In a reading slump? DON’T PANIC. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the absurd yet hilarious story of Arthur Dent, an earthman lost in space with nothing but a towel, the guide, and a few feckless aliens, and it’s a surefire way to cure any reading slump.
Arthur wakes one morning to the grinding gears of a bulldozer about to demolish his house to make space for a new bypass. A few minutes later the Vogons (an alien race incapable of good poetry) destroy the Earth to make a new hyperspace express route. Arthur narrowly escapes with his friend Ford Prefect, who turns out to be an alien researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the ensuing journey across space, Arthur boards a stolen spaceship named the Heart of Gold, crash lands on a mythical planet, and discovers the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Now if only he knew the question. . .
This book had me laughing out loud every other page. Douglas Adams is a master of witty dialogue and satirical commentary on life. Throughout the book, Adams pokes fun at everything from digital watches to God. His narration is chock full of illogic and nonsense metaphors such as “the ships hung in the sky, much in the same way that bricks don’t.”
The protagonists of this book are a strange cast of characters who are unusual in that they are not particularly driven to any goal, but nonetheless find themselves on a quest for the ultimate question of the universe. The crew of the Heart of Gold contains the egocentric Ex-President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, astrophysicist Trillian with her white mice, perpetually baffled Arthur Dent, guide researcher Ford Prefect, and Marvin the Paranoid Android. The crew banters back and forth, showing Adams’ considerable talent for writing dialogue.
As with most Sci-Fi novels, there is a considerable bit of world building that goes into Hitchhiker’s. Most of this information is given to readers via the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy entries, which have many omissions and contain much inaccurate knowledge. Through the excerpts from the Guide, Adams often meanders off on humorous tangents that turn out to be pivotal to later plot points. I was pleasantly surprised when what I thought was offhanded comments about towels or mice became relevant later on.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a quick and entertaining read at only 289 pages. I tore through it in a day and quickly purchased the rest of the series which was just as ridiculous and hilarious as the first. I recommend this book to anyone who needs a good laugh and enjoys a wacky space adventure.
