And if we’re really the descendants of a bunch of middlemen and jobbers who were tricked off their own planets because the leaders, artists, thinkers, and working class blokes didn’t want them around anymore??
(Never underestimate the importance of a sanitized telephone though.)
Any of you who has only read the books* and not heard the original Radio 4 series should really try to get hold of it. You need to hear Peter Jones as “the book”.
But the Babel fish, that’s a dead give away isn’t it? Oh, I hadn’t thought of that said God. . .
Oh, that was easy said man and went on to prove black was white and got killed on the next zebra crossing.
*just the first three, the rest I don’t think of as HHG books at all
He got them all together in one place and killed them and then destroyed that place along with every possible alternative version of that place. Not a great way to set things up for a sequel. He may have regretted it afterward, but his intention at the time was pretty clearly to end the series once and for all.
The third book in fact began life as a “Doctor Who” script (as did the first Dirk Gently novel). The fourth book is an earthbound Arthur Dent adventure with only a couple of cameos from the old gang, so it doesn’t really feel like part of the series. The fifth book was as egregious an act of literary self-destruction as I have ever read.
It’s not my intention to bag on Douglas Adams. He gave me a lot of enjoyment with the radio and TV series and the first few books, not to mention his work on “Doctor Who” and his (slight) contributions to Monty Python, so how can I not respect that? And I realize all things come to an end, and H2G2 had a currents of darkness and cynicism from the very beginning. But sheesh, that ending - making the Guide itself into something so destructive and evil. You know, if he didn’t want to write any more Hitchhiker books, he could have just stopped.
Until my visit to England last summer, (which was not the first time I’ve been there,) I really thought that a ‘zebra crossing’ as in this quote was a place where zebras would attempt to cross the road and cars were supposed to watch out and slow down to avoid hitting them.
I’m sure in some alternate Earth, that’s the case. Oh, and all the zebras are lawyers and all the lawyers are zebras.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who prefers Dirk to Arthur. Dirk is just more likable. Dirk does things. He thinks. Arthur is just there to reluctantly drag the plot along. It’s the reluctantly that makes him less likable.
The way Fenchurch just disappears (spoilers are ok, right?) is just unforgivable though.
Yes, but the bird/book has the power, you see. It was told to remove all possible earths, and it did. But it was never told not to bring them back. And it could. It could cough up Fenchurch, too, if it wanted. Part of me believes that it eventually will.
I’ll put in another plug for Dirk Gently. If you haven’t read him, you’re losing out.
Am I the only one, or does anyone else read about his housekeeping habits and feel virtuous by comparison?
Dirk Gently? Is that the name of the book or the character?
Dirk Gently is a character in two novels. First one was Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, and the second was The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. Hilarious stuff. Very highly recommended.
I like Dirk Gently more, too. Maybe because it’s closer to real life. All the hitchhiker stuff is great, but it’s a little floating in thin air. Dirk Gently’s stories are playing here in our world, and that makes all the weird stuff a lot more interesting. To me, anyway. I guess thats why I really liked “So long…”. The movie was good, IMHO - as I understand it, the H2G2 has never been something very stable, so all the changes didn’t bother me.
You guys should really read [if you didn’t already, it’s really good. Theres also a great [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZG8HBuDjgc]video](]Last Chance to See[/url) on youtube of him talking about it.
Absolutely. Really a WTF? - moment.