Book report: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

If Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a silly movie, then The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a crazy novel. At first I assumed that they'd be similar stories, for both of them are comedies relying on nonsense that have gained a cult following over the years, referenced all the time by people on the Internet. But The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy takes nonsense to the next level of absurdity. And it's hilarious.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first part of a trilogy of five parts created by Douglas Adams. The books are adaptations of the original radio series aired in 1978, with the first novel being released in 1979. It's comedy science fiction, and utilises concepts and tropes found in science fiction for humour.

The story begins when the house of a hapless Englishman named Arthur Dent gets bulldozed so a highway can be built. But his eccentric friend, Ford Prefect, has urgent and more important news: The Earth is about to get destroyed by aliens, and he's actually from Betelgeuze, not from Guildford as he had previously claimed. Moments before the aliens, who are called Vogons, demolish Earth so that a hyperspatial highway can be built, Ford manages to hitch a ride on one of the alien ships and takes Arthur with him. However, the captain of the ship isn't too fond of hitchhikers and after torturing them with Vogon poetry throws them out into space. There they are picked up by the President of the Galaxy called Zaphod Beeblebrox, one of the two last remaining humans named Trillian and a super-intelligent robot called Marvin who suffers from clinical depression. The chance of this happening was extremely small, but they were flying a ship that used an Impropability Drive to travel so it wasn't that surprising.

The President, who had just stolen the ship, continues on his way to the mythical planet of Magrathea, where entire planets were made for very rich people aeons ago. He's not sure why he wants to go there, but explains that he had sabotaged his own brain and memories for a reason he couldn't remember. They arrive only to find out that the planet isn't quite dead, but in fact awakening: The planet creators have a new planet to create. Which they might not have to do if they get hold of Arthur's human brain. Thankfully he and his companions manage to escape and head to the Restaurant at the End of the Galaxy. Then the first book ends. All that takes place in about 216 pages, so it would be an understatement to say that the story has a very quick pace, especially towards the end.

The characters are fairly shallow albeit quirky. The main 'protagonist' Arthur is about as unheroic as protagonists can get, and excels at complaining, dry British humour and being heroic only when all hope is lost. He's just an average human being, not a hero, and thus more relatable than the other main characters. Ford Prefect, Arthur's friend and semi-cousin of President Zaphod, is a researcher for the eponymous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and managed to change Earth's description in the tome from 'Harmless' to 'Mostly harmless'. He also managed to get stranded on Earth for 15 years, and that's just one example of his incompetence. He also thought that cars were the dominant species on Earth and named himself after one common type of automobile. He doesn't have any outstanding traits beyond 'calm and not really good at anything'. Zaphod Beeblebrox, the President of the Galaxy, is a bizarre, egoistic and manic extrovert who doesn't think too much despite having two heads. He's also quite insecure and sometimes even clever. One could also argue that he has more depth than the other main characters, even Arthur, and that'd be quite correct. Alongside Arthur, Trillian is one of the last humans in existense. She's a clever, stoic and friendly woman who was picked up by Zaphod when he crashed a party in England. She has a degree in math and astrophysics and was unemployed before she left Earth. Not much else to say about her, for she spends little time in the spotlight. Then there's Marvin the Paranoid Android, my favourite character in the book, which isn't really saying much because of the lackluster characterization. In fact, Marvin is flatter than most floors as a character, but still manages to be quite amusing. He's depressed and cynical to a ridiculous extent. He's also extremely intelligent, about 50,000 times more than a human, which is why he is also extremely bored: He can accomplish any mental task almost immediately. He's in the book to mostly provide comical relief, for there's something absurdly amusing about a very deeply depressed robot and his excessive cynisism.

The plot may be decent and the characters not profound in any way, but one of the two things what make this book great is the witty writing. It's absurd and hilarious. The best (and the easiest) way to showcase this would be with a few examples:

”The ships floated in the sky much in the same way as bricks don't”

”For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”

”In the beginning the Universe was created.

This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”

And my favourite:

”(...)Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”

The other great thing is the humour that relies on absurdity made possible by the setting: For example, the Complaints division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation occupies all major land masses in the Sirius Tau system. The book makes fun of humanity and its antics: ”This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” The novel also pokes fun at politics, religion, science and digital watches. It plays with your expectations for things to make sense, only to reveal that they don't. There's many pieces of wisdom in the book as well, most well-known one being the phrase ”Don't panic”. And then there's the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything: Forty-two. It shows brilliantly how unable we are to comprehend the world around us.

”What was your favourite part of the book?” Well, I'm never very good at this 'What's the best thing” questions, so I'll just say that I enjoyed the beginning and the middle more than the end, which felt quite rushed despite being as funny as the other parts. In addition, some scenes were so absurd that they weren't funny but weird and incomprehensible.

The book has a peculiar narrative structure. Occasionally (and quite often) the story is interruped by digressions that are almost entirely unrelated to previous scene. Many of these digressions are excerpts from the in-universe Hitchhiker's Guide. Aside from these interruptions, the plot moves forward at a rapid pace and covers quite a few events in the relatively small amount of pages reserved for the actual story. The events proceed in chronological order, but the scene that introduces Zaphod and Trillian comes out of nowhere and makes you wonder ”What on earth is going on?” before you realize that things aren't going on on Earth, but on a different planet altogether. The storytelling simply lacks any focus. Combined with the fast-paced narrative, it can make you forget what was happening a dozen pages ago. Some people might find this extremely annoying. I didn't really mind, because I was kept being fed with jokes which made me crave for more.

Overall, the book is a very good read for those that can tolerate high levels of silliness and absurdity. You don't really need to be an avid reader of science fiction to enjoy it. Knowledge of astronomy and science in general makes some of the jokes more amusing, though. If you want deep characters that develop over time and an exciting and intricate plot on par with the one in The Song of Ice and Fire series, go away. I personally enjoyed the book immensely and chuckled every five minutes while reading it and recommend it for any fan of satirical and silly humour.

Now, where's my towel?

Final score: 42