A short humorous diversion in Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide

Douglas Adams’ famous work The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a funny little book, and the launchpad of a very popular series of 5 or 6 novels (and a movie adaption). Not sure I would call it fine literature, but it is entertaining.

It is a short book, just a quick 200 pages in a tiny paperback, so a regular reader can get through it in a single day. It starts with an Englishman, Arthur Dent, sitting in front of a bulldozer to stop it from knocking down his house. The government wants to build a new highway through it, of which he was unaware, even when told the plans to do so were on display at the local government building for several weeks. Little does he know, at the same time aliens are getting ready to destroy the Earth to put in a new space highway, of which all humans are unaware, even though plans were on display at the local planetary office just a short 6 lights years away for several decades. Arthur is saved by a space hitchhiker, Ford Prefect (he had thought the name would be more common when he came to Earth), and they beam off the planet just before it is zapped. So starts Dent’s adventure.

The book weaves and shifts along the way, with outlandish elements but plenty of humor (if the above tidbit makes you grin, you’ll like this book). Lets just say humans were only the third most intelligent being on the Earth, and the smartest still have a say it what happens next. It ends rather abruptly, but as I said, there are sequels that pick up where this one leaves I’m sure. I’ve read a lot of “serious” novels lately, this was a nice excursion.