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adrianhurchin 's review for:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini-raft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you - daft as a brush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have 'lost'. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
What a lovely edition this is, produced by the Folio Society, it has sat on my bookshelves for a number of years waiting for the right moment to be read. With the impending arrival of the 42nd Anniversary edition of [b:Restaurant at the End of the Universe|123957372|Restaurant at the End of the Universe|Douglas Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680044961l/123957372._SY75_.jpg|145358152], illustrated by [a:Chris Riddell|59749|Chris Riddell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1276920548p2/59749.jpg], I knew it was time.
The story is well known and probably my favourite of all time. A story that I have read dozens of times since my childhood.
Arthur Dent is having a bad day. Hungover, after finding out his house is due to be demolished for a bypass, he finds out that his friend is an alien, the Earth is to be destroyed to make way for an interstellar bypass, and that Vogon poetry is one of the worst in the Galaxy. He meets the President of the Imperial Galactic Government, hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, a depressed robot, and gets a ride in the one of a kind, and recently stolen, Heart of Gold.
This would have always been given 5 stars.
"You think you've got problems? What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't try to answer that. I'm fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level."
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini-raft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you - daft as a brush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have 'lost'. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
What a lovely edition this is, produced by the Folio Society, it has sat on my bookshelves for a number of years waiting for the right moment to be read. With the impending arrival of the 42nd Anniversary edition of [b:Restaurant at the End of the Universe|123957372|Restaurant at the End of the Universe|Douglas Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680044961l/123957372._SY75_.jpg|145358152], illustrated by [a:Chris Riddell|59749|Chris Riddell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1276920548p2/59749.jpg], I knew it was time.
The story is well known and probably my favourite of all time. A story that I have read dozens of times since my childhood.
Arthur Dent is having a bad day. Hungover, after finding out his house is due to be demolished for a bypass, he finds out that his friend is an alien, the Earth is to be destroyed to make way for an interstellar bypass, and that Vogon poetry is one of the worst in the Galaxy. He meets the President of the Imperial Galactic Government, hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, a depressed robot, and gets a ride in the one of a kind, and recently stolen, Heart of Gold.
This would have always been given 5 stars.
"You think you've got problems? What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't try to answer that. I'm fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level."