The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

douglas adams the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

when arthur dent wakes up with a rather debilitating hangover on the day his house is due to be demolished by the local village council, he can't begin to imagine that this will be the most sensible part of his day.

in quick succession, he faces down a demolition crew and then gets whisked off to the local pub by his friend ford prefect, who chooses this particular moment to reveal two important personal facts.

the first is that he, ford prefect, is an intergalactic alien hitchhiker who's been stranded on earth for the past 15 years, and perhaps more importantly, earth itself is scheduled to be destroyed by the galactic hyperspace planning council in about 15 minutes from now.

arthur has moments to process these startling facts before a fleet of vogon ships appears and vaporises earth.

what happens next is, at the very least, absurd, but it kicks off an epic adventure across time and space, revealing a search for the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

from ancient planet builders to the latest in hyperspace technology, arthur will never be at a loss for what's what because he possesses a copy of the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, the handy hyperspace companion that can advise him on everything.

so if you've ever been curious about the pioneering novel that inspired generations of sci-fi fans and spawned a universe of media adaptations, grab your towel and get ready for an improbable ride.

a total loss, a big score as ford prefect reveals to long-time friend arthur dent that he isn't actually from guildford but a star system close to what humans call betelgeuse, he also imparts some good news.

fortunately for arthur, vis-à-vis the impending destruction of both his house and planet, since prefect is an intergalactic hitchhiker, he can hitch them a ride aboard the alien fleet that has arrived to destroy earth.

the fleet is piloted by vogons, an ancient race that immediately upon discovering the means of space travel took up positions in the imperial galactic government managing the civil service.

as such, while the total destruction of a heavily populated planet would normally provoke in most species a response of horror and shame, to the bureaucratic vogons it simply makes them a bit more irritable than usual.

sadly for arthur, a vogon ship is far from ideal for hitchhikers.

the interstellar bureaucrats tend to eject hitchhikers into deep space immediately.

this is due to the vogon's intense distaste for providing any free service to anyone, but given the circumstances that have brought the duo on board, almost certain doom is better than a certain one.

upon boarding the ship, arthur is supplied with several critical things by his friend.

the first is a babelfish, a tiny translating alien that will inhabit his head and happily translate all alien tongues to his own, indispensable for the galactic traveller.

the second is a copy of a small digital device inscribed with the words, don't panic, on the front, the exhaustive index to everything, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

they're transported on board by the disaffected kitchen staff of the fleet to annoy the vogons, but are detected and hauled to the bridge almost immediately.

there, ford and arthur face two terrible new realities.

the first is that the vogons will flush them out of an airlock into space without the benefit of spacesuits.

the second, far worse reality, is that the vogons will treat them to a poetry reading beforehand.

meanwhile, 500,000 light-years away on the opposite side of the galaxy, a small boat speeds across the waters of a remote ocean planet.

the craft is piloted by zaphod beeblebrox, renowned bad boy, ex-hippie, shameless self-promoter and currently the democratically elected president of the galaxy.

many took his election as a sign of the impending doom of government.

zaphod's two heads and three arms steer the small craft onward toward a super-secret destination, the public reveal of the latest in hyperspace technology, in the form of a ship that moves through space via an infinite improbability engine.

the ship, the heart of gold, has been built on this remote ocean planet precisely for its remoteness, as a one-of-a-kind prototype.

zaphod's official duties are to deliver an inspiring speech written for him and to nod approvingly as the new ship was ogled by billions in a live broadcast.

instead, as the sleek new spaceship is enjoying its first few moments of public adoration, zaphod's two heads whoop out a major third and he detonates the small, paralysing bomb he's been carrying in his pocket.

he then steals the heart of gold.

with an eye toward human fallibility and a flair for the comedic, adams carefully constructs a universe in these opening chapters that's as ridiculous as it is cold and uncaring.

that alone was astonishingly new at the time the hitchhiker's guide was published.

science fiction had long been thought of as dramatic in novels, films and television.

the idea of a comedic approach was thought impossible simply because it had never been done.

but what resulted was an overnight sensation.

the novel fully embraced a philosophy of absurdism, as individual characters all struggle against indifferent systems.

each character has, in response to this struggle, gone rogue in some way.

arthur has seen his house and planet destroyed and hitched aboard a ufo.

ford prefect has been stranded on an alien planet for more than a decade.

zaphod beeblebrox appears to have gone mad in the effort to be elected galactic leader for the sole purpose of stealing the heart of gold.

along the way, heartless bureaucracy has driven the action.

paperwork and council boards have brought on meaningless destruction on all fronts.

in an absurd twist, both arthur and the entire population of earth are blamed for their own ignorance about the upcoming demolitions.

planning documents of the destruction of earth were apparently available on alpha centauri for decades.

