> Douglas Adams’s masterwork is blithely comic in tone but deeply serious in purpose. I thought it was just a funny book. What is its "deeply serious purpose"?
Perhaps to call the Christian worldview into question using sarcasm and sardonic humor.
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
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Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#22I recently reread Vonnegut's "The Sirens of Titan" and was really surprised to notice to what degree Adams drew inspiration from that book. He did acknowledge it as an influence [1], but some ideas my naive self had attributed to Adams are closer to well-done rearrangements/retellings of elements from Sirens of Titan (which certainly wasn't written in a vacuum either) in a different comedic voice. Both works are fantastic, though.
Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#23> Douglas Adams’s masterwork is blithely comic in tone but deeply serious in purpose. I thought it was just a funny book. What is its "deeply serious purpose"?
The contemporary resurgence of populism in politics feels a lot like the description of democracy in the "Wrong lizard won"-passage. You can read it here: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very...
Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#24And for those of you who would like to hear the original Radio Series again, it's being repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra right now: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000g55m I wonder if they will have the original Pink Floyd music when they land on Magrathea, or whether it will be edited out, as it was in the BBC recordings due to rights issues.
I think I still have casette tapes of the original run.
Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#25And for those of you who would like to hear the original Radio Series again, it's being repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra right now: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000g55m I wonder if they will have the original Pink Floyd music when they land on Magrathea, or whether it will be edited out, as it was in the BBC recordings due to rights issues.
I think I still have casette tapes of the original run.
Heh, when it was first broadcast here, I taped it off the radio, but I think my tapes are long gone.
Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#26> Douglas Adams’s masterwork is blithely comic in tone but deeply serious in purpose. I thought it was just a funny book. What is its "deeply serious purpose"?
Perhaps to call the Christian worldview into question using sarcasm and sardonic humor.
Certainly that was part of it, anyway. Adams was a self-described "radical atheist" before that was a popular stance, and he and Richard Dawkins were mutual fans of each others' works and became personal friends.
Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#27It's quite fitting that we have Zaphod Beeblebrox clones in both Nr 10 and the White House.
I always thought that the fragment about presidency being there to distract people from real power was ridiculously spot on.
Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#28It's quite fitting that we have Zaphod Beeblebrox clones in both Nr 10 and the White House.
I always thought that the fragment about presidency being there to distract people from real power was ridiculously spot on.
Douglas Adams had a great example at home with the Royal Family.
It really hit him when I went to America and was exposed to the media. Television there is in this perpetual state of total war, it's as if the news programs have to compete with the adverts for time and attention. On a slow news day you'd wake up there would be some loud fat man screaming about how the President had cornflakes for breakfast instead of Sugar Puffs. Thankfully they'd break after 30 seconds for another 20 minutes of loud and colourful commercials for various opiates with funky names (but the same active ingredient).
Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#29I think the book was written to teach us the importance/uses of towels and bags. We just take it for granted.
This.
I was going to reply to the anti-christian attitudes but decided I like your surmise better.
Re: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” turns 42
#30“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."