I am ashamed to admit that this lover of Sci-fi and Fantasy books has never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Not sure why but I guess it's just one of those books I always meant to read and never seemed to pick up when I was at the store. Something else always looked more interesting. I was also stunned to realized that I really didn't know what it was about.
Ford Prefect is on Earth briefly while working on a revision to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but somehow ends up being stuck there for 15 years. In that time, he makes friends with Arthur Dent. When Earth is scheduled for demolition to make room for a galactic freeway, Ford hitches a ride with the aliens doing the demolition and takes Arthur along with him. Along the way they meet up with some very interesting characters.
Adams' writing is very much in the Monty Python sarcastic-humor style, which shouldn't be too surprising since he was one of the writers for that too. I enjoy that style sometimes but more in movies and tv than in books. When it's a part of the book but not solely the entire writing style, I think I enjoy it more. Neil Gaiman is good at that, peppering his dialogue with snarky, sarcastic remarks. I liked reading Hitchhiker's but I'm glad it was fairly short. I think it would have gotten a little tedious and irritating in a longer book. There isn't really any character in the book that you can relate to or feel a connection to and the storyline is kind of "put together" (if that makes any sense), however I do think it's a good book and can see why it has such a cult following. It's not something I feel I could ever read again, knowing the big punch-line at the end about Earth just makes that impossible for me, but I would like to see the movie now. I have a feeling I might like that better than the book. It's weird, that's only happened one time (with Bridget Jones) but I just saw the preview (I know, I know, behind the times here) and it looks hilarious. I know it got a lot of bad reviews but come on....Monty Python would get terrible reviews today too.
2 comments:
Too bad this one fell flat for you. THe movie was pretty good. I've read a few books in the series, but not in many years. I used to own the collection but somehere between DC, Lansing, New York and 3 Cleveland moves it went missing.
I have never been interested in this book myself, even though it has quite the cult following. I am not a fan of Monty Python either. I never have gotten the humor of it.
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