What the hell did I just read?

یک ۵ ستاره‌ی واقعی.

طنز قوی‌ش رو خیلی دوست داشتم. جنسی از بی‌در و پیکری ای که بهش می‌گن ادبیات پست‌مدرنیستی. شلوغی و قاطی‌پاتی بودن‌اش، اتفاقات‌اش و روابط علی معلولی‌ش، شخصیت‌پردازی و گیردادن‌هاش، همه و همه طوری بود که می‌خواستم من هم همینطوری بنویسم. عده‌ای نویسنده هستند که آرزو می‌کنم من هم می‌تونستم مثل اونا بنویسم و داگلاس آدامز شد یکی از همین نویسنده‌ها.

قصه خیلی خوب جلو می‌رفت و اتفاقات خیییلی بالای مرز تخیل‌ام حرکت می‌کرد. طوری که نمی‌شد حدس زد. تئوری‌هاش و بینش‌اش به هستی و جهان. دیدگاه جدیدی که بهت می‌داد. و وقتی یکم مکث می‌کردی، عمقی که توی نوشته‌ها می‌دیدی.
شاید این کتاب باعث شد بیشتر بخندم و بیشتر به سخره بگیرم چیزهایی که دور و برم هست و مهم می‌پندارم. یادآوری‌ای بر کوچیک بودن و ناچیز بودن و هیچ نبودن‌مون. خیلی وقتا نیاز به اینجور تلنگر‌هایی داریم. هی بهمون یادآوری بشه که هیچی نیستیم.

به‌زودی بپرم برای قسمت بعدی، یعنی رستورانِ آخر دنیا!

This is another instance where it's daunting to write a review because the novel is well-known and loved by millions of people. As a Sci-Fi/Fantasy reader, it's embarrassing that I've only read this once, and I've waited 'till 2016 to read this. I'm glad that I can finally say that I've read this. I've finally read and enjoyed one of the most influential books of the sci-fi genre.

I understand all the buzz regarding this novel. This is the first time in my whole life that I laughed out loud while reading a novel. I've never believed that a novel could be humorous enough to make me elicit more than a giggle or a smile. This novel changed my perception of humor novels in general. I finally have faith in that genre, and an even stronger desire to read more important Sci-Fi novels.

I don't see the need to make a short summary of the novel. You can find other reviews that did that. I'm writing this review to express my feelings toward the novel, and the journey that I had with it. Speaking of journey, it was a damn short one. I honestly hate gigantic novels, but it's always fulfilling to finish one if the book is great. This book I can consider amazing, but too short.

Aside from the humor, I enjoyed the wittiness of the novel and the author himself. The ideas he incorporated in the novel are vital for the readers to understand. It may be a humor novel, but it's more than that as a whole.

The characters are funny and well-developed. The main ones managed to make me laugh. Ford reminds me of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, and Arthur as Leonard Hofstadter. This is like a classic Big Bang theory episode, or maybe The Big Bang theory is a modern Hitchhiker.

The plot is not that complex, but it is interesting. I'm always interested to read about other planets in the galaxy, even if it's just fiction. I like to imagine that there are hundreds or thousands of worlds out there in the galaxy. Funny thing that the Earth blew up in this novel. Funnier that they considered Earth as a funny name in the beginning.

All the ideologies Adams incorporated here are interesting to me. How some animals are superior and manipulated us, or how the Earth was all a project of some aliens. It's funny and vastly interesting. I can't wait to read the other books in the series.

4.5/5 stars. I decided to round it down because while the novel truly entertained me, it still lacked something and made me think twice about the 5-star rating.

n  

“If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.”

n

I absolutely HATED this book. I usually read books before seeing the movie when it's released in theaters, and so I read this book. If there was a point in all his rambling disguised as prose, I missed it. Don't waste your time reading this book. And if possible, the movie was worse.

***3 Stars***

This book was... weird.
But not bad weird.
Weirdly funny, weirdly entertaining and weirdly delightful.

Yet it had a certain ridiculousness to it, which is what made give it only 3 stars. But I also enjoyed reading it.
Will see if I'll ever feel like reading the other books in the series.

4.5/5

DON’T PANIC

Always great to have a good tidbit of life advice thrown into a book.

well I see why this series has such a following. Wow I can’t wait to read the rest of it. It’s always fun to read a book that you can tell an author had fun writing. Each scene just brought so much joy to my life.

Something crazy would happen then the digital guide would bring it all together and fill me in on why a species acts a certain way. It was a really great way to fit exposition into a story while still pushing the plot forward because I was learning about the universe along with Arthur and as he read the guide I got to read it too.

Though I loved all the characters (particularly interactions between Ford and Zaphod) I have to tip my hat to Marvin. His ability to bring a room down in mere seconds is hilarious. He had the ability to make a ship commit suicide.

