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4.42 AVERAGE
4.42 AVERAGE
Just read this for the second time. In my teens it was a daring, hip, cooler-than-cool discovery. In my late thirties, it is a frothy confection. A good read for January.
The edition I have has The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, and So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish all bundled up into one book, so I just read that straight through and I'll be reviewing all four together.
Firstly, I loved Hitchhiker's. It was by far the best of the four. It was the most solid in the sense that I could just relax and go with the story without ever having to put the book down and think "okay, now how does that make sense?" I know it seems strange when reading Douglas Adams, but Hitchhiker's had good internal logic or verisimilitude, something the other three novels didn't quite achieve to the same degree. I also found this first novel to be the most densely packed with humour.
I found The Restaurant at the End of the Universe to be a little dull, honestly. There were good moments, but the whole bit that followed Zaphod as the main character just didn't work for me. I love Zaphod, he's a great character, but most of his appeal comes from how he appears to others. Taken alone, he lost much of his individuality because we saw him having to do non-Zaphody things out of necessity. This was made all the worse because I had an image of who Zaphod was that the real Zaphod, with the story seen from his perspective, couldn't live up to. I found him dull and tiresome.
Life, the Universe and Everything and So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish were better, but didn't have that "embarass myself by laughing out loud in public" quality that Hitchhiker's had. Taken separately from the first novel, I liked them quite a bit (loved the ending, by the way). I just didn't feel that they measured up to the first novel.
I think that most of what put me off the three novels after Hitchhiker's is that they spent a lot of their time trying to explain or expand upon the jokes made in the first novel. These were jokes that had worked beautifully on their own. It felt like, when at a party, you tell a joke and some guy comes along while everyone else is laughing and tries to explain the punchline. He might do it in a funny way, but it's still a little annoying. Don't get me wrong, I did like all four novels. My complaints are more about saying how wonderful Hitchhiker's was, rather than saying that the other three weren't.
Arthur Dent was by far my favourite character. He was just fabulous. I found Trillian well handled - she's not a major part of the story and she isn't described in any great detail, but what is said aboput her hints at a character with a lot of depth. Zaphod was great, but, as I said earlier, works best when seen through others as an extravagant character rather than as an actual human with his own mundane life. I felt that Ford Prefect was rather unmemorable. All the details the narrator tells us about him were interesting and funny, I just didn't find that he jumped off the pages when he spoke or acted in the same way that the other characters did. And why does everyone call him Ford when that's just the name he used while on earth? That bugged be a bit! Marvin was good. He was funny and, thankfully, wasn't around enough to get annoying.
All in all, a good read that I would highly recommend.
Firstly, I loved Hitchhiker's. It was by far the best of the four. It was the most solid in the sense that I could just relax and go with the story without ever having to put the book down and think "okay, now how does that make sense?" I know it seems strange when reading Douglas Adams, but Hitchhiker's had good internal logic or verisimilitude, something the other three novels didn't quite achieve to the same degree. I also found this first novel to be the most densely packed with humour.
I found The Restaurant at the End of the Universe to be a little dull, honestly. There were good moments, but the whole bit that followed Zaphod as the main character just didn't work for me. I love Zaphod, he's a great character, but most of his appeal comes from how he appears to others. Taken alone, he lost much of his individuality because we saw him having to do non-Zaphody things out of necessity. This was made all the worse because I had an image of who Zaphod was that the real Zaphod, with the story seen from his perspective, couldn't live up to. I found him dull and tiresome.
Life, the Universe and Everything and So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish were better, but didn't have that "embarass myself by laughing out loud in public" quality that Hitchhiker's had. Taken separately from the first novel, I liked them quite a bit (loved the ending, by the way). I just didn't feel that they measured up to the first novel.
I think that most of what put me off the three novels after Hitchhiker's is that they spent a lot of their time trying to explain or expand upon the jokes made in the first novel. These were jokes that had worked beautifully on their own. It felt like, when at a party, you tell a joke and some guy comes along while everyone else is laughing and tries to explain the punchline. He might do it in a funny way, but it's still a little annoying. Don't get me wrong, I did like all four novels. My complaints are more about saying how wonderful Hitchhiker's was, rather than saying that the other three weren't.
