The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Essay Example

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy ID: Introduction Douglas Adams presented a radio series by the of “trilogy” that involved five volumes and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was the first book of this series. The presentations though radio series were so successful that it resulted in the production of TV series, a movie, comic stage adaptations and additional radio series, all based on the “trilogy”. Apparently, BBC poll for 100 top books of time voted for number four position. The Guide is an absorbing novel that tries to present the scientific achievements, while connecting them with the existence of earth. Thesis statement The serious question concerning existence of life and universe remains unanswered by the author, in the Guide. Summary Arthur dent, the main character of this book has one lucky instance happening to him on a bad day. As he wakes up in the morning with a drunken hangover, Arthur finds a bulldozer outside preparing to demolish his house for making a new by-pass. While he thinks this day to be his worst, his alien friend Ford Prefect comes with the news that earth is being demolished by a Vogon construction fleet that is orbiting the earth to construct a new galactic bypass in the space. Arthur is lucky, as he along with Ford hitchhikes a lift aboard a Vogon spaceship. However, the good luck ends there as they find themselves in torturous condition, while they are finally thrown out into the open space debris. They are not perishing, as a spaceship piloted by the galaxy president Zaphod Beeblebrox along with his co-pilot Trillion spots them and picks them up into their ship. All the four along with a mentally unstable robot Marvin are now on a long search to find the lost planet, Magrathea. The meaningful chapter of the book stats next, when Arthur comes to know, in Magrathea, that the planet Earth had a purpose, to solve the riddle of life and universe. Accordingly, Earth served as a gigantic super computer, meant to find answers to these questions. As per the set calculations, the life of Earth was ten million years. However, the vogon construction fleet destroyed it 5 minutes before this. Since Arthur has survived as the only earthling, he gets a proposal to being a part of project to be named as “Earth Mark-II”. Arthur is not keen to join this research, as it requires the extraction of his brain. Arthur along with his friends, Zaphod, Marvin, Trillion and Ford make a hasty retreat from Magrathea and head towards the ‘End of the Universe’ to eat lunch at a restaurant there. (Summary, nd) Analysis—finding answers to questions The question remains, as the novel has posed, about the existence of life and universe. Looking at the different adaptations of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the question does not get the serious attention that it deserves. Instead, the audience seems to laugh it away, taking the sudden destruction of Earth as a dream only. However, Author’s investigation towards finding the meaning of life and universe, as Arthur and his colleagues go hunting for the lost legendary planet Magrathea, does not see any progress as the novel unfolds. The question remains unanswered. The only comment that the audience can make is, “it is so funny”. Douglas Adams was a writer of late 1970s, when he found his space in the literary world as a comedy writer. Born in Cambridge in 1952, Adams grew up as a tall, dark, rather awkwardly funny looking man. While in search of an idea, he started with writing about hitchhiking and presented the first radio series in BBC television. Four more novels followed this first novel, as Adams called the whole series, “Trilogy in five parts”. The other novels included ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’ published in 1987 and ‘The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul’ that followed next year. The author’s deep inquisition about the mystery of life and science of existence is evident from these books. In real life, he founded an internet start-up by the name of Digital Village in the year 1994. The rapidly advancing computer technology and internet was trying to give a new dimension to the world, during those days. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy relates to these advancements as witnessed on earth at that time. With this in mind, Adams has dreamt of earth as a huge super computer. However, there are no indications that this idea has solved the riddle of human life existence on this planet. The author plays a trick to hook the audience by presenting a book within another book, part of the ‘trilogy’, to discuss about the mystery of human life. Each book provides unified, flexible and potentially infinite story revolving around the original theme concerning human life on earth and existence of universe. The setting of novel relates to 1970s when an average middle class person in English society could not think beyond the relationship of any human being with the planet earth, although Earth is a part of a specific solar system, which happens to be a part of the galaxy. The period following this age witnessed more intrigues by humans into the world of space. The world had episodes of ‘Tomorrow’s World’ on BBC every week, followed by ‘Star Wars and Close Encounters’, while real time space adventures such as Challenger disaster and moon landings were notable after 1980s. These facts were responsible for relevance of Adams’ ‘Trilogy’. The Guide is a dream into the future. As mind of Adam did an excellent job in weaving the scientific fiction and philosophy together, he presented many paradoxes in the novel. One such paradox is the swallowing of the battle fleet by a small dog just because the fleet miscalculated the Earth’s life. Similarly, another paradox can be the payment