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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
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The original Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy was published between 1979 and 1982, with the first two books being based on the
earlier "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio series. A feature common to all three books
is that they appear much more chaotic than they really are. Superficially each one is a random collection of
bizarre events, but they actually have highly structured plots in which everything happens for a reason. The
illusion of randomness is created by the many strange anecdotes from the Hitchhiker's
Guide itself that interrupt the narrative, and by the fact that the characters (and readers) only gradually discover what's
really going on.
They are essentially mystery stories, based around a quest to find the answer to something. In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", which are two halves of a single story, the plot concerns Zaphod Beeblebrox's search for the secret ruler of the galaxy. The third book, "Life, the Universe and Everything", involves a quest to find the terrible truth behind the Krikkit wars. Trillian, who didn't have very much to do in the previous books, suddenly gets a leading role because she is the only one of the main characters who is sane and competent enough to work out what's going on and do something about it. All three books are written in a similar style. The narrative moves quickly, rapidly shifting the characters from place to place and sustaining interest through constant action. The asides from the Hitchhiker's Guide introduce even more people and places, creating an overall impression of novels that are bursting with energy and ideas. This is an important part of their success. The trilogy isn't just funny; it is also so densely packed with trivia about the galaxy that it is like reading a travel guide to a really cool place. It brings its world to life, but also makes it seem very attractive. The quality of writing in the first book is much more uneven than in the others. There is some great descriptive writing and some other passages that are very clumsily constructed. Reading the three books in quick succession I got a strong sense of Douglas Adams developing as a writer, becoming more fluent and confident in his technique with each one. Their biggest weakness is in characterisation. We are told what the characters do and what they look like, but are given little insight into what they think or feel. However, because the emphasis is so much on ideas and action there is often little space for character development anyway. There are two related themes in the trilogy. Firstly, the idea that literally anything is possible. Both the plots and the asides from the Hitchhiker's Guide suggest that anything you can possibly imagine is already happening somewhere in the universe. Your planet gets blown up, a whale and a bowl of Petunias suddenly appear in deep space, a time-travelling sofa materialises on prehistoric Earth, that's just the way things are. Totally bizarre and arbitrary things can happen at any moment. The second theme is manipulation. Zaphod's plan to find the secret ruler of the galaxy required him to run for Galactic President, so he altered his own mind to ensure that his hidden agenda could not be uncovered by the brainscans the President Elect must undergo. He is therefore manipulated by the hidden prompting of his own subconscious and by his co-conspirators, following a plan he cannot consciously remember. This plan involves stealing the reality-warping starship "Heart of Gold", which in turn affects the destinies of all the characters. It is also revealed that the Earth was built by aliens from another dimension who were manipulating humanity's development for their own ends, its destruction was the result of a conspiracy, and the Krikkit wars were deliberately started by a mad computer. Therefore anything can happen, but it could all be part of some sinister plot. Either way, reality is never what it seems and you have little chance of ever finding out what's really going on. A fourth book, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish", was published in 1984. This attempts a radical departure from the previous instalments, and follows what happens to Arthur Dent when he returns to Earth. Although the Earth was apparently demolished by the Vogons at the start of the first book, it has somehow been preserved by the Dolphins, who are revealed to be much more intelligent than any mere human had ever realised. This is never explained very clearly, but it appears that they somehow transported the humans to another Earth in an alternate universe. Arthur tries to find out why the Earth still exists, and falls in love with a strange levitating woman called Fenchurch. Eventually they leave the planet to go hitchhiking together. Whereas the previous novels were packed with incident, very little actually happens in the fourth book and there are comparatively few excerpts from the Guide. I think Adams was trying to do a character study, concentrating on how an ordinary person deals with the incredible experiences of galactic travel and how he comes to terms with returning to a world that he thought was lost but in which he is now a complete stranger. The problem is that the characterisation is no deeper than in the earlier books. Poor bewildered Arthur served as a point of identification for the reader but he never had much of a role other than to have things happen to him. He was little more than a cipher, and "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" fails to change that. Overall it seems flat, dull and pointless, with the author attempting something that was beyond his skill at that time. The final book, "Mostly Harmless", appeared in 1992. Technically, it is by far the most accomplished of all the Hitchhiker's Guide books. The writing is more polished than in any of the previous novels, and the characterisation is much