Arthur Dent was by far my favourite character. He was just fabulous. I found Trillian well handled - she's not a major part of the story and she isn't described in any great detail, but what is said aboput her hints at a character with a lot of depth. Zaphod was great, but, as I said earlier, works best when seen through others as an extravagant character rather than as an actual human with his own mundane life. I felt that Ford Prefect was rather unmemorable. All the details the narrator tells us about him were interesting and funny, I just didn't find that he jumped off the pages when he spoke or acted in the same way that the other characters did. And why does everyone call him Ford when that's just the name he used while on earth? That bugged be a bit! Marvin was good. He was funny and, thankfully, wasn't around enough to get annoying.
All in all, a good read that I would highly recommend.
want to come back to this book! I was borrowing it and they needed it back. Then, I just never picked it back up.
Perhaps it was a lucky chance that my second-hand bookseller (Marry Me!) did not have the five part omnibus. 'So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish' ends, not perhaps at perfection, but in a good place. A place where I am happy to leave the characters. Douglas Adams was not happy with Mostly Harmless and what precursory reading tells me, neither will I. And let us face it, Eoin Colfer, even with my immense liking for the first Artemis book, I would rather re-read the series a third time than read someone else's interpretation of it.
Which also brings up the point that books read as a teenager almost never have a properly lasting effect on flighty heads. I am glad I made the effort to rediscover 'Hitchhiker's'. I appreciate it far more than I did then and the humour resonates much better. Perhaps a re-read six years down the line might give another entirely different perspective.
Which also brings up the point that books read as a teenager almost never have a properly lasting effect on flighty heads. I am glad I made the effort to rediscover 'Hitchhiker's'. I appreciate it far more than I did then and the humour resonates much better. Perhaps a re-read six years down the line might give another entirely different perspective.
adventurous
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
One day I may come back and properly reflect on my feelings about these books. Or I may not. Where would I even begin?
Suffice to say, this series is in my all time top 5 works of fiction. I'm sure I'll come back to it many more times in the future :)
Suffice to say, this series is in my all time top 5 works of fiction. I'm sure I'll come back to it many more times in the future :)
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I wish I could give this book six stars. It will make you feel glad there is such a thing as living.
Honestly, I can't remember why it was so difficult for me to pick this book up before. The humor is delightful. The dialogue is so twisty and absurd, but strangely, it all makes sense. Above all else, I now know that the the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life is 42.
Update: Having now finished the second book, I have a better grasp on the plot. Not much happens, however, and at times the words muddle together and sometimes, I found myself skimming pages. The characters do a lot of wandering, and it certainly feels like nothing’s been achieved.
With all that said, though, I’m still enjoying this saga. Douglas Adams has so many good quotes!
Another update: I’ve now finished the third book, and I’m highly disappointed that the Earth hasn’t been magically recovered via some timeline intervention.
On the surface, you’d get a headache reading through the pages and trying to keep track of just what’s happening. It seems that the characters aren’t really doing anything, and in the end, Arthur ends up saving the world from a supercomputer struggling to fulfill its purpose and robots from the planet of Krikkit (which sounds like Cricket, now that I’m writing this).
However, Arthur still can’t memorize those complicated alien names and he still doesn’t know the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question.
With the fourth book tucked away, I can finally give a proper review. Overall, this book is good. It’s humorous and, as strange as this may be, it feels distinctly British. The characters are hilarious - my favorite is that paranoid depressed robot Marvin who got a somewhat happy ending.
The only complaint I have, and the reason for the four stars, is that there are times where I don’t know what’s happening. This is usually due to the distracting interludes that are injected into the scene. These interludes rip you away from the story, and then that story suddenly jumps locations, leaving you to wonder when those characters made that leap. As an example, Arthur jumps from a ship to a Cathedral of Hate, and then he bumps into everyone in a party on a cloud. It felt like my book was missing pages.
Update: Having now finished the second book, I have a better grasp on the plot. Not much happens, however, and at times the words muddle together and sometimes, I found myself skimming pages. The characters do a lot of wandering, and it certainly feels like nothing’s been achieved.
