I honestly fail to understand the appeal of this book. Can't bear to listen to it any more...

★★ /5

This was fine… I guess?
This was definitely easy to read and absorb, but at the same time, it didn’t feel like a real book. The ridiculousness of the plot sometimes was just too much and brought up me from the story. Some parts of this book were actually really interesting, but a lot of things were just annoying. I didn’t really like the character, at least for me they didn’t have the proper motivation for their actions.
I understand why people like it, but sadly it was just not for me.

بازخوانی چهارم هم تمام شد. هرچقدر از عشقم نسبت بهش بگم کم گفتم،
حتی بیشتر از سری‌های قبلی ازش لذت بردم و دوستش داشتم

Es el primer libro de humor con el que de verdad me he reído.

Es una historia disparatada en la que todo encaja perfectamente y hace que tenga sentido.

Al principio me costó entrar en la historia porque tenía que estar muy atenta al haber tantas palabras inventadas, pero poco a poco te acostumbras y la lectura se hace más ligera.

Todos los personajes tienen algo que los hace especiales. Marvin es genial, cada vez que aparecía a mí me daba la risa. Y el pobre Arthur, que no entiende nada de lo que está pasando... La escena con los ratones ha sido hilarante.

Y por último hay que destacar el trabajo del traductor/traductora/traductores (no he encontrado quién fue). Tuvo que ser dificilísimo sacar adelante este trabajo y que todo quedase tan bien. Sin duda, se merece/merecen un premio.
*Ya los he encontrado, no había mirado aquí en Goodreads

Edit: My review is unchanged, but I wanted to point out that this is my 15th straight year of reading this book!

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is my favorite book of all time, and most likely always will be. I’ve read it more times than I can remember, and it has made me laugh every single time. Lines like “Life, don’t talk to me about life”, “Space is big. Really big. You won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is”, and “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so” will never fail to make me smile, and just typing those out did the trick. I could sit here all day and talk about how great this book is and how brilliant Douglas Adams is.

This book is ridiculous in the best possible way, but the comedy isn’t the only thing that makes it so great. The plot is really interesting as well, and it takes you on an incredible journey across the universe with some very memorable characters. From Arthur Dent being completely overwhelmed by everything to Zaphod Beeblebrox’s total absurdity to Marvin the Paranoid Android (just as a whole, because he’s amazing), every single character is great in their own way.

There is a reason that this book is so highly regarded among science fiction works, because it’s a truly incredible work of art. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read, and one that I would recommend to anyone. So remember, don’t panic, and always know where your towel is.

