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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)

Douglas Adams

Why we're reading this: A classic and more than that: laugh-out loud funny and silly while still managing to maybe say something …more
[close] A classic and more than that: laugh-out loud funny and silly while still managing to maybe say something a bit profound about the human experience...

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Oct 16, 2013 Keli rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: enjoyed-quite-a-bit, very-enjoyable, wheel-8

I thought I'd read this before, but I don't think I had. It's not a forgettable story. I must have read a different book. This was very enjoyable, like Pratchett. ...more

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Aug 11, 2021 Susan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: dicklit, 2021

I can sort of get why this book has gained such a great following but it just wasn't for me.

Most of the time I was reading this book, I kept thinking of That Student in some (too many) of my undergrad classes. That Student who must put up his hand at least once a class so that he can have an opportunity to pontificate on topics that might or might not have anything to do with the topic at hand. TS who needs to prove that he is certainly smarter than everyone in the room, including the instructor I can sort of get why this book has gained such a great following but it just wasn't for me.

Most of the time I was reading this book, I kept thinking of That Student in some (too many) of my undergrad classes. That Student who must put up his hand at least once a class so that he can have an opportunity to pontificate on topics that might or might not have anything to do with the topic at hand. TS who needs to prove that he is certainly smarter than everyone in the room, including the instructor. TS who, failing to impress with his tangents about who-knows- and who-cares-what, then makes snarky, sarcastic, not-funny-but-pretending-to-be comments. TS who is trying so hard to prove that he is wittier and more clever than anyone around that he ends up being almost a parody of himself. And, the thing about That Student is that while he is sometimes amusing and interesting (though rarely in the ways he intends), overall he is just tedious and tiresome...

For me, the HHGTTG is the book-form equivalent of That Student.

I was also somewhat irritated that the book was so incredibly male. Yes, I know that it was first published in 1979. Yes, I know those times were (supposedly) 'different'. I even remember those times. BUT:

ia) a decade before HHGTTG was published Cherry Ames had completed 27 adventures,
ib) in 1979 Trixie Belden was on her 28th adventure,
ic) in 1979 the ever-popular Nancy Drew was solving her 57th mystery,
id) keeping in the same genre (SF), in 1962 protagonist Meg time-traveled in a Wrinkle in Time to meet many interesting female (and male, and other-gendered) characters, in order to bring her father back to her scientist mother.

So, women existing as more than 'the girlfriend' had these, and several other, precedents in the literary world, and even in the Sci-Fi genre. Women existing as actors in the world were not unheard of in the literature nor the genre of the time. Also, women being more than just 'the girlfriend' also existed in REAL LIFE all over the place at those times.

And, on a side note, I continue to ask why we as a culture continue to elevate this type of book in OUR, supposedly different, times... (but that is a different discussion and I never was TS).

ii) Seriously, Adams is hailed as a literary genius, creative writer, out-of-the-box thinker. And yet, despite all of his supposedly well-working brain cells, and despite so many examples readily at hand, his thinking was still so limited that he could not conceive of more than one female character, and that one was included to be the girlfriend - actually not just girlfriend but also 'lost by one because she was stolen away by the other' girlfriend, because apparently Adams also had that type of limited thinking too.

Yeah, I can get why people think this is a good book. But, I am happy that I can return it to the library and move on to something else.

ETA: a good friend just told me that I likely would have enjoyed this book more if I had read it closer to its original publication date (so, when I was a child or tween/teen). I admit that this friend is correct that it is more likely that I would have. ...more

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