اولین بار بود که تو ژانر پست مدرن، کتابی نیمه فانتزی نیمه علمی تخیل�� می‌خوندم، اونم با چاشنی طنز!
کتاب راهنمای کهکشان برای اتواستاپ‌زن‌ها با استفاده از طنز موقعیت و گاه اغراق‌های قابل توجه، به انتقاد و زیر سوال بردن مسائل عادی انسانی می‌پردازه.
بعضی بخش‌های کتاب رو واقعا دوست داشتم، طنزش به دل می‌نشست و آدم رو به فکر فرو می‌برد. با این حال بعضی جاها هم برام خسته‌کننده می‌شد.
تصویرسازی و شخصیت‌پردازی متوسط و گاه دم دستی بود. خلاقیت نویسنده ستودنی به نظر می‌رسید و همین‌طور فکر می‌کنم اگر کتاب رو زبان اصلی می‌خوندم بیشتر با طنزش ارتباط برقرار می‌کردم.
کتاب پایان‌بندی نداره و به جلد بعدیش وصله. یعنی انتهای کتاب وصل می‌شه به ابتدای جلد بعد که خب نظر دادن در موردش رو سخت می‌کنه. فصل‌بندی‌هاشم برای من عجیب بود چون اگر شماره‌ی فصل‌ها رو برمی‌داشتیم کل کتاب به هم متصل بود و لزوم شماره زدن رو متوجه نشدم.
من ترجمه‌ی آرش سرکوهی رو خوندم ولی گویا ترجمه فرزاد فربد بهتره.
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بخش‌های ماندگار کتاب:
آقای پروسر آرزو می‌کرد که الان در نقطه‌ی ت می‌بود. نقطه‌ی ت جای خاصی نبود فقط جایی بود که از نقطه‌های الف و ب و پ خیلی دور بود.
...
یکی از خصوصیات آدم‌ها که فورد هیچ وقت از اون سر در نیاورده بود، عادت عجیب و غریب اون‌ها بود به اینکه چیزهای پیش پا افتاده و بدیهیات مثل روز روشن رو دوباره و دوباره تکرار کنند.
...
اگر آدم‌ها بدون توقف، زبون و لب‌هاشون رو تکون ندن، مغزشون شروع می‌کنه به کار کردن.
...
زمان فقط یه توهمه.
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میشه فقط برای یه لحظه هم که شده تو مهمترین چیز دنیا نباشی؟
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دقیقا همون موقعی که آدم فکر می‌کنه زندگی از این بدتر نمی‌شه، یک اتفاقی می‌افته و آدم می‌بینه که خیلی بدتر از این هم هست.
...
خیلی دوست داشت بدونه که این چیه که تمام وقت سعی می‌کنه بهش فکر نکنه.

I honestly couldn't care less for Zaphod and his part of the story, or the most of it. Therefore I give it 4,5 stars. Other than that I loved the book and the humour in it. It was simply brilliant. Easy read with lots of fun. Pity I didn't have a chance to read it as a teen. In English.

★★ /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.

I hated this book. It was required in one of my English Lit. classes in college. The time spent reading this book is time that I will never get back. I think this book may have shortened my life; it was such a waste of time.

Thanks for all the fish.
[Reread, December 2024]

I read this book about 51,017 times when I was in seventh grade. I wore my copy out. That was a time in my life when I very much would have preferred to belong to some alien species, trapped here through no fault of my own. Also: "The ships hung in the air in much the same way that bricks don't." How can you improve on writing like that?

Q: What's so bad about being drunk?
A: Just ask a glass of water.

ahhh, good times.

It's not you, it's me... well maybe it's also you.

Unfortunately this book wasn't for me. Some of the humor I liked but it was too absurd for me and it was too slow to really start.

I wish I had liked it as much as everyone else but it definitely didn't make it to my "favorite books of all time" list!

UPDATE: I finally figured out what was my issue with this book. There's a French movie called "Rrrrrrr" (similar humour to Monty Pyton) and I've had way more fun using the jokes out of context with friends than I did actually watching the movie. Recommending it was always a bit weird because it's just an okay movie but... the jokes are funny afterwards.

This summarizes exactly how I feel about this book!

Wow! I cannot articulate just how much I loved this book!

“Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.”