if earthlings couldn't figure out space travel fast enough to go and look at them, it was their own fault.

at the very heart of the opening, punnily enough, is the introduction to the heart of gold which has particular significance for adams and his universe.

for the author, focusing on the advances in technology and how they could build brighter futures for mankind is both the figurative and literal heart of the tale.

the idea of an engine made of pure gold that could harness improbability physics to propel a ship simultaneously through every point in the universe, past or present, is a potent one.

it will take several additional novels to explore.

strange new friends zaphod is now on the run in the stolen heart of gold with his current love interest, an earthwoman named trillian.

perhaps not incidentally, arthur was once at the same house party in a flat in islington with trillian and had hoped to ask her out.

she had been whisked away by a dashing stranger, soon revealed to have been zaphod.

ford and arthur are floating unprotected in deep space.

their chances of rescue in time to survive are extremely improbable.

as one might expect, this causes the ship running on improbability to rescue them all by itself.

when ford and arthur find themselves unexpectedly saved, they experience yet more absurdity in the belly of the starship.

the landing bay appears to be the shoreline at south end, except the land is undulating wildly while the sea remains still.

thinking themselves mad, they hardly notice the female voice declaring descending levels of improbability over the ship's loudspeaker until they slowly resolve into normality.

what follows is a somewhat uncomfortable reunion between arthur and thwarted love interest trillian, and between ford and his sort of cousin, zaphod, who share a familial relation though neither chooses to specify further.

added to the mix are the latest in artificial intelligence in both the ship and marvin the robot, both prototypes for advanced ai with realistic human personalities.

while the ship is annoyingly perky and upbeat, marvin is deeply depressed.

neither turns out to be a particularly desirable personality.

the epic storylines and the crew now united, they embark on a new mission, using the heart of gold's improbability engine to find the legendary planet of magrathia, the most improbable planet that ever existed.

legend has described the magrathians as planet builders, and the planet itself as the richest in the history of the galaxy.

it disappeared into a dark nebula about five million years ago to escape the galactic recession that its own economic success had made inevitable.

but when the heart of gold arrives in orbit around magrathia, the planet appears to be no more than a lifeless grey rock orbiting a binary star.

an ancient, automated planetary defence system launches two nuclear missiles at the orbiting this results in only minor damage, a few broken coffee cups and a broken mouse cage, when quite improbably the nuclear missiles turn into a sperm whale and a pot of petunias.

emboldened, zaphod orders the ship to land on the gloomy, dead planet's surface.

part of what makes each outrageous new twist of the plot feel reasonable is the way adams uses description and digression to reinforce the surrealism of the narrative.

having processed the outrageous facts of the opening, like the total demolition of both arthur's house and the planet earth, the idea that aliens exist and there's a universal guide that can tell you all about it, all seem entirely plausible.

like the guides for young backpackers across europe, the idea of a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy first struck adams when he was young on a hitchhiking road trip.

it presented an incredible opportunity to write a story about a fictional guide that could function in the story as a form of exposition and ground every astonishing new situation or species with some context.

on a sort of meta-narrative level, the book within a book format allows us to imagine ourselves alongside arthur dent, encountering strange new worlds and extraordinary circumstances, as we too hold a copy of the guide in our hands.

it further reinforces the central comedic tension at the heart of the story, the idea that extraordinary things in this universe are remarkably commonplace, and commonplace things have come to hold enormous significance.

no aspect of the story serves to reinforce this point more than the advice that all galactic hitchhikers should have a towel with them at all times.

such an insignificant piece of household paraphernalia provides the hitchhiker with an enormous number of uses.

it can be used as a sail while navigating the vast river moth, as a means to stay warm on the icy moons of jagland beta, and even as a potent weapon in close combat when sufficiently wet.

and if it's still acceptably clean, it can always be used to dry oneself after taking a shower.

finally, the ship and its engine capable of harnessing improbability physics seem to be causing strangeness at every turn.

impossible rescues in deep space, missiles transforming into sperm whales, all now par for the course.

this sets up a situation in which absolutely anything can happen next, a premise that will soon be pushed to the limits.

of mice and massive organic computational systems once safely on the planet, zaphod sets out with trillian and ford to search for tunnels, suspecting the magrathians to be living below the surface.

arthur stays behind with the ship and robot marvin, whose depressive state gives him very little hope that being a part of the reconnaissance team would be interesting in the slightest.

it gives arthur a chance to enjoy the binary sunset.

the gathering gloom makes him almost miss the silent, dark figure similarly enjoying the sunset.

but arthur no longer has any ability to be surprised by this point, so encountering a dark figure on a barren alien landscape warrants little more than a slight startle.

the figure, an old man in a long grey robe, looks as ancient as the planet and softly announces himself as a resident of magrathia.

