یه تئوری خیلی معروف می‌گه هر وقت یه کسی کشف کنه که جهان دقیقا برای چی به وجود اومده و به چه دردی می‌خوره، این جهان در همون لحظه ناپدید می‌شه و جای خودش رو می‌ده به یه جهان نویی که از جهان قبلی پیچیده‌تر و عجیب و غریب‌تره.
یه تئوری دیگه می‌گه که این اتفاق قبلا افتاده.


یادمه بچگیام یه داستان تخیلی نوشته بودم که تو اون آدما از زمین مهاجرت می‌کنن به مریخ و با خودشون درخت می‌برن واسه اکسیژن و بخاری واسه گرما. در همین حد فان. اون موقع ذهنم به سیارات دیگه و کهکشانای دیگه نمی‌کشید.
خوبی این کتاب اینه که یه اسلحه می‌گیره تو روی قوه تخیلت و مجبورت می‌کنه مثل دوران کودکی به کار بندازیش.
سری این رمان‌ها همون اندازه که نامحتمل و عجیب و غریبه دوست داشتنی و بامزه‌ست. من که عاشقم.

”In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” That’s how The Restaurant at the End of the Universe starts, and it somehow only gets better from that incredible opening line. It’s a perfect continuation of the series from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and has amazing moments right from the get go. But I somehow feel worse for Marvin in this book than the last one, even though I still think he’s absolutely hysterical. To me, Zaphod steals the show in this book, and great scenes like him being shown the whole of the universe are hilarious. This series is amazing, easily one of the best I’ve ever read.

The actual Restaurant section, and the parts immediately following it, are easily the least interesting bits of the novel. It took me three times longer to get through it than the rest of the first two books combined.

The first half: Hilarious. Peak Douglas Adams.

The third quarter: Bizarrely, painfully dull.

The last quarter: Funny. Not laugh out loud funny but like… cosmic funny, maaaaan.

«يه تئورى خيلى معروف مى گه هر وقت يه كسى كشف كنه كه جهان دقيقاً براى چى به وجود اومده و به چه دردى مى خوره، اين جهان در همون لحظه ناپديد مى شه و جاى خودش رو مى ده به جهان نويى كه از جهان قبلى پيچيده تر و عجيب و غريب تره.
يه تئورى ديگه مى گه كه اين اتّفاق قبلاً افتاده.»
جلد دوم كتاب «راهنماى كهكشان براى اتواستاپ زن ها» يعنى «رستوران آخر جهان»، با اين جملات شروع مى شه.
زاپود كه سفينه ى قلب طلا رو دزديده و اين كار رو در اصل براى ديدن كسى كه جهانُ اداره مى كنه انجام داده، از رئيس جمهورى خلع مى شه و خب چون در واقع رئيس جمهور صرفاً وجود داره تا حواس مردمُ از اداره كننده ى اصلى جهان پرت كنه، مى افتن دنبال زاپود تا دستگير و شكنجه ش كنن.
توى جلد دوم كتاب، در يك حادثه ى اتّفاقى زاپود و فورد از زاپود و ليليان جدا مى شن و دو تا غافلگيرى خيلى بزرگ اتّفاق مى افته. زاپود بالاخره موفق مى شه با كسى كه جهانُ اداره مى كنه ملاقات كنه، شخصيت فرمانده ى جهان اوّلين غافلگيرىِ بزرگه؛ آرتور و فورد هم به طور تصادفى وارد يه سفينه مى شن و سياره ى ناشناخته اى وارد مى شن و كشف اتّفاقى كه براى فورد و آرتور افتاده هم دومين غافلگيرى بزرگ داستان ه.
همچنان نمى شه حدس زد در لحظه به لحظه ى اين كتاب قراره با چه اتّفاقى مواجه بشيم و همين باعث مى شه حتّى براى يك لحظه كتابُ زمين نداريد.
توى اين جلد، جنبه هاى فلسفى داستان خيلى پررنگ ترن از جلد اوّل، ولى با اين همه ساختار طنزِ جذّاب كتاب و فضاى مدرن ش همون قدر با قوّت پابرجان. واقعاً برام سواله كه آدامز چه طورى اين شاهكار به ذهن ش رسيده؟


+ توضيح بيشتر نقش اسپويلرُ بازى مى كنه.
++ اميدوارم جلدهاى بعدى شُ زودتر بخونم.

