Arthur Dent is having a bad day his home is being demolished, a new highway bypass is needed progress you know, it's for his own good...really, so goodbye house. On the bright side (by the way), it does not matter either. Earth too will no longer be, soon just billions of inconsequential floating pieces scattered throughout the cosmos, no one left to remember. The powers of the galaxy have decided this little insignificant, dull planet at the edge of the Milky Way must go. A hyperspatial express route is being built, Earth is in the path no big deal to the rest of the universe, just a few souls disappear think of the convenience to others , people... His friend drops by, Mr. Ford Prefect and finds Arthur lying in the mud in front of the bulldozers, and asks him what's new ? And can he go to the local pub for a drink, they must talk... Seems okay to Dent, but first the intelligent man gets a gentleman's solemn sacred promise, from a bureaucrat (who shall remain nameless), that his house will still be standing when he gets back. Even has Mr. Prosser, replace him in the dirt (I can never keep a secret). After a few drinks which relaxes Arthur, Ford tell's his friend he's an alien from a another planet in the vicinity of the great star Betelgeuse, just 600 light-years away. Dent always thought Prefect was an eccentric man but this being England, perfectly permissible, goes on to explain he's a researcher for something called, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". A weird sound emulates from the outside disrupting this enlightening discussion, Arthur jumps up runs out the door and sees that there are no more gentlemen in the world now. Home gone, but the over excited man starts calling the wrecking crew unkind names. Such language (I will not repeat them, in mixed company, besides this is a family site ). People should be calm, always calm nothing to be concerned about, remember you are English...Looking up, odd yellow streaks in the sky Dent wonders, Ford did say the Earth would be destroyed today but he is strange...Stiff upper lip ...But something is occurring, though. Ford arrives and the noise level rises also...A short time later the waking, Dent...Mr. Dent, comes to in the dark in an alien spaceship , one of those that vaporized his not quite beloved planet, with Ford there... Evil green, and very ugly aliens the Vogons who like to torture people by reciting bad poetry, I mean really bad Vogon poetry, resulting in captives welcoming death, rather than listen to another word... Captain Jeltz hates hitchhikers, and Ford had a devise to enter the ship, secretly. But the clever friends say they loved the excruciating poem, of the captain's; obvious lying, the angry poet has the two rudely thrown off the craft into space, without... spacesuits...these aliens, are barbarians... They can hold their breaths for thirty seconds, so don't worry... A miracle, on the 29th second, they're saved by the President of the galaxy , in a stolen vessel. And the runaway politician ( surprisingly not exactly honest), Zaphod Beeblebrox is on board, so is his two heads and three arms, with his girlfriend Trillian and Marvin, the paranoid robot, don't talk to it, he's very depressing, you would want to crush him, with your bare hands ... As the semi cousin (what's that?) of the president, Ford Prefect is in luck. All the galaxy, are after the Heart of Gold, the new spaceship which can cross the Milky Way, in a flash, on ship the greedy, seek the legendary, lost and fabulously rich planet, Magratha. In the vastness of the whole endless Universe everything's is possible, except an android like Marvin...Remember the Guide's motto, "Don't Panic"...

This book (and its Sequel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe) are ultimately a story about how ludicrous we tiny little creatures actually are. How we fill our lives with bullshit trivialities that are nobody else’s business, with institutions and bureaucracies, and how the pattern repeats in micro and macro scale. How ultimately, people really are very silly, that we search for meaning in an existence where there probably is none beyond being, you know, nice to each other, that we’re always looking for the “will-be” and never savoring the “now”. How everyone needs to just fucking take it easy.

But most importantly, this book is funny. Laugh out loud funny. And it probably contains the greatest narrative device I’ve ever read to pass exposition along to the reader. Shall we have paragraphs of info dump? Shall we have long and tedious conversations amongst each other to explain to the reader what’s going on? No, let’s build ourselves a n00b named Arthur, and hand him a tiny electronic book that will not only explain everything the reader needs to know, but make them giggle like five years olds to boot.

Mr Adams, sir, you are missed.

I have spent almost six hours in the delightful company of Stephen Fry, reading the satirical science fiction classic with incredible skill and humour.

As I had read it before, I had to bow to Fry’s ability to speak the strange, evocative names of the characters without giving away his amusement more than with a tiny rise in the voice.