he invites arthur to travel into the planet in his nearby hovercar and will explain a bit about his people.

marvin is left behind with the ship to continue his epic sulk.

the alien introduces himself as slartibartfast and relates the history of his people as builders of custom worlds.

the need for custom-built planets dried up during the galactic recession five million years ago.

since then, the magrathians have slept away the eons waiting for the economy to improve and business to pick back up again.

slartibartfast was awakened, along with others, for a quick custom job for some valued old clients, an urgent one at that.

these clients have just returned to his planet aboard the heart of gold, the two white mice trillian brought with her as pets.

as they speed deeper into the centre of the planet he explains to arthur that mice are, in fact, sophisticated inter-dimensional beings that have conducted experiments on humans for centuries.

this astonishing revelation is quickly followed by another – earth was manufactured by the ancient magrathians for their mice clients as an organic computer to calculate the ultimate question.

the ultimate answer had long ago been determined by the second greatest computer in the history of the universe, deep thought, to be the number 42, and though this answer had taken ten million years to calculate, no-one had bothered to ask what about the ultimate question.

earth was then designed by deep thought to do just that – calculate the ultimate question – but was destroyed by the vogon fleet shortly before the calculation was complete.

in response, the ancient magrathians were awakened by the little white mice to recreate earth.

as the crew of the heart of gold press forward separately in their exploration of the planet, the story unfolds backwards in time through extensive exposition from the hilariously named slartibartfast.

arthur learns that his home planet – the one he's just witnessed the total destruction of – had initially been constructed by a race of inter-dimensional beings as a form of organic computer.

slartibartfast himself had crafted norway.

this revelation, which comes as the central conflict heats up exponentially, represents the central thesis of the entire plot – that the universe does indeed have shadowy forces behind it driving events in the human sphere.

but they aren't what we think.

though the character of slartibartfast is described as a grey old man in a long grey robe is an obvious nod towards historical depictions of god, but in this story the bearded old man who created earth was, in fact, a contractor doing it for clients – the little white mice humans had been conducting experiments on for centuries.

this satirical twist on the idea of earth's creation as an economic and research endeavour firmly establishes the hitchhiker's universe as existential.

each revelation requires more reconsideration of everything arthur – and, by extension, we believe – to be true about the universe.

what keeps the story taut are the running descriptions of speeding through ancient tunnels and their emergence into the core of the planet where arthur sees the new earth being constructed.

adam's previous use of descriptive language and digression pays off as we perceive the story as similarly speeding along, even as the lengthy origin story rolls out.

a confrontation, an escape once arthur has beheld the awesome sight of a new earth being constructed, slartibartfast mentions he's bringing him to an important meeting.

together they arrive in a conference room where zaphod, ford and trillian have already been served a sumptuous meal.

at the head of the table are trillian's two white mice, now explaining they orchestrated the trip to magrathia because it was a portal into their home dimension.

the problem?

the earth's demolition has destroyed the data from the long planetary computation and the mice are responsible for reporting back about its findings.

they'd initially ordered the creation of a duplicate planet, but realising there are two human survivors changes things.

the new problem?

to access the data they need arthur and trillian's brains for study.

things turn menacing and the crew makes a daring escape.

but more disaster only follows as galactic police show up, chasing down zaphod for the theft of the heart of gold.

improbably, the police drop dead and the crew makes it back to their ship.

on board, they find marvin killed the police spaceship by talking to it about his feelings and unwittingly killed the attacking police as a result.

reunited with the heart of gold and full of unsettling new knowledge about the nature of the universe, the crew decides to grab some lunch.

they set a course for the restaurant at the end of the universe.

the closing chapters are less about concluding than they are about speeding up the action for the next novel.

ending one adventure on the brink of another is a structural holdover from adam's experience writing for television and radio dramas.

the hitchhiker's guide series arose from earlier radio plays and the stories went on to be adapted to digital adventure, video games, a television series and a feature film.

but in novel form, closing with so many storylines still unresolved adds a dynamism that is as offbeat as the humour.

in this way, the structure reinforces the central idea that since the universe is such an absurd and surprising place, it's best just to relax and enjoy the ride.

the main takeaway of this chapter to the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by douglas adams is don't panic.

the universe is a strange place in which bureaucracies can demolish perfectly fine houses and populated planets to make way for bypasses no one wants.

there are shadowy forces behind existence, but they're little white mice and planet builders with a penchant for fjords.

towels are extremely useful for a variety of reasons, but listening for too long to either a depressed robot or vogon poetry can actually kill you.

okay that's it for this chapter.

thank you so much for listening, and if you can, please take the time to leave us a rating or a comment, we always appreciate your feedback.

and we'll see you in the next chapter.