of 1Pence in the restaurant at End of the Universe towards the cost of a meal. This provides food for the mind that arriving at the ‘End of the Time’, a person must find some balance in the saving account. This has relevance to the existence of life and the happenings that earthlings can expect after the death. However, this also does not explain the meaning of life’s existence. The book got more life in 1980s and 1990s, mainly due to the novel’s ability to keep pace with the technical and scientific fictions that surfaced during these years. The adaptation of this book into TV series and movie, among others, followed ‘Burning Chrome’ by William Gibson in 1982 that describes cyberspace colonizing. However, Adams displays a bit of disappointment in finding something viable to answer his question. This disappointment is evident in another paradox involving a babel fish. This “small, yellow and leechlike” organism does exciting things as it excretes brainwaves of others and translates them to suit the brainwaves of the person who has stuck this fish into the ear. The idea of sticking a small fish into the human ear is disgusting to think of. The novel has left the main question unanswered. It seems that the explanations provided in the books negate, in a way, the theological reasoning for existence of life and this universe, as theology connects them with the existence and creation of god. However, the Hitchhiker’s Guide provides, although not sufficiently, philosophical explanation that relates the existence of life and universe to the scientific reasoning. Nevertheless, this reasoning also lacks intelligent comprehension, as many questions remain unanswered. For example, if earth is a big supercomputer, who is in control of this gigantic machine? If there is anyone from other planet controlling earth, does it mean that the controller is supposed to be the creator and destroyer of earth and the universe? Even the scientific explanation is not perfect, as the aliens found that they destroyed planet of Earth five minutes before it was due, due to a calculation error. The present scientific thinkers such as Hawkins will not be able to digest this idea, which purports that even the big intelligent machines called super computers can make mistakes. However, the guide is really interesting and absorbing as it connects the audience to the conditions prevailing on Earth, while it tries to connect the themes with political events of the day. Adams has tried to relate the ideas with political turmoil of 1980s in Britain where anti-Thatcher activities were surfacing as an evidence to the underneath uneasiness felt among the British citizens. Similarly, in USA, the technological advances were responsible to find cheaper and lighter alternatives to different industrial activities, particularly construction, during the period of President Ronald Regan. The novel went much ahead to discuss the ultimate of scientific victory over the universe. (Turner, 2009) Evidence of absurdity Hitchhiker’s Guide has been always in the limelight, even many decades after publication of the fifth book, ‘Agrajag’ in 1992. The reason is the dramatization and TV serialization of the Guide involving many famous celebrities such as Comedy master Jacky Mason. However, these are not the literary achievements of the novel. Instead, the ideas of presenting Gargrvarr, the creature with disembodied mind being in-charge of the ‘Total Perspective Vortex’ and the whore of ‘Eroticon Six’, named as Eccentrica Gallumbits looks absurd, as it is beyond the comprehension of any earthling. Similarly, mentioning about apparent earthly matters such as American Express cards and tea biscuits along side with above creatures does not make any sense except the absurdity of ideas presented in the books. With all the apprehensions that come to mind about Hitchhiker’s Guide, the novel deserves admiration for contributing to popular culture, during all these years. There are several examples to illustrate this fact. Sanjeev baskar produced ‘Kumar’s at Number 42’ for Indian TV, which reminds the use of Number 42 in the Hitchhiker’s Guide. Another example of this novel’s popularity is evident in the online translation of ‘Babel Fish’.(O’Dair, 2009) Nevertheless, the books are very interesting and absorbing as they intrigue the human mind with curiosity to brood over the serious questions concerning existence of life and universe. Conclusion With many BBC serials devoted to Hitchhiker’s Guide and movie adaptation along with TV serialization of the Guide, the ‘trilogy’ of Douglas Adams has kept pace with the changes occurring on planet Earth. The advancement in computer and internet technology, with over-reaching facility of WiFi, is the reason for the books to remain popular over the last several decades. During the period of 1970s to 1990s, these technologies were not as developed as they are now. However, Adams imagination that presents the potential capabilities of computers, while relating them with the existence of life and Earth, is worth complimenting. He has provided a glimpse of computer’s achievements that present-day scientists are still struggling to find. However, the serious questions concerning the existence of life and universe have lost their relevance in the din of the comic and scientific events, which are detailed in the Guide. Works-Cited (References) O’Dair. M, (2009), Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 30 Years on, theguardian.com Retrieved May 08, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/oct/12/hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-douglas-adams Turner. J, (2009) Does the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy still answer the ultimate question? theguardian.com, Retrieved May 08, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/03/hitchhikers-guide-galaxy-douglas-adams Read More