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Another great reread of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Always entertaining and so absurdly profound!
~~~

Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an entertaining romp through the galaxy. It's a book I've read several times (first in high school); however, after reading Kurt Vonnegut's most overtly science fiction novel, The Sirens of Titan, it almost felt like a fresh experience. Of course, Vonnegut and Adams are very different writers. Still, the influence of Vonnegut is evident in Adams' seminal novel of nerd culture. The absurdity of the human condition explored in Sirens (something which Vonnegut refuses to take seriously but can't treat as a punchline either) gets a funny and entertaining twist in Adams' work. While I view Sirens as a better novel, it took Adams to turn that absurdity into such an entertaining adventure.

I am not one of those who think this is the best book ever written. It does not affect me on any deep emotional level and this kind of quirky sci-fi comedy is just not really my thing. However, that being said, Adams' has some of the best quotes EVER (not all of these are from this exact book):


"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."



"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons."



"The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."



"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."



"Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?"



"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."

What a weird little book.

Something I'll do, almost immediately after finishing a book, is Google the heck out of the genre it belongs to. For example, after finishing Furiously Happy, I wanted to find a book that would make me laugh as much as it did. When in doubt, turn to Google. I have googled "most funny books" , "funny fiction books" and " comedy books". Each time, this was one of the top results. And since, I got Audible for Christmas, I thought I would give it a try. (But also because Google is shoving it down my throat.)

I'm still not totally sure how I feel about it. I keet waffling. One chapter, I'd be laughing and thinking I would definitely rate it 5 Stats but the next, I would be bored and wanted to rate it 3. (I decided on 3.5 stars).

This book is described as sci-fi AND comedy. A very very weird combo. I like both of those genres separately but together they were just weird. I love chocolate and I love grilled cheese but would I put them together? Heck, no. (Well, I might but I've been known to have weird food combos. Cheese and chocolate. Eggs and syrup. Apple's and chips.)

Aside from the genres, the plot was very creative. They story open a with the end. The end of earth. Two aliens and two aliens the travel the Universe and hilarity ensues. That's all fine and good but then the book just ended. I can only describe at as like when your walking and reading and you run into a wall and your nose gets all scraped up. (Not that that's happened to me or anything

3.5 Stars

I checked out the audio and I loved Stephen Fry’s narration. I love him anyway. I also checked out the book digitally so I could see Chris Riddell’s artwork which I loved of course and seriously, Stephen Fry makes it great with his voices.

Don’t forget your towel!!!

Mel

Okay, I can understand how somebody might not absolutely love The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It does after all combine a few things—such as scifi and screwball comedy, for instance—that not everyone can deal with. In other words, the nerd quotient is high here, and people who aren't wired that way might end up perplexed.

BUT--and this is a big ol' BUT: I don't understand how anybody can HATE this book. In fact, if I weren't such a saintly, even-keel, kittenish kind of guy, I might say that I'm tempted to hate haters of this book. How can you hate such a genial, well-meaning book? I mean, Douglas Adams just saunters in, gives his readers the glad hand, rolls up his sleeves, and gets down to business—summoning every gag in his repertoire just to keep you curmudgeons entertained. And does he succeed? In my opinion, yes. Most definitely.

I should probably tell you, by way of disclaimer, that I have some hardcore nostalgia invested in the Hitchhiker books. (There are five in all, but I never read the fifth Mostly Harmless.) This may be the first non-film novelization full-length book that wasn't strictly intended for kids that I ever read. That's an accomplishment for a kid who was raised on reruns and talking to himself in the tool shed in the backyard. I kind of hated reading for the most part before I got out of college. (I know! I was one of those people! Endlessly grasping for the channel changer and being ruined by the media.)

Since I was maybe twelve or thirteen when I read this, I'm sure some of the dry humor flew right over head, but the slapstick, sight gags, and ridiculous plotting sure didn't. There are so many absurdist details in this ricocheting narrative that presenting you with a thorough summary would be tough. Suffice it to say that it centers on an Earthling named Arthur Dent who narrowly escapes the destruction of the planet when it is destroyed to build a galactic superhighway. He ends up hitching a ride on a stolen spaceship with the (two-headed, three-armed) president of the galaxy.

If you're rolling your eyes, you are (1) a killjoy and (2) not the intended audience for this book. Go read Jane Austen or one of those books about cats that live in libraries. If you're smart and have good taste, read this book. It's kind of like a slightly lowerbrow Woody Allenesque scifi farce, if you can imagine such a thing. (Well, there was Sleeper, so I guess maybe you can.) The plot, like those in Allen's earliest films, is a little flimsy and haphazard, but the Child Version of Me insists that you will enjoy it anyway unless you're a complete asshole.

My 50th read of 2022!

I finally listened to this hilarious classic of the science fiction genre, which is narrated wonderfully by Stephen Fry, who really accentuates the quirky and witty tone of this story. It is the first time I read this, and I dived in blind, with no clue about what was going to happen, but that seems to have been the right call.

I thought the first half was brilliant. Ford Prefect is a great character, as is Arthur, and their interactions on earth are just great. It did become a bit too absurd for me in the latter third, but I was engaged from beginning to end. Definitely worth the read!

In my experience, readers either love Adams' books or quickly put them down. I, for example, quite literally worship the words Adams puts on the page, and have read the Hitchhiker's Trilogy so many times that I have large tracts of it memorized. But both my wife and father couldn't get past book one: the former because she found it too silly, and the latter because he found the writing to be more about "the author's personality" than plot and character.

Whatever.

The first three books in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy--The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and Life, the Universe and Everything--are inspired lunacy. The ideas, plots, puns, jokes, and phrases that fill their pages have influenced an entire generation of not only writers, but people from all fields. For instance: the Babel Fish software that translates foreign websites for you is named after a species of fish that Adams created in book one; you can find dozens of recipes online for Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters; the chess computer Deep Thought that lost two matches to Gary Kasparov in 1989 was named after a computer in book one; and seriously, who hasn't heard that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42? (For more of these, consult wikipedia.org's entry on "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Cultural References".) Chances are, if you're reading these books for the first time, you'll be surprised to see how many everyday things were named after Adams' creations.

The books aren't, of course, without their problems. Adams himself admitted that the Trilogy had, and I paraphrase, a long beginning, a long conclusion, and not much in the middle (though I can't remember where I read that). He was also regularly accused of writing for the sake of cranking out one-liners. The books as a whole jump about like a manic puppy on methamphetamines, and there are at least a few jokes in there that will completely fly over the heads of any readers who lack a basic comprehension of quantum physics.

Despite this, the Hitchhiker's Trilogy remains as the single most entertaining and enjoyable series of books I've ever read--a position they've occupied for some fifteen years. Adams' wit and wisdom still baffle me in their greatness, and he remains to this day one of only two authors who can regularly, consistently make me howl with laughter (the other being Terry Pratchett). Readers beware: if the Adams bug infects you, you will have it for life. And you'll never be sorry you let it bite.