50 Book Challenge #21, #22, #23, #24, #25

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life the Universe and Everything
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
Mostly Harmless
by Douglas Adams

I first discovered Hitchhikers when I was about 13. I was just starting to get into crafting, but sitting there doing needlepoint was not fascinating enough for me, so I went to the library and got a bunch of books on tape. I happened to luck into the radio play version of this novel, and was spellbound. So in honor of the movie release, I decided to go back and reread all the books in the series.

I was shocked to discover that the books had only a superficial resemblance to the radio play. The characters were the same, and the plot held up almost all the way through the first book, but there the two deviated and never related to each other again. I had heard somewhere that Adams originally wrote the series for the radio and basically made it up as he went along, literally handing the script over moments before they went on air. If that’s true, it explains a lot. In the radio play there were holes in the plot, there were characters that were abandoned, and there was not near enough of Adams narrator with his inspired explanations of space life. It must have been the case that Adams revised everything when he had the time to do it.

So in many ways, these books were brand new to me. Hitchhikers remained familiar with it’s quest for the question that would give the answer 42 for the life the universe and everything, but everything else was completely new to me.

What struck me most this time through the “trilogy” was how silly the whole thing was. Silly in the best possible sense. Silly in the Monty Python, adults never get to do anymore, sense. Also, in reading it in preparation for the movie, I realized just how little of a plot there actually was. I kept wondering to myself, how on earth they would create a two hour movie with a traditional story arc out of this delicious mess of imagination. It was like an archetypal hero’s quest, as told by a three year old who kept loosing the story thread but had all kinds of fascinating side stories to throw in.

These books have been remade in a legendarily large number of formats, and it’s easy to see why. Not because the story itself is so resonant, but because the mood of the story is. It reminds us of the best times in childhood pretending, when anything was possible and any danger could pop out at any moment, and the silliest imaginings could protect us from that danger. The Hitchhikers Trilogy is so utterly unique in how it captures that childlike spirit while being gutbustingly funny on an adult level.

I never did make it to the movie when it was in theaters, but I’m a little afraid to rent it now. I’m afraid the inspired silliness I treasured in this book will be lost.

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