Then again, it reminds us how fun it is to wonder. And that is why I love this book.
Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), 192-193.