The story starts with a bleak outlook on life on Earth, of course. While Arthur Dent, a regular human being, is in a rage over a bulldozer which is about to tear down his house to make space for a bypass road, a slightly bigger construction project in space causes an alien company to erase the whole planet Earth for the same reason. Gone is our home, just moments before the extraterrestrial company receives information to the effect that the demolition of Earth is unnecessary.

Well, it is not the first time unnecessary things have happened in the construction business, and Earth is not that important anyway, from a universal standpoint, as Arthur realises while travelling with an alien journalist researching for a book called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. After 15 years of studying Earth, he is able to expand the entry on our planet by adding a “mostly” to the previous one-word comment summing up our entire globe: “harmless”. Arthur, reflecting on the loss of Trafalgar Square and McDonalds as the planet is destroyed, has a moment of hardship accepting that all that is left of his previous home now is a redundant note on it being “mostly harmless”.

Thus thrown on an odyssey in space, the pair makes acquaintances of diverse kinds, always learning something new about how not to take life too seriously, while still trying to understand it. One fabulous scene features the travellers on a hostile space ship, subject to the so-called vogons’ Poetry Appreciation Chair, where they are kept in place while inundated without mercy with the unbearably horrific Vogon poetry, the third worst in universe. I imagine it a bit like being strapped to a chair and forced to listen to and appreciate some famous twitter that is produced on our mostly harmless ex-planet.

When asked to choose whether they prefer to be thrown into space or to appreciate the value of what they have heard, the two heroes deliver a duet of superb poetry appreciation bullshit bingo, leaving the mean vogon wondering whether he might really have talent after all: but being heartless and cruel, he kicks them out of the spaceship anyway. Escaping certain death yet again, with a second’s margin, the hitchhikers are picked up by another ship in an act of major improbability, which is accurately calculated for them.

The most impressive character in the book is the supercomputer Deep Thought, whose sulking voice is brilliantly interpreted by Stephen Fry. He has a godlike attitude, and is preparing for the arrival of the messiah of computers, which will ultimately trump him, even though it is to be designed by Deep Thought himself.

While awaiting the time of the new supercomputer, Deep Thought agrees to give the answer to life, the universe and everything. As the recipients of the answer are not happy with it, not being able to understand what it means, they set out to find the proper question to make sense of it. Deep Thought himself can’t do it, and tells them they have to wait for the new messiah computer.

However, being inventive, they try different questions that match the answer in the intermediate time, acting very much like true philosophers.

Their first try is a bit too straightforward:

“What is six times seven?”

Then they have a touch of genius, and find the perfect interim question for the answer:

“How many roads must a man walk down?”

“Brilliant!”

“The answer, my friend, is Forty-Two, the answer is Forty-Two!”

All universe must have conspired to make them come up with that deep question for the hard-to-understand answer. It could almost be a song, if you changed the lyrics a bit? Or maybe the kind of horrible Vogonian poetry that ex-Academies would award?

While our characters are off to have lunch at the end of the universe, Deep Thought is preparing for the arrival of his son, the new supercomputer. He has given him a name already:

“The Earth!”

And the most intelligent creatures on the old, demolished planet say:

“Thank you for all the fish!”

Delightfully irreverent journey through the nonsensical human existence!

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.

Reread. Last read it 2020. Its funny how much reading tastes changes over the years. Still like it but not at all as much. Lower rating this time around.

----

This. Was. Amazing! I wasn't at all prepared that this tiny book would hold so much greatness and other worldy amazingness. It's funny, it's quirky and it doesn't try to be serious but it doesn't feel forced or overly ridiculous. It's just have enough fun bits and it doesn't feel overpowering. It's short but feel like it has the perfect length. I'm glad I got the next book on hand and I can easily say it's one of the best book I've read this year!!

What a unique book, truly one of a kind. Science fiction? Well kind of. Humor? Yes, that to. And who knows what else was going through Adams mind when he wrote this. It's almost like "stream of consciousness" science fiction/humor/satire. But whatever you call it, it was entertaining and fun to read. 4.5 stars.

من خیلی ازش لذت بردم. امروز صبح یه ذره حالم خوب نبود و تا حالم اوکی بشه خوندمش. بلافاصله می‌رم سراغ جلد بعدی.
فقط یه حس دوگانه‌ای دارم، از یه طرف می‌گم کاش انگلیسی خونده بودم و از یه طرف می‌گم ترجمش خیلی خوب بود. نمی‌دونم.

Quirk.
Quirk quirk.
Quirk quirk quirk.
Quirk quirk.
Quirk.

Read the above. Read it again. Read it seven more times.