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is my first Douglas Adams novel, and it is going directly to my favorites shelf. The humor is wonderfully dry and the writing oh so clever. This is the kind of novel that will stick with me forever; the kind that I will read over and over.

I can't wait to jump into The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

“So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

n  n    “I don’t want to die now!” he yelled. “I’ve still got a headache! I don’t want to go to heaven with a headache, I’d be all cross and wouldn’t enjoy it!n  n

I found my love for Sci-Fi comedy when I read The Martian. And this was a good addition to my read shelf in that accord. I loved the moments I spent with this book. Unlike The Martian, this book would also work well for non-Sci-Fi readers. Because there is soo much humour you can't repress your laugh and enjoy this book.

OVERVIEW
Earth is scheduled to demolition for the construction of hyperspace bypass by Vogons, a galactic race. Arthur Dent is saved by his friend, Ford Prefect, who is actually an alien. Ford hitches the lift on Vogons' Spaceship. When Vogons find them in their ship, they throw them in the open space. We can live in space without breathing for 30 seconds. But they are saved in 29 seconds by Heart of Gold, an incredibly fast spaceship which can cover every corner of the universe in fraction of a second. This spaceship is stolen by Zaphod, the president of galaxy. With Heart of Gold, they find a legendary planet named Magrathea. This planet is known to manufacture planets.


RANDOM THOUGHTS
=> I liked every character. Everyone was humorous. Arthur and Ford were my favourites. I also liked Zaphod.

=> Hyper-intelligent race, mice, build a supercomputer, Deep Thought, on Magrathea. It was built to determine the answer to life, universe and everything. After seven million and so years, it calculated the answer 42. But it was confusing. So Deep Thought build another supercomputer to calculate the question to this answer. This supercomputer was Earth which would calculate the question in ten million years. But five minutes before completing its task, it was demolished by Vogons.
WHAT?!

I was right to not want to read this one.

It's so stupid. This is not even close to my kind of humour. I like clever funny, not stupid funny. This is just beyond ridiculous and I mostly cringed my way through it. I don't think I cracked a smile once.

I get that this is hilarious and delightful for some people but I am not one of them.

Thank god it was mercifully short.

He really wrote an entire series of this crap?

British humour, man. I just n  don't get it.n

This was book 13 of my #Dymocks52challenge refined. You can read more here.

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n  Originally shelved as 'never gonna happen':n

Absurdist humour is not really my thing, and I've heard enough about this one to not even be a little tempted to read it. It sounds too ridiculous for my liking. I'd rather read something with clever humour.

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!

It’s true what they say... You pick up n  The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxyn and either chuck it away when your head starts to whirl OR you totally appreciate the head-whirling sensation, plunge right in and don’t surface till you have reached the Restaurant at the End of The Universe.

It is with great delight and spots before my eyes that I can proclaim that I belong to the latter breed. You need a wee bit of whimsy, a lot of quirky and a love for all things whacky (all three which I possess in abundance) to appreciate the magnificence of this space odyssey.

The plot is fairly simple. Seconds before planet Earth is completely demolished to make way for a galactic bypass, bemused Englishman Arthur Dent is whisked away to safety by his friend, Ford Prefect. Ford is not an out-of-work actor as he has led everyone to believe. He is in fact, the resident of a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and a researcher for the revised edition of ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’.

Together, the bursting-with-enthusiasm Ford and the bursting-with-disbelief Arthur get set to cruise around the galaxy. Adding to the comedy of errors are Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed galactican president; Trillian, a lady who by some bizarre coincidence had once given Arthur the ditch at an earth-party and Marvin, the oppressively-depressed robot who could drive even a spaceship to suicide.

Along the way, they have many a hit-and-fly situation with various warped creatures who inhabit the universe…they listen to some truly terrible poetry…they land on the legendary planet, Magrathea…and even learn about the super-intelligent computer *DEEP THOUGHT* and it’s mission to answer the question to Life, The Universe and everything. All this while trying to find a decent cup of tea...

Douglas Adams was the king of one-liners and whip-smart dialogue. He took human flaws, failings and reams of red-tape and converted it into a seriously funny tale. Many argue that the written work is just a reflection of Adams’thoughts…well hell..which book isn’t?!?

I have hemmed and hawed over the years wondering whether I should pick up the book or not…always inhaling it in bits and pieces. All I can say to the still-wary is this: grab the spaceship by it’s tail-lights and get geared for a mad-trip of a lifetime.