H2G2

I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide. The books, the newest movie, the BBC mini-series, everything. I love the way that each version is different from the other and it doesn’t matter. Douglas Adams himself didn’t worry about contradicting anything he wrote previously so why should I? I love that it’s all canon.

This December lis and I decided to do a complete reread of the entire series. I started out strong. Obviously Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the one I know best, since that’s the one that was more or less adapted for screen. I found myself visualizing Mos Def as Ford Prefect but still had the BBC actor in my head for Arthur. I had a hard time remembering what happened next as I got into Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the mini and I just didn’t remember all the stuff that happened after they actually left Milliways. Life, the Universe, and Everything was even more of a blank for me. I would remember things as I got to them but I wouldn’t have been able to come up with any of the plot on my own. The sad thing is, as I was posting my earliest book list for posterity, I realized I had reread them only as far back as 2005!

It wasn’t just that I couldn’t remember enough to distinguish one book’s plot from the other. I also didn’t find them to be that funny. Which is odd because they are known as some of the funniest writing there is. I’m honestly not sure what’s the blame for the lack of humor. Maybe I’ve read them too many times? Maybe they seem funnier in retrospect than when you actually revisit them? Maybe you need to hear them and I should get audio books? I really don’t know. So by the time I got to So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish I was considerably less impressed. It didn’t help that I found that book to be rather extraneous. I was happy with Arthur living on Krikkit and flying. I didn’t need any more. OK great, he finally got some action with Fenchurch and he finally found his way back to Earth but it all seemed just superfluous. And the space travel scenes with Ford struck me as intentionally obtuse. I feel like the only point of the whole thing was to kill off Marvin.

Now, the volume that we own doesn’t have the fifth book of the “trilogy” so I had to check Mostly Harmless out of the library. I was completely certain I had never read it until I kept being plagued by déjà vu while reading. Mr. b convinced me I read it once, back in the late summer of 1993. And this book felt even more egregiously unnecessary. Fenchurch was unceremoniously removed so that Arthur was back to being lost and alone. Ford was on a futile quest to save the Guide. And suddenly Trillian came back, only rather out of character and there was also another version even more out of character than the original. What was the point? To erase them all from history? I didn’t need that ending. It made me wonder if the publishers had demanded yet another sequel and Adams had been contractually obliged but didn’t want to have to do it ever again. I don’t actually know any backstory gossip but it really didn’t feel like his heart was in it.

Still, I put myself on the library waitlist for book six, just published and written by Eoin Colfer. I’ve never read anything of his (hers?) so I don’t know what to expect. I have no idea if Adams had left notes for another book or had even started one before his sudden death. And even though I’m somewhat soured on the stories at the moment, I still love them and am curious to find out just what could possibly happen next.