Towels reveal from a real-life experience Adams had on a vacation with friends to Greece. According to Adams, “Every morning they’d have to sit around and wait for me because I couldn’t find my blessed towel … I came to feel that someone really together, one who was well organized, would always know where his towel was.”
ADAMS REMOVED A SWIPE AT AN OLD CLASSMATE.
The Guide describes
Vogon poetry as the third worst poetry in the universe, two spots shy of one
Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex. The original radio script
used the name of a very real poet—Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge,
Essex, a classmate of Adams’ at Brentwood School. Adams made the switch when
Johnstone complained about the use of his name.
BEFORE THERE WERE NOVELS, THERE WERE RADIO SHOWS.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide got its start as a six-part radio play broadcast by the BBC in 1978. Adams had previously written for radio series like The Burkiss Way, so the medium was familiar to him. Nick Webb, editor of Pan Books, heard the series and immediately sought out Adams to write a novel based on the show. Adams later joked, “A publisher came and asked me to write a book, which is a very good way of breaking into publishing.”
In the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The
Galaxy, various definitions of the earth that is our first place
and the human community living on the earth stand out.
… little planet in blue and green color. People are descended from monkeys and they are quite primitives. Most of the people living in the world live a unhappy, unconcerned, hopeless and stagnant life. Our main character, Arthur, is no different from other people.
VOGSPHERE
In the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Vogons and their heads
live in the Vogsphere, Prostetnik Vogon Jelt. Vogons, an unevolved society, are
very ugly, stubborn, rude, bad-tempered, rigid, unfortunate, and bureaucratic.
However, they survived. It is also an underdeveloped society compared to other alien species, Yet they are egoistic enough to find the world’s society primitive. They tried to gain their own style and social subtlety. But contemporary Vogons are no different from their primitive ancestors.
MAGRATHEA
Margathea, the most beautiful planet known to all planets, has
lost its beauty. But even though the natives were thought to have disappeared,
they did not disappear and fell into a deep sleep in the depths of the planet
due to the economic crisis.
The work of the Magratheans are to build new planets and
is a diligent society. This society, which is said to have slept for a long
time, have difficulty adapting to the time they wake up. 5 million years of
sleep is quite a long time to adapt.
The Magratheans, who awakened underground for work, set out to rebuild the destroyed world, paid for by mice.
Arthur, a normal Earthman, and the Alien Ford Prefect, trapped on Planet Earth, hitchhike from the Vogon spaceship. The Vogons could describe as a wicked race just before Earth was destroyed.
They’re being tortured by the Vogons on their spacecraft. The torture that Adams mentions in the book means really bad poetry reading. Right after that they are through into space and possibly the most impossible thing happens: they were rescued by the Heart of Gold which is another spacecraft and continued their adventures.
ALTHOUGH IT IS A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE BOOK, DOESN’T IT MAKE YOU CURIOUS ABOUT THE NOVEL?
This is a book about aliens, space travel, spaceships, robots, and a planet that builds other planets to sell to rich people. These are concepts and actors that excited us enough to wonder the whole story.
SPOILER ALERT!
The characters are all in one adventure to find the meaning of life, and can this answer be hidden in a recently destroyed Planet Earth..
Douglas Adams adapted a magnificient intergalactic adventure with a humorous touch.
Although the book seems to be made up of absurd and random thoughts in the first reading, at the end of the chapters, the events begin to come more understandable. Because you’re starting to keep up with the flow of the book.
Although the book is based on science fiction, it is also a great absurd comedy !
It is definitely worth reading. It seems stupid at first, but it is recreative and characters are interesting. It may even make you wonder the Earth and the other planets in the Galaxy without even realizing it, because you will have too much fun.
In this picture we can see the ” DON’T PANIC ! ” writing on the cover of book.
Additionally, You can feel Douglas Adams talking to you as you read the book, and also you feel Adams calmed you down.
Adams’s tone and style create a funny and absurd science-fiction novel. At first you will realize how irrelevant the metaphors and jokes in the book are, and maybe you will find it ridiculous, READ ON! Because you will admire the style of the author as you catch the flow of the book!
” Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not be in anyway exacerbated that the following facts will how be revealed in advance. The planet in question is in fact the legendary Magrethea. ”
(Chapter 16, page 121-122)
In this part of the book, characters were getting attack by the planet before they realized it was the planet Magrethea. Therefore, Adams mentioned that there is no need to be nervous and that nobody will get hurt.
Adams warns people before events happen, does not mean that your curiosity will diminish, on the contrary, you are more excited to continue the story.
The book, contains some reflections of the human conditions. For example, Android Marvin which is one of the main characters in the book, has real human characteristics as being paranoid and depressive. Marvin’s original personality software allows him ideas to make sentences, develop emotions, and develop a personality. He is also incredibly smart and ‘having a brain size of a planet’
Despite Marvin’s intelligence he is typically made to perform ordinary tasks and labours such as accompany people, opening doors and other tasks well beneath his skills. These tasks boring for him and all this leaves him depressed.
Some of Marvin’s sentences in the novel are as follows:
We can easily understand how Marvin feels with these expressions.
The reason we laugh at Marvin’s behavior is that we don’t think robots will feel human emotions. Because this is not the general belief that we are used to. The unexpected can be funny for us.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT ROBOTS WHICH HAVE PERSONALITY AND SELF-CONSCIOUS ?
If a robot is given personality, is it more likely to be a psychopath or a bad?
Robots which have self-conscious learn quickly, do not repeat their mistakes, make inferences and improve their skills, and most importantly, they can do anything to survive.
If they have a purpose and people or other creatures on their way are obstacles, they will not hesitate to destroy them.
That doesn’t make them bad or psychopathic. This is similar to the example of the destruction of the Arthur’s house for a bypass or the destruction of the Earth for a galactic freeway by the authorities without question.
When reading the book, read science fiction topics without much analysis but think from different perspectives. Enjoy the philosophy and absurd metaphors it contains.
The main characters of the novel are Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Marvin, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Slartibartfast and Trillian.
First of all, it tells the story of what happened to the planet trying to solve the meaning of life and the two planets running against with the words of a human being.
Arthur Dent,
The book begins with Arthur Dent, a victim of urban transformation, and his resistance to destruction by lying in front of the dozer.
Throughout the book, Arthur is surprised, trying to grasp events and find meaning. In addition to, he is a comic character who is unresponsive to numerous and strange events happening around him.
In the book, a dialogue between Arthur and Ford after the destruction of the world can be an example of Arthur’s unresponsiveness;
– “I don’t know if it sounds like a stupid question, but what am I doing here?”
–“I saved you from the earth ”
– Arthur asked “So what happened to the earth?”
–“It has been destroyed.”
–“-Is that so?“ Arthur said calmly.
Ford Prefect,
Another important character is the Ford Prefect. He is a guide editor who came to Earth for a week to write the guide about the world.
However, he stayed in the world for fifteen years for reasons beyond his control, and when he heard that the Vogons would destroy the world, he took Arthur with him and managed to hitchhike the Vogons’ main ship. After the destruction of the World, his journey with Arthur began. In his role as guide to the universe for the often bewildered man Arthur Dent, he serves to link the disparate elements of the story together. As well as rescuing Arthur, he introduces him to the other major characters – such as Zaphod,Trillian and Marvin.
It is a humorous character who suddenly comes up with ideas, who prefers to join the parties to many other things. A character with strange habits, always carrying his towel with him.
Ford’s other main characteristic is his constant pursuit of an alcohol-fueled good time (in contrast to Arthur’s quest for a cup of tea).
Although his heart is in the right place and he is shown to be highly intelligent, resourceful and even brave, Ford is essentially a dilettante when it comes to causes such as the search for the question to the ultimate answer of “life, the universe and everything”.
Zaphod,
As a character, Zaphod Beeblebrox is hedonistic and irresponsible, narcissistic almost to the point of solipsism, and often extremely insensitive to the feelings of those around him.