better. We finally get a sense of the characters as real complex people. It also has a highly structured plot with lots of odd things happening, so it corrects the biggest flaw of the first three books without losing their key strengths. It isn't buzzing with ideas in the way that they are, but it has a much more balanced style of writing that is strong in all areas rather than being very good at some things and very bad at others. Despite all that I can't bring myself to like it because it is so utterly pessimistic. It's like Marvin the Paranoid Android explaining his view of the world. Arthur Dent is in a parallel universe, travelling endlessly and joylessly after losing Fenchurch in a hyperspace accident. He visits that universe's version of Earth, to find it a miserable hellhole inhabited by a few suicidal colonists and some vicious bog-dwelling animals. He even visits a planet famous for its wise mystics only to find tacky commercialism and squalor. Trillian is a time-travelling dimension-hopping reporter for an interstellar news network, and is unhappy because she thinks she made a mistake in ever leaving Earth. Her daughter Random is perpetually unhappy because she was born to this rootless life of travelling without ever arriving and therefore doesn't belong anywhere at all. Tricia McMillan is an alternate universe version of Trillian who didn't leave Earth with Zaphod Beeblebrox, and is unhappy because she thinks she made the wrong choice in the most important decision of her life. Zaphod and Marvin don't appear in this book, and Ford Prefect is deeply upset because his beloved Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been taken over by the Vogons and turned into a soulless corporation. All the characters have lost the things that matter to them, and everything is wrecked, rotten and ruined. Arthur briefly finds happiness on a primitive planet but Trillian, Random and Ford soon turn up to spoil it for him. The themes of the original trilogy are still present, but treated quite differently. The earlier books celebrated the wonderful possibilities of a universe in which literally anything can happen, but "Mostly Harmless" treats it as a universe of random cruelty in which we are constantly at risk of being snuffed out by vast forces beyond our understanding. It is almost like some ancient Greek tragedy in which capricious Gods play games with the lives of mortals. Also, what began as a travel book has become an anti-travel book. The kind of unlimited travel that makes Trillian's job possible is gradually eliminating all the distinctions between different times, places, and planes of reality. Every culture is being reduced to a bland consumerist mush of lowest common denominator drivel. Instead of travel broadening the mind, travel is destroying everything that's worth travelling to. The theme of manipulation is treated with the same pessimism. The Vogons have developed a new version of the Hitchhiker's Guide that alters reality for the user's convenience, and are using it to complete their mission to demolish Earth by eliminating every last trace of Earth throughout every possible reality. Everything that happens to the main characters is due to the new Guide's manipulation, and the narrative is simply recording how they are inexorably lead to their deaths. To some extent the original trilogy and "Mostly Harmless" are just expressing the popular concerns of the decades in which they were written. Ford, Zaphod and Trillian are very much 1970s counter-culture figures who have dropped-out and tuned-in to wild fun times. They just happen to travel around in a spaceship instead of an old Volkswagen camper van. Arthur is a confused square who has dropped-out by accident only to find that he can't go back. But the 1970s also produced a lot of paranoid conspiracy thrillers, and that paranoid element in the popular culture of the day is very much present in the Hitchhiker's Guide. There are hidden conspiracies everywhere, and you can't even trust yourself because you might have altered your own brain to conceal your real agenda. "Mostly Harmless" deals with 1990s concerns about corporate power and consumerism, and its portrayal of unrestricted travel as a curse is probably rooted in Douglas Adams' growing interest in environmentalism. The way in which the Vogons take over the Guide and turn it to their own uses can be seen as a metaphor for the way in which youth culture, which was once considered so subversive, soon became just another product for big corporations to sell. Instead of challenging the established order, it just became part of it. It may also be an example of how a writer's perspective changes with age. The idea that literally anything can happen always had a tragic side to it - after all, the first book opens with billions of people dying when Earth is demolished - but this was downplayed in favour of a sense of limitless possibilities. This is the optimism and confidence of the young, who see no limits to what they can do. So it was always likely that a fifth book written many years later would not treat such terrible disasters so lightly, simply because a more mature sensibility would find it hard to do so. An older and more serious writer would feel obliged to recognise the tragic element, making it impossible to retain the wild optimism that made the earlier books so joyful. Adams' environmental concerns may also have contributed to the change in tone, as environmentalists are often extremely pessimistic about humanity and its prospects. But none of that justifies the spirit of utter despair that pervades "Mostly Harmless". Its message is that resistance is futile, free will is an illusion, and life is so rotten that the aliens who kill you for some reason beyond your understanding are actually doing you a favour. It is a sad and bitter end, and a series which began with such joy in the infinite possibilities of life deserved something better than that. |
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Last Updated: 1 Oct 07 |  |
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