3'6

No me ha gustado tanto como el primero pero aun así sigue el mismo ritmo, es muy disfrutable y con los personajes tan pintorescos como el primero, igual por leerlo tan seguido del anterior lo he sentido un poco repetitivo. Las ideas e idas de olla que tiene Douglas Adams me siguen encantando.

با این تذکر که ستاره‌ها به ترجمه‌اش نیست.

Better than the first book. This has more funny moments and I just found myself laughing out loud more than when I was reading the first book. I guess it was by design. Douglas Adams had to explain fully his milieu for the series. Since he did that in the first book, his characters now have the whole universe to play around for themselves. So, they just don't hop and hop from one planet to another but also in this one, enjoy a time travel. They went to a restaurant at the end of the universe. Prior to my reading of this book, I thought that the restaurant is located at the end or the edge of the universe. But I was fascinated to learn that while eating steak (from the meat of a talking animal), you could watch the end or the death of the universe. Sorry for the spoiler but it's found in the first half of the book and there are other more interesting scenes in the second part and you have to read the book and experience for yourself how is it to be dining and watching the end of yourself. Very clever imagination.

I reason why I read this after the first book was that I'd like to find out what was the Ultimate Question for the Ultimate Answer that was "42." However, it seemed the Adams was deliberately delaying it as it was only in the second part where it was brought up and he did not even give any hints. So, after reading this book, I looked from the third book but I could not locate it. So, I am now reading the fourth book and since its title is Song Long and Thanks for All the Fish, I hope to already know what the Ultimate Question is.

Again, I am not really a big sci-fi fan so I understand if you find this book more enjoyable and rated this with more than 3 stars. However, I agree with you that this book is good: talking insect as receptionist, elevator refusing to come up, animal talking to you prior to being butchered so you can buy and eat its meat, restaurant at the end of the universe, etc. They are all cleverly thought of that not too many of writers would be able to put them in one book and make people laugh. Really, unbelievable.

On to the 4th book.

4.5 stars, almost as good as it's predecessor and chalked full of British humour. I can't wait to see what shenanigans happen in book 3!

I remember having read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in high school. I had it in TXT format, and fought my way through it using Notepad. Not the "fancy" Notepad++... oh no, just plain old Notepad from Windows 98. *cue commiserating groan*

Sometime around that time, I decided to read the 2nd book in the series, but apparently couldn't make myself go through yet another Notepad-reading experience. So now I chose the Kindle as my medium, and was able to finish it quite quickly.

Thoughts:
- there is a lot of irony, perhaps black humor, or just... snide remarks about the general state of politics today. Technically, it refers to politics in the 80s, but that doesn't make it any less accurate today, eh?

- it is THE most quotable book I've ever read... which is not saying much, since I know lots of people who've read infinitely more than me.

- I definitely appreciate its content much more, than when I was a high schooler. Not that my interest in politics is that keener now... but at least I experienced some of its (after)effects more intently.

P.S. I'm also nerdy enough to use "The answer is forty two" for my smartphone's tag line.

