Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Migel_Jayasinghe]Migel Jayasinghe
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams; Folio Society Edition (2010).
Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was first published in book form in 1979. A comic novel satirising life on our planet in the guise of a usually strait-laced sci-fi story, it became an instant hit with the reading public. The book immediately attracted a cult following which has been growing over the years. Strange, I had not read this book during more than three decades of its existence until I bought it recently as part of a Folio Society special offer Christmas package. Although I had heard of it often enough, I never even thought of borrowing it from a local library.
The statistics are amazing. By 2005, four years after the author's untimely death, it had been translated into more than 30 languages and had sold over 14 million copies. I finished reading the 174-page book within a couple of hours and looked up Google to read the reviews. As expected, the majority of nearly 1,000 reviews were quite favourable, with only a few pointing to the lack of character and plot development as a weakness. On Google I found websites entirely devoted to (memorable?) quotes from the book. After all those accolades from devoted fans who claim to read the book over and over again, I have asked myself whether I am brave enough to critique it.
But, here I am; this is my take on Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for what it is worth. The stock characters and the lack of a story with beginning, middle, and end, are not my concern. I grant that the satire on human institutions and academic pretensions are spot on. The unexpected twists in the narrative and the verbal exchanges between characters are original and amusing, although not to the extent of provoking belly laughs. Under the rubric of the science fiction genre the author has the freedom to stretch the reader's credibility, but there are limits. For example, in a story with an intergalactic setting, speaking always within the earth time-scale of 'minutes', 'hours' and 'years' sounds amateurish. (e.g. 'On arrival we will stay in dock for a seventy-two hour refit,...' p. 50). The two-headed, three-armed Zaphod in conversation with the two earthlings, Arthur and Trillian, talks about everyday earthly situations, which appears quite out of character. He is better when indulging in the comic, contradictory ruminations for which he is designed by the author. The author also tends to overdo the satire in ascribing human emotions to computers and the constantly 'depressed' robot Marvin.
My verdict? The book is good, but not as clever or perfect as to merit mass adoration. http://outskirtspress.com/AMiscellany http://www.migeljayasinghe.com
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