Story: A seemingly typical Thursday throws Englishman Arthur Dent for a loop as he witnesses the destruction, in rapid succession, of his house and then the entire world. That he witnesses the latter event instead of being caught up in it is solely thanks to the intervention of his quirky friend Ford Prefect, who turns out to be an alien in disguise, researching Earth for a publication known as the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. After escaping Earth’s demise, Ford and a dazed Arthur wind up aboard the stolen starship Heart Of Gold, whose captain, the two-headed Zaphod Beeblebrox, is out of both of his minds. Zaphod, traveling with Trillian (the only other surviving human), is on a quest to find the legendary planet of Magrathea, hoping to plunder its wealth. What he doesn’t anticipate, however, is that the Magratheans might not want their wealth plundered.
Review: I’ve held off on reviewing “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” for far too long, mainly because it’s the incarnation of the story that most fans are the most familiar with. I’d rather educate them about the radio series (which inspired the books and every other version of the story that came later), or the computer game, or some other obscure versions of the story. But two things inspired me to go back, give the book a re-read, and report my findings: the fact that a big-budget, big-screen version of “Hitchhiker’s Guide” is on the way, and the recent appearance of a Cliff Notes-style study guide to this first novel in the series.
A study guide? To the “Hitchhiker’s Guide”? Almighty Zarquon, but I’m getting old.
The first book actually hews very closely to the first radio series, or at least the first four episodes of the first radio series; large portions of the Guide entries themselves are lifted verbatim from the radio show’s nonchalantly chatty narration. The real depth of the book, what separates it from the radio episodes, can be summed up mainly in two words: internal dialogue. Sure, there are things like the scene in which Zaphod actually steals the Heart of Gold (in the radio series and on TV, he had already stolen it by the time he makes his first appearance), but the internal dialogue helps to ground some of the characters a little more in reality. And perhaps surprsingly, the one character I find this helps most is Ford Prefect – in other media, he’s only a couple of degrees short of Zaphod’s insane excesses, with a dash more common sense, but here he’s got a lot more common sense.
And I’ll also say this before I wrap up: reading this book, and reliving the moments I first set my eyes and my brain to feasting on Douglas Adams’ uniquely absurd flavor of prose, was almost heartbreaking. There are quite a few out there trying to emulate his style; I’ll admit that I’m sometimes guilty of that myself, which is why I don’t spend a lot of time trying to write fictional prose anymore. But no one has ever hit it right on the head. This was my introduction to Doug Adams, as it was with a great many other followers of his work, and while I may hold some of the other books in the series in high regard…it really is hard to top “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”.
Year: 1979
Author: Douglas Adams
Publisher: Pocket Books
Pages: 224