In (at least) the books, he is, according to screening tests that he ran on himself in the Heart of Gold’s medical bay, “clever, imaginative, irresponsible, untrustworthy, extrovert, nothing you couldn’t have guessed”.
Zaphod Beeblebrox , he is from a planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and is a “semi-half-cousin” of Ford Prefect, with whom he “shares three of the same mothers”. Because of “an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine”, his direct ancestors from his father are also his direct descendants.
It is highly likely to be encountered in any of the parties in the world.It was even revealed that he had met Arthur Dent at a party in the world.
In addition to he’s the president of the entire galaxy. And, He is a character who is at the forefront with his thoughts and ego in his mind at the unexpected moment.
Slartibartfast,
Finally, one of the most interesting characters is slartibartfast. Slartibartfast is a Magrathean, and a designer of planets. His favourite part of the job is creating coastlines, the most notable of which are the fjords found on the coast of Norway on planet Earth,for which he won an award.
Douglas Adams wrote Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy in 1979, in those years technology not evolving rapidly rather than these days. Douglas Adams generated some technological terms, places and, actors in his book. When we analyzed Adam’s life, we can see his interest in technology clearly. “In 1984, he was the first person to buy Macintosh in Europe, he was used e-mails when they are not popular in communication, and also he created his own USENET in 1983.” (D’onfro, 2014) Many terms in a Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy are references to today’s technology.
When the internet not invented yet, Adam mentions Sub-Etha Net that is the galactic Internet, gives sub-eta radio band first. 10 years after the book was written, internet usage began to take place.
The Following term related to today’s technology is a Guide Book. That device is a great digital Encyclopedia for Galactica. Arthur can research the galactic actors with the help of this device. He was writing a word which he was wondering, for example, Vogons. The Guide Book makes the definition of the world. Actually, Wikipedia is similar to the Guide Book in the same ways. For instance, Ford Prefect can update the definition of the words which involved the devices. In a story, the meaning of the Earth is “Harmless” in beginning chapters then, Ford Prefect spend time together with his Earthman (Arthur) and he developed the meaning of Earth in guide to “Mostly Harmless” The fact that dictionary can be edited by other people, this interactivity reminds of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is free, easy to get knowledge the same as the Hitchiker’s Guide.
WIKI-READER
The guide, which referenced many years ago in Adam’s book is now wiki-reader in todays technology.
The book contains another sample related to technology is the Babel Fish. As we, mentioned the Babel Fish story when Arthur put this creature in his ear, fish can translate the Vogon Language. Nowadays, Google has built earbuds that could translate 40 languages in real-time. Google is the first major tech company to build the ‘Bable-Fish’. The Bable-Fish earbuds connect wirelessly with Google’s latest smartphones (especially to Google Assistant). Through Google Assistant, the earbuds can translate 40 spoken languages nearly in real-time or at least, fast enough to hold a conversation. (New Google earbuds offer real-time translation feature, 2019)
In a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Ford Prefect gives Babel Fish to Artur. Douglas Adams describes the Babel Fish “Small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.” The Babel Fish is a symbolic creature in a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Douglas Adams create different terms in his book, Babel Fish is one of them.
Why Adams choose the name of the Babel? What is the story of the Babil Fish? Where does the Babel Fish take the name of Babel? Douglas Adams makes an irony of the language theory of Babel Tower that is known as Biblical Explanation. According to Babel Tower Theory, the whole earth spoke the same language and one day they wanted to reach heaven that is located in the sky in their belief. They want to enter in by going in the back door rather than a pearly gate. This idea angered God, for that reason God wants the stop this building process. People, want to get in heaven in the back door works cooperatively in a Babel Tower Building. The God in order to stop the construction of Babel Tower, makes the differentiated languages between people that work in the construction process, so the tower is never finished with conflict. They could no longer understand each other. This theory also explains the great diversity of languages across the world. Douglas was influenced by this theory when writing the Babil Fish character.
And also in the book, Ford Prefect said that Babel Fish cause more problems an start bloodier wars. Writer touch on the more disagreement arises as we understand what the other person says.
THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY 