Friday, June 1, 2007
38. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
I read this only a few years ago and was expecting to be enthralled. But I think it's one of those novels that you have to have read when you were 14, so that you haven't heard all of the funny bits. There were a few wry smiles along the way but I think it's like seeing a movie when the preview has given away the best bits - not all that enthralling.
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I guess the genius of HHGTTG was the language Adams used rather than the storyline. As you know, it was originally conceived as a radio serial, and though the book was retooled somewhat from the original scripts, fundamentally that's what it was.
Adams' method of expression was the real gem of that book - possibly now diluted due to a whole generation having been brought up & modelled their own expressive voice on it.
You've got to admire the concepts too - like the fact that the Earth was populated by a bunch of hairdressers, telephone sanitisers, marketing consultants, etc. (the useless third) who had been packed into an ark by their fellow citizens under the guise of their planet being blown up, but were really just sent off because they had no purpose and nobody could stand them.
It's scifi comedy, but it's so humanist, and he makes some great comments about English (and generally human) life & mentality in amongst the amusing tale. Religion, politics, social order, technology: it's all in there!
I think I might go read it again now.
True. Very well expressed, Mr Standing. It does have that "Red Dwarf" esque social commentary. And yes, I know HHGTTG came first and was an obvious influence. I just was well enamoured with RD first so this seemed a little more of the same perhaps. The social comments are very clever - just think it should have been the first of these kinds of books that I experienced.
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