The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Hello and welcome to The Young Reader’s Review! May has arrived, already marking the fifth month of two thousand eighteen (that went by quickly). Moments ago, I was idly lying on my bed, a drowsy open book resting on my chest. The unripe pre-summer sun, crawling its way into my room, bathed it in its irradiant and warm light. Suddenly, I had the sudden realization that I hadn’t made the classic “good ‘ol book review” in months. Aghast, breaking out of mellowness’ trance, I tried to think of a beloved literary pearl that I could recommend. In this state, a sentence came to mind: Don’t panic. A small grin etched itself on my face. This quote considerably shortened my meditation for a title, a book, a world, a universe immediately came to mind. Behold, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams. Enjoy. 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I were not your typical love story: I did not blindly fall into its arms, seduced by the charm of its title, like I usually do  (even though “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy” is enough to pique your interest if you ask me) . In fact, a science-fiction enthusiast recommended it to me (thank you if you’re reading this). Therefore, due to an acute literary curiosity, I resolved myself to read this series of five books, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy being the first followed by The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe and Everything (1982) (that I am currently in the process of reading), So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984) and finally, Mostly Harmless (1992). I have to admit that I was slightly skeptical about this novel since I was mostly afraid that it would lack in literary style and that I would not grasp the humor. Yet, I decided that I would not be able to judge it if I didn’t read it. So, let me prove how wrong my dubiousness was. 

You are probably going to be extremely confused by this (spoiler-freeish) summary but please, hang on. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy begins with Arthur Dent, a British “everyman” who finds out that his house is going to be demolished. Therefore, he lies in front of his house to hinder bulldozers from destroying his abode. His friend, Ford Prefect, arrives and attempts to explain to him that he is in fact not from Earth but from a planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. He is also writing a new version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, an encyclopedia of sorts but obviously about the Galaxy (and that has the words “Don’t panic” inscribed on the cover). He also endeavors to share with Arthur Dent the information that the planet Earth is soon to be destroyed by the Vogons, aliens who want to make space for a hyperspace bypass (Oh, you don’t know what that is? Well, me neither). When the Earth is in fact obliterated, they hitch (“Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink”) a ride from a Vogon spaceship. When they are found, they are forced to listen to the horrible Vogon poetry followed by their expulsion into space. Yet, against all odds, they are found by Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford Prefect’s “semi-cousin” who had stolen the spaceship “the Heart of Gold” that is powered by an “Infinite Improbability Drive” (a method of crossing interstellar distances at an extremely fast speed). And the adventure has just begun. 

You must open the pages of this book knowing that it is in fact going to be absurd and I’d even say silly which is probably also accentuated by the novel’s carefree and lighthearted storytelling tone. Yet, we tend to associate “absurdity” with “meaninglessness” (even though, in a paradoxical manner, lack of meaning is a meaning itself) which isn’t always the case here since we can in fact find insightful reflections on humankind that even border on existentialist reasoning. But, incongruity is still the base of the absurd so there are many situations that seem illogical. For example, how does “Arthur Dent opens a window, saw a bulldozer, found his slippers, and stomped off to the bathroom to wash” or “the ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t” make any sense whatsoever? But then again, are these nuggets of randomness really as random as they seem? On the one hand, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by making us leave since the very first pages the familiar place of the planet Earth and making us adopt an external point of view, and through the bias of arbitrariness casts a light upon the absurdity of the human condition and reveals that our existence, in a frustrating manner, either doesn’t really make any sense or, if there is in fact a “meaning to life”, humans would probably not have the powers of reasoning that are required to understand it. This is made especially clear with the answer “42”: “42” is probably the quote that is most commonly associated with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and has even made its mark in popular culture. The entire quote is: ““The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is 42”. In short, a computer called Deep Thought spends 7.5 million years trying to get an answer that either doesn’t mean anything at all, or that perhaps has a deeper and more complex meaning that we cannot grasp. In the novel, this perplexing result results in the construction of an even more powerful supercomputer, that is, the Earth, that will strive to understand the question asked in the first place. This leads us, the reader, to try to determine the nature of such a question :  indeed what does finding “The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything” actually mean?  But, humans find it difficult to acknowledge the vague concept of “nothingness” since we will never realize, or we feel impeded by the realization that we cannot understand everything. Therefore, in order to counteract this deep-rooted anxiety in us, we preoccupy ourselves with trivial things in order to forget our “meaningless” existence. For instance, Arthur Dent is preoccupied with his digital watch and with tea. 

Douglas Adams uses the veil of absurdity in order to alleviate and alienate us from the painful truth.  Personally, reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy even made me feel uneasy: humankind and everything we know is ridiculed. For example, humans are presented in the novel as being idiotic “ape-descendants”, Zaphod makes Arthur face the possibility of having his brain replaced with a better-functioning one… Also, Ford Prefect, when drunk, often makes fun of astrophysicists: I found this particular detail interesting since, as humans, our entire knowledge of outer-space relies on them. Therefore, if these scientists are mocked, then our perception of the universe completely plummets to the ground in falsehood. But, Adams writes it himself: “Don’t Panic”. 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s is probably one of the funniest books I have ever read. There is no better word than “funny” since it just truly is funny. First, the humor in this novel is based on the anti-climax: Adams will build up our expectations, making us think that a very important insight is soon to be discovered, only to suddenly, yet predictably, destroy the anticipation. The best example has to be “42”. The fact that the sentence is written in the dramatic present of general truths and that its end, “42”, is so unforeseen cannot help but make us smile. Accompanying this anti-climatic humor we can also note the use of the deus ex machina (meaning “god from the machine” in Latin. In literature, a plot device where an unsolvable problem is suddenly solved) such as when the Infinite Improbability Drive saves Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect form Earth. 

Having spent much time watching Monty Python sketches and movies (completely worth it, if I may say) one of the very first things I noticed while reading this novel was how reminiscent Douglas’s humor was of Monty Python’s (at some times I could almost expect the Spanish Inquisition to pop out of nowhere (oh wait you can’t expect the Spanish-). There was something in the spontaneity, “Britishness” and sometimes dark humor that simply struck a chord. After doing some research, I found that Adams actually unsurprisingly worked on some of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Who would’ve known?

All in all, I could not recommend you more to enter this novelistic universe that not only proves Douglas Adams’ mastery of absurd humor and his extraordinary imagination, but also his capacity of making you laugh and introspect on humanity itself and on everything that surrounds us. If you are interested in more of Douglas Adams’ works, I encourage you to read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (which has recently been made into a television series), a humorous science-fiction detective novel, along with its sequel The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. 

And that is it for today’s review! I hope that you enjoyed it; if you did, do not forget to give it a like and to share it on social media. Also, I am open to all suggestions in terms of books to review, so do not hesitate to recommend me one! See you soon! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

© Margaux Emmanuel 2018