With all that said, though, I’m still enjoying this saga. Douglas Adams has so many good quotes!
Another update: I’ve now finished the third book, and I’m highly disappointed that the Earth hasn’t been magically recovered via some timeline intervention.
On the surface, you’d get a headache reading through the pages and trying to keep track of just what’s happening. It seems that the characters aren’t really doing anything, and in the end, Arthur ends up saving the world from a supercomputer struggling to fulfill its purpose and robots from the planet of Krikkit (which sounds like Cricket, now that I’m writing this).
However, Arthur still can’t memorize those complicated alien names and he still doesn’t know the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question.
With the fourth book tucked away, I can finally give a proper review. Overall, this book is good. It’s humorous and, as strange as this may be, it feels distinctly British. The characters are hilarious - my favorite is that paranoid depressed robot Marvin who got a somewhat happy ending.
The only complaint I have, and the reason for the four stars, is that there are times where I don’t know what’s happening. This is usually due to the distracting interludes that are injected into the scene. These interludes rip you away from the story, and then that story suddenly jumps locations, leaving you to wonder when those characters made that leap. As an example, Arthur jumps from a ship to a Cathedral of Hate, and then he bumps into everyone in a party on a cloud. It felt like my book was missing pages.
The edition of the Guide that replaced all others in my library, it contains an introduction by Douglas Adams that adds interesting details for fans of the series in his characteristic voice. Originally a radio series, it was produced by the BBC. "I think that the BBC's attitude toward the show while it was in production was very similar to that which Macbeth had toward murdering people--initial doubts, followed by cautious enthusiasm and then greater and greater alarm at the sheer scale of the undertaking and still no end in sight."
Adams continues that while the show was fun, "it didn't exactly buy you lunch," so he turned it into a book "in which some of the characters behaved in entirely different ways and others behaved in exactly the same ways but for entirely different reasons, which amounts to the same thing but saves rewriting the dialogue." Supposedly, this edition is "complete and unabridged," although, since Adams kept changing things, I'm not sure how 'complete' it is. It does have a bonus short story, "Young Zaphod Plays it Safe."
This edition contains The Hitchhiker's Guide, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and Life, the Universe and Everything and looks suspiciously like the Good News Bible I was given as a child, with paper-thin, gold-leafed pages, albeit with a bonus cloth bookmark and leather binding. Honestly, it's probably fitting, as it was my go-to mockery of the world for at least a decade, and remains a strong influence.
It's responsible for my search for the perfect drink:
[The Guide] says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.
It's probably responsible for crystalizing my view of the human race:
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical.
It likely expanded my love of word-play:
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
"You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water."
And it's clearly responsible for a personal running joke of 35 years, which I use to gauge the sci-fi and humor literacy of the people around me:
Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
*And may I just add that as of May 6, 2017, the average star rating for the book is 4.20?
I rest my case.
Adams continues that while the show was fun, "it didn't exactly buy you lunch," so he turned it into a book "in which some of the characters behaved in entirely different ways and others behaved in exactly the same ways but for entirely different reasons, which amounts to the same thing but saves rewriting the dialogue." Supposedly, this edition is "complete and unabridged," although, since Adams kept changing things, I'm not sure how 'complete' it is. It does have a bonus short story, "Young Zaphod Plays it Safe."
This edition contains The Hitchhiker's Guide, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and Life, the Universe and Everything and looks suspiciously like the Good News Bible I was given as a child, with paper-thin, gold-leafed pages, albeit with a bonus cloth bookmark and leather binding. Honestly, it's probably fitting, as it was my go-to mockery of the world for at least a decade, and remains a strong influence.
It's responsible for my search for the perfect drink:
[The Guide] says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.
It's probably responsible for crystalizing my view of the human race:
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical.
It likely expanded my love of word-play:
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
"You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace. It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water."
And it's clearly responsible for a personal running joke of 35 years, which I use to gauge the sci-fi and humor literacy of the people around me:
Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.
*And may I just add that as of May 6, 2017, the average star rating for the book is 4.20?
I rest my case.