The cute thing about language is that if you see, hear, or say a word enough, it just doesn't seem to make sense anymore. You know it's a word, but suddenly the q just doesn't get along with the u anymore, the r and the k just can't see eye to eye, and the i wants to run away from home.

Read it again.

That's this book.

It's quirky. It's so quirky it's quirks have quirks, and those quirks have little quirks of their own. By the time you finally work you way through the whole quirk family tree, the first quirk doesn't seem quirky anymore.

It seems annoying.

Douglas Adams has force-fed and painfully injected so much quirk into this worthless little novel that it makes your head spin. There is no point to this novel. There is no deeper meaning. The supercomputer chose '42' because I'm convinced that's the highest Adams can count.

Quirk.
Quirk.
QUIRK.

Popsugar challenge 2020 - A Book with a Robot, cyborg or AI character / A Book written by an author in their 20's

Yeah, I'm not the intended audience for this book, with a male dominated cast in space I was never going to be able to relate.

I'd heard great things but I couldn't get into it, my mind kept drifting, i looked for the humor but couldn't find it (was it where the British guy wanted a cup of tea on a spaceship?).

It just didn't hold my attention i'm afraid which is a shame as its such a cult classic.

-«آرزو می کنم که ای کاش در بچگی حرف مادرم رو گوش کرده بودم.»
+«مگه مادرت چی بهت گفت؟»
- «نمیدونم. اون موقع ها به حرفش گوش ندادم.»

چند ساعته دارم فکر میکنم در مورد این کتاب چی بگم که شاهکار بودنش رو توصیف کنه ولی هیچی به ذهنم نرسید. فقد میتونم بگم بهترین و ناب ترین چرت و پرتی بود که تا به حال خونده بودم . اگر دوست دارید از این کتاب چیز خاصی یاد بگیرین بهتره اصلا سمت این کتاب نرید. یک طنز خاص خودشو داره که کمتر جایی دیدین.و اصلا سعی نکنید همه چیز رو بفهمید . فقد از خوندنش لذت ببرید.

رمان اینجوری شروع میشه که همون روزی که خانه ی آرتور به دستور شورای شهر برای احداث یک بزرگ راه بین شهری تخریب میشه. یک نژاد از آدم فضایی ها برای احداث یک بزرگ راه بین کهکشانی سیاره زمین رو نابود می کنن و...

Definitely one of the great sci-fi comedy classics with slapstick comedy, philosophical queries and the Answer 42. Always a fun book to read when otherwise life is throwing you curveballs!

So much fun to read.

I came to Douglas Adams in the way a lot of guys do, probably: I was introduced to it by someone far nerdier than I. Some of us become nerds when people we come in contact with share their obsessions; others are born nerds, and somehow organically discover Monty Python & the Holy Grail or, say, the original BBC miniseries version of this book. And then they make you watch it, twice, and spoil all the jokes by quoting them alongside it.

If I remember right, this happened to me freshman year of high school, which is a good time for The Hitchhiker's Guide. Douglas Adams' humor is offbeat and makes you feel smart for getting it, and if there is anything a 14-year-old boy likes to have reinforced, it is his smug sense of self-satisfaction.

I went on to read the sequels, which kind of petered out for me (not sure I ever finished Mostly Harmless), but the first book is pretty hard to dislike. Though when I re-read it my senior year as part of a sci-fi/fantasy English elective, I don't know if the entire class appreciated it quite as much as I was expecting, perhaps because I didn't know that they weren't taking the course because they liked the idea of reading Tolkien for credit, but because they needed the credit to graduate and the teacher was really nice. Like, open book, multiple choice quiz nice. And some of them still didn't pass. How is reading 25 pages of Anne McCaffrey homework? It was homework for me to stop reading after 25 pages! Not that I did.

So, you know this book, I am sure. Probably in more than one of its incarnations: TV series, radio play, big budget Hollywood movie. I love its elasticity -- each medium offers a slightly different take on the plot, which seems appropriate for a "trilogy" that somehow has five installments. Though it's humor, it really is a great sci-fi book, with a lot of ingenious concepts (my favorite being the Improbability Drive, which makes the most unlikely things happen, or the Point of View Gun, which shows you just how insignificant you are on a universal scale).

After experiencing all of the various versions, I am getting a little sick of the jokes (Vogon poetry and depressed space whales are only funny so many times), but it was still an easy choice for this day of the book challenge.

Facebook 30 Day Book Challenge Day 25: Favorite book you read in school.