Don't Panic...unless you're in Stavro Mueller Beta. Then Panic! OR What does "42" really answer?

Books I've Never Read (But everyone else has)


The (inaptly named) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy (consisting of five books)

Sorry for the delay in getting this one out.


Awhile back I finally finished reading the fifth book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series:  Mostly Harmless.  My love affair with this absurdly hilarious series started in 9th grade when my high school drama teacher, Mrs. Janet Graham (a women who's contribution to the warping of my mind and soul cannot be overstated, and for which I am truly grateful) introduced me to the BBC radio series.

I had never heard of the series before, but being a huge Red Dwarf fan (another Scifi comedy series with a large following in the Pacific Northwest), I thought "Couldn't hurt?"  Which, oddly enough, is usually what a 101 lb. Star Trek fan says when an acquaintance of his invites him to play rugby.  So I gave the radio series a try.  I knew then that I would love this series when, by the end of the first episode...


The Earth is Destroyed.  

And it's hilarious.


However, it wasn't until a few months ago that I finally picked up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with the intention of reading the complete trilogy, all five books:

The Hitchhiker's 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

The series starts off strong, and like most science fiction, reflects our society back to us.  The first book, especially, satirizes the mindlessness of inane, bloated bureaucracies.  This mindset is personified (wait... "alien-i-fied"?)  in the Vogons; the most wonderfully evil aliens ever to destroy earth.  Like the government they represent, they are bloated, bulbous, bureaucrats of blistering balderdash.

Think I'm stretching the metaphor?  This is a vogon.

This is a government worker.

Vogon

Congressman Barney Frank

I rest my case.



I find it fascinating that the most frightening thing to come out of the literature of the British Welfare state is the mindless bureaucrat.  From Fleming to Adams to Rowling, the contempt for the bureaucrat is a recurring theme.  I mean who inspires more anger?  Voldemort or Dolores Umbridge?


The real theme of the book is "What is the meaning of life?"  Adams basically takes his everyman hero, Arthur Dent...

(portrayed in the 2005 film by Martin Freeman, who will also be playing Tolkien's everyman hero, Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming The Hobbit films) 

... on an absurd adventure through time and space to answer the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

It turns out the answer is "42," which we learn from Deep Thought, the 2nd most powerful computer ever created, after he thinks about it for 7 1/2 million years.  The most powerful... I'm not gonna spoil everything.  But it is the job of the second computer to come up with the Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Pictures above: Deep Thought

(BTW, you can spot a Hitchhiker fan if they answer a question to which they do not know the answer, or one that is simply absurd, with 42.)


Naturally, this answer doesn't sit well with Arthur so he spends the next four books trying to understand life on his own, without coming to any real conclusions.  *SPOILER ALERT* Along the way Arthur learns to fly (in which you must throw yourself at the ground and miss), encounters Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (an immortal alien dedicated to insulting everything that's ever lived... alphabetically), spends time with the two-headed President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox (a man who's ego is so immense that when placed in the total perspective vortex [a curious device that shows a person the entire universe and your place in it] he realizes he is the most important thing ever), opens a sandwich shop, eats lunch at the end of the Universe, accidentally kills multiple incarnations of a pot of flowers, and meets Elvis.


Sound crazy?  It is.  And that's really the point.  You see, Douglas Adams is (or was) quite a committed atheist.  So when it comes to grappling with the great questions of life, which according to him are...


Why are we born?

 Anyone else think this baby is wondering the same thing?

Why do we die?

Well, look who's in charge of that one.

And why do we spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?

The only answer is that there is no answer and this is all just an absurd mish-mash that we're passing through, or our way to an empty death.  And honestly, without a God, Creator, Karma, Higher Power, Divine Moral System, this is EXACTLY the conclusion that every honest, committed atheist must come to.  Hence, *SPOILER ALERT* at the end of Mostly Harmless, Adams kills off the characters we've grown to love after four books: Arthur Dent, Trillian (the only other survivor of Earth's demise) and Ford Prefect, while hanging out in the bar Stravo Mueller Beta.


Naturally, this is a rather depressing ending.  At least he's consistent.  He opens Hitchhiker's by citing a made up philosopher who wrote the theological blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who is this God Person Anyway?  The end of the fourth book presents the creator's last message to creation.  That message *SPOILER ALERT*  "We apologize for the inconvenience."  This at least is a humorous way of expressing his personal beliefs while allowing the fans a bit of hope.


I'm a committed Christian (in case you haven't figured that out about me) and (shocking, I know) the atheistic worldview didn't offend me, and I often laughed, (I'm pretty sure God can take it) but if you can't stand the idea of God being mocked just remember two things: 1) God is never mocked.  He always has the last word.  2) Like all atheists (a generalization that I stand by), the god Adams wants to tear down, is the god of the kind of faith that is suitable for a child of 6, and one that no serious person-of-faith believes in anyways.  

Please do not let delicate sensibilities keep you from enjoying at least the first three of these humorous and irreverent books.  I would even recommend the fourth book, in which Arthur meets a lovely girl named Fenchurch.  Also, the books are not without good advice, like "Always know where your towel is (it is the most astonishingly useful thing in the galaxy).  Don't Panic.  Go mad once in a while.  Xenophobia sucks and might lead you to the creation of an army of universe destroying Robots that play Cricket.  Belgium is a bad word (although most of us knew that).  And always say thanks for fish.

On the subject of names:  I love a good name.  And Douglas Adams aural linguistics with the names of his characters is a true delight.  He's up there with Tolkien, Lewis, and Shakespeare for me.  I mean check out this brief lists of names:


Slartibartfast


Zephod Beeblebrox


Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz


The Ravenous BugBlatter Beast of Traal

Grunthos the Flatulent


Oolon Colluphid

Great Green Arkleseizure


Gag Halfrunt



Zarniwoop


I mean COME ON!  Lewis Carroll never came up with anything so mind-boggingly crazy.  And it's that kind of craziness that makes these books (except for Mostly Harmless) a great space trip.

Thanks for reading,


The Giant