Life, The Universe, and Everything

Life, the Universe, and Everything

By: Douglas Adams 

Copyright: 1982
Portland House

5 Bookmarks out of 5

Well, I'm continuing my way through the Hitchhiker's Universe and it never ceases to amaze me how brilliant Douglas Adams is at writing. I love his ability to bring small points of the plot together. I also love how he drops small things in for readers only to bring them back up much later for a wonderful "Aha!" moment. Life, the Universe, and Everything continues with the crazy ride of Zaphod, Trillian, Ford, Arthur, and yes, even the paranoid/super-depressed robot Marvin. By far, this book is the easiest book in the series to pick up and actually follow. I would even gather that anyone who wanted to see a snapshot of what Adams is capable of doing creatively but wanted to bypass the first two books in the series could start with this one no problem.

Why do you say that? I hear many of you wondering to yourselves in your heads. (Or maybe you're not really, but let me just pretend that you're thinking that for the sake of my review). Well, to begin with, this story plot does not skip around nearly as much. This is much more like watching a two-part episode of your favorite science fiction television series or a really great two-hour movie that keeps you laughing and in suspense. Most likely that is because Adams wrote this at a time when he was editor of Doctor Who and wanted to see this actually put into a movie. Instead, when the move idea was scrapped, he used it for the Hitchhiker's universe. Lucky for us readers, this installment is infinitely easier to follow and to read. It's straightforward and the plot of the story involves rescuing the universe from the Krikketmen.

More to the point, Adams seems to do a good job of taming down his humor for this novel. In past Hitchhiker's novels, Adams seems to write in order to see how outrageously funny he can be. (Which, admittedly, I find that Adams can be quite hilarious). Anyway, in Life, the Universe, and Everything, Adams keeps his humor focused on the plot. There are less comedic detours and when they do present themselves, they are so charmingly done that you can't help but laugh. I find that the reader will instantly fall in love with Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged and what his purpose happens to be in the universe.

That being said, it wouldn't be a Douglas Adams book without some sort of oddball detour from the main plot. In Life, the Universe, and Everything, this happens to come with the addition of Agrajag. Unfortunately for Arthur, Agrajag kidnaps Arthur and tells him that Arthur has been killing him for almost all of the lives he has lived in the universe. Unfortunately, Arthur has had no idea about this whatsoever (in typical Arthur Dent fashion, mind you). I can only hope that maybe Agrajag comes back into the picture for the last three books in the series and makes this chapter detour worth my reading.

The characters in this novel continue to charm the reader. It's nice to see that Arthur finally gets a little courage and Trillian gets a little backbone while Zaphod and Marvin continue to be themselves. Ford Prefect was the only character to really get on my nerves for this one. For the entire novel, he complains about how he just wants to go to a party and relax (which is really understandable because it was a pretty stressful first two books). However, Ford just mopes around for most of the plot while Arthur, Slartibartfast, and others attempt to save the universe from certain doom. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that Ford should be at least slightly interested in saving his own ass so that way he can go to parties in the future. Maybe Adams couldn't really find much use for Ford in this particular book.

Oddly enough, the reader barely encounters the Guide in this novel. This doesn't really bother me at all because I found myself much more interested in if the universe would be destroyed rather than about some weird quirk in galactic history. Once again, though, Adams puts the reader through a hilarious and rather British science fiction plot. I couldn't put this one down and I'm certainly glad that I finally mustered up enough willpower to go through the entire Hitchhiker's series. So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish is next up for my reading pleasure!