The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
(Douglas Adams)
The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy is
a truly remarkable little book. It is the story of one Arthur
Dent, a perfectly normal Englishman with little to separate him from
the thousands of other perfectly normal Englishmen and women, except
that his best friend is an alien from the planet Betelgeuse, and that
he is one of only two humans to survive the destruction of Earth.Based on Douglas Adams' award winning
radio programme of the same name, Hitchhiker is the first in what
subsequently became a five book series.
The book is written with Adams'
inimitable, and quintessentially British, brand of humour, which is never displayed
better than when he uses it to underscore the absurdity of our
everyday lives by transposing them into unfamiliar contexts. From
the opening gambit of having the Earth destroyed to make way for an
interstellar bypass, Adams covers such subjects as tea, politics and
the meaning of life, all wrapped up in a lovingly crafted story that ends up
encompassing the entire scope of a marvelously surreal (and
worryingly recognisable) galaxy, and often heading off on bizarre
tangents, whilst all the time remaining deceptively straightforward
and comfortably readable.So, all that remains is to decide which
version to try first (because you will be back for more, I guarantee
it). The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy has been released in so
many different formats now that it is difficult to know which one is
the definitive. The radio show was the first to be released, and so
in a way it is the most authentic version, but on the other hand the
book is the version with the fewest barriers between the author and
the reader. In the book, also, Adams has more space to fill in the
gaps, and flesh out various areas, so if you have already heard the radio series, there is no reason not to read the book as well.
My only criticism of Hitchhiker is that
when it is over it feels somehow incomplete, and you are left wanting
more, but with four other books in the series, this is easily
remedied!
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