the reader in a quiet corner

"It is an important and popular fact that things are not what they seem.

I think a lot of what the book is, hinges on that. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy cleverly explores ideas which spring from the question, what if things are not what we think they are? What if the earth was really a computer, and that humans are not the most intelligent beings on earth, and that the mice we experiment on are really experimenting on us? "Hah!" the mice will exclaim. "The joke's on you!"
The Universe is such a vast and complex thing literally anything is possible.

This is one of the things I like about this book. The play on words is quite an adept way of presenting ideas, which, in an off-hand, random and joking manner actually convey a deeper thought.

Most of you have heard of or seen the film version of this. What do you mean, you haven't? It stars Martin Freeman, Zooey Deschanel, and Alan Rickman's voice is in there, too! Watch it! I, for one, enjoyed the movie, and loved the supercomputer Deep Thought, even Marvin the Paranoid Android.

The novel might seem disjointed and simple at times, because it's trying to adapt the original radio series. At times I thought the jokes irresistibly funny, at times the jokes just went over my head. At times it reminded me of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie. I'll chalk it off as some sort of trademark British humor.


3.5 - 4 stars. I loved the ideas in this book, whether or not I agreed with them. I didn't really enjoy the writing style, but I did enjoy the thought behind it. If you've ever wondered about Life, the Universe, and Everything, you might want to check out The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You might never look at the number 42 the same way again.