Anyway, I’m excited to read the remaining books and until then at least I can rest easy knowing the meaning of life is 42.

To look on the bright side, at least it's over.

I don't know how many times I've read this masterpiece of perfectly logical nonsense but there is a reason I try to read it every year for Towel Day (25th May). This year, I've decided to finally read the entire "trilogy" (which is also why I started a bit early).

Today must be a Thursday (funny that it actually is) because Arthur Dent has never gotten the hang of those. As it were, this particular day was when a demolition crew came to demolish his house to make way for a bypass. Shortly after, planet Earth follows its example for a hyperspace bypass. But not to worry, Arthur survives thanks to his friend Ford Prefect, who's actually an alien. They end up hitchhiking through the galaxy with a copy of the titular book, some babel fish and - of course - at least one towel. After all, there is more to the blue marble than meats the eye and it has to do with the answer to the question of Life, the Universe and Everything.

Along the way, we get overenthusiastic spaceship computers, a depressed robot, a Galactic President that would make the current one in the White House look perfectly ordinary, some mice and an award-winning engineer.

This is one of those books that you either love or hate. Not least because humour is a fickle thing. Douglas Adams managed to perfectly capture the silliness, ridiculousness and nonsense behind human existence, bureaucracy and the many questions we tend to philosophize about and wrapped them all up in a space adventure. He managed to put his finger exactly on the stupid stuff and emphasized the things we probably should pay more attention to. Such as gorgeous fjords.

As light and funny as this book seems on the surface, it is a deeper analysis of all of us; an attempt at making sense of a couple of things while not taking anything too seriously because life's too short for that (the author, sadly, proved that).

Definitely a classic that deserves all the different adaptations (it actually started out as a radio drama and was only turned into a novel later). Looking forward to finally finding out how the journey continues.

Re-Read 4/2/22:

Read this book for the first time with my daughter. I figured it is a piece of culture and I'm nothing if not a man of culture. Plus, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.

Out of almost all of the hilarious things in this book, my daughter was supremely taken by:

"You want me," said Prosser, spelling out this new thought to himself, "to come and lie over there..."
"Yes."
"In front of the bulldozer?"
"Yes."
"Instead of Mr. Dent?"
"Yes."
"In the mud."
"In, as you say, the mud."


We have, in point of fact, put towels on our heads and acted out the scene more than a few times. Not 42 times, however. There are only so many hours in the day.

I think it was a hit. But we must always remember... Don't Panic.


Original Review:

I'm a firm believer that every budding reader ought to read this book first so they can be utterly and completely ruined for literature for the rest of their lives.

Of course, if you're an older reader, with experience and verve when it comes to words, you might also be completely ruined for literature for the rest of your life, too, but I'm not counting you. In fact, I don't care about you.

I have a towel.

And I know how to USE IT. It's almost, but not quite entirely unlike having a clue.


Fortunately, I, myself had been totally ruined for literature early on in my life and I think I might have read this book around seven or eight times before I got the idea that nothing else I would ever read would quite stack up to it, and afterward, I just decided to become Marvin and assume that the whole world was not quite worth living.

But, again, fortunately, I remembered that I was an Earthling and I could replace most of my cognitive centers with "What?" and get along quite nicely. So that's what I did and ever since I've been reading normal books and saying "What?" quite happily.

You SEE? Happy endings DO happen. As long as you're not a pot of Petunias. Of course, that story would take WAY too long to tell.

I think I want to grab a bite to eat. Maybe I ought to meet the meat.

n  "He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."n

The world has gone mad. No, the entire universe has. And by reading this, we get to laugh about it. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a little bit of a mad ride, but what a joyous one!



Arthur Dent, a regular, averagely intelligent guy from Earth one day finds himself entangled in a very improbable chain of events that lead him to finding out that his best friend is an alien. Everything goes downhill from there. There is no point in summarizing the story, as it's not the story that makes this book special.

n  "For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."n

It's how the story is made up. Everything is reversed and the narrative takes the most surprising and unexpected twists and turns, always resulting in something humorous. It's more than a space opera, however, because in its absurdity it manages to be highly relevant, even over three decades after its publication.



Its puts us into our place. Humans have this tendency to think of themselves as the most developed species, but little did we know that the universe is in fact run by mice. And the aliens in this book are all just as clueless about where they belong and what kind of world they live in. Which is comforting, because isn't this was life is essentially like? Confusing, sometimes seemingly pointless.

The Hitchhiker's Guide is a kind reminder that that's okay, that it is enough to remember that we're just part of something that is so much bigger than the perspective we have on it. And while we never will fully understand what is happening around us, we might as well just try, gathering as much knowledge as we can in order to find our way in a world that is full of chance and coincidence.

طنزی پست مدرن و نگاهی غریب به پرسش های اساسی انسان
مدت ها بود اینگونه نخندیده بودم