==========================================
review of the 3rd book: Life, the Universe and Everything

There is theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Arthur Dent and his companions went through some bizarre and inexplicable adventures after the Earth got blown to bits by Vogons in the opening sequence of the series. They were probably too close to making sense of their situation, because Douglas Adams decided to turn it all around for the sequel.
Is is not an easy claim to make that the second Hitchhiker book is better than the previous one, since there was nothing wrong with the first one. Yet, for various reasons, I ended up reading it faster and enjoying it more. It may be the fact that there is actually a plot, like searching for the ruler of the universe as opposed to searching for a philosophical answer to the ultimate question. It may be that the jokes are better anchored in the actual story and feel less like an improvised skit. It may be that most of the characters are already established and we get less exposition and more action. For me though, I guess the main attraction is to discover Adams' hardcore nugget of humanism that holds it all together, like the black hole at the center of our Galaxy. Douglas Adams first points out to us how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things, how tiny our problems are from the perspective of the Cosmos. Once he got us well and truly scared, he comes out with his guide to Life , The Universe and Everything, and puts on its cover the words : "Don't Panic!" . We may not understand everything there is to know about these issues, but we're alive, we are gifted with reasoning, and we might as well enjoy the ride.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion to all those who are keen to make sense of life in an infiniteley complex and confusing Universe, for though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, it does at least make the reassuring claim, that where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate. In cases of major discrepancy it's always reality that's got it wrong.

While the main quest may be the search for the man who rules the universe, there are enough mishaps and side quests to make the journey highly entertaining:

- We make a visit to the main offices of the publishers of the Hitchiker Guide, where my favorite scene describes an encounter with the artificial intelligence of a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter.

Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking.
An impoverished hitchhiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counselor for neurotic elevators.

Marvin the Paranoid Android and this acrophobic elevator are a great reminder for me that intelligence has its shortcomings, and needs to be balanced by other personality traits.

- We accompany Zaphod on a forced visit to a penal planet, where he is to be punished for stealing the most advanced spaceship in the universe by undergoing a session in the Total Perspective Vortex device. This torture machine is supposed to "demonstrates conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion." To see the whole infinity of creation is to go instantly mad, unless  your name is Zaphod Beeblebrox and you ego is just as big as the Universe

Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real "wow, that's big" time. Infinity is just so big that, by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.

- we have dinner and drink Pan Galactic Gargleblasters at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, while we witness the unravelling of all existence and grapple with the absurd gramatical rules needed to express the upheaval of timelines , the mixing of the past with the future when/after/during/before the present ceases to exist.

- we meet the ghost of one of Zaphod's ancestors, who comes up with what is probably the best one-liner yet in the series:

"Life is wasted on the living"

- We attend the ultimate rock concert by the band Disaster Area whose leader, Hotblack Desiato, is spending a year dead in order to avoid paying taxes. Wthout giving away to many spoilers, the band is famous for using whole planets and astral bodies for special effects during their live performances.

- we get to meet the ruler of the universe, which might explain why it is so hard to make sense of it.  doubt everything and be wary of people who think they have all the answers : I couldn't trust the thinking of a man who takes the Universe - if there is one - for granted.

- we find refuge from another explosive misunderstanding in space on a Golgafrinchan Ark Ship, carrying a third of the population of their home planet away from an iminent if unexplained cataclysm and heading towards a tiny blue dot located in the unfashionable end of a spiral arm of our galaxy.

At the end of the second Hitchhiker installment, I might feel like I am starting to make sense of the Universe, including an explanation of how intelligent life blossomed on Earth, but I expect Douglas Adams has a few surprises up his sleeve for the next novel.
I can't wait to find out.
The word 'genius' comes to mind easier and easier when describing his talent, and I don't mean it only in the slapstick, satirical way. His one liners reach much deeper than the superficial layers of my awareness.

If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.

از کتاب اولش (راهنمای کهکشان برای اتواستاپ‌زن‌ها) خیلی بهتر بود

Šī ir grāmata, kurā vienkārši jāļaujas notikumiem - katrs sižeta pavērsiens ir absurdāks par iepriekšējo, bet nez kāpēc kopaina ir sakarīga. Normāls britu humors. Bet liekas, ka to pašu varēs teikt par visu sēriju.