el_desconocido
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Hitchhikers Guide it is, and I think in the following book they discovered that when asked the meaning of life the computer instead attemped (yet failed) to answer what is 7^2. I'm not entirely sure of that however.
Posted on 2004-04-09 20:06:51
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Troupe
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Well, I think that was just a bullshit answer they came up with. Supposedly if both the question and the answer are ever known, the universe will end and be replaced with something even more inexplicable.
Posted on 2004-04-09 23:36:23
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Troupe
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Bad Double Post!
Posted on 2004-04-09 23:36:23 (last edited on 2004-04-10 07:35:56)
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Interference22
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Hitch-Hikers is one of the finest books known to man. Only Douglas Adams could have gotten away with that scene involving the random dropping of naked women on parachutes and the machine that drives people insane that's powered by a piece of fairy cake. The day he died the planet lost one of its finest authors.
Incidentally, who coded my version of reality? I can see glaring bugs from where I'm standing. I mean, THAT pink with THIS carpet? Where's the beta testers when you need them? And daytime TV. What's that all about? Its like somebody ran out of creative steam and decided to fill a vital part of the program with low-budget cookery shows and talkshows involving the terminally inbred and retarded. HelpmeI'verunoutofthemedicationohGodtheflyingsheepareback. Tomatoes.
On a final note, I respect and admire a community that can bump a replies count for a thread entitled "I Like Ham" into the forties. Well done people, something incredible happened here today.
Posted on 2004-04-10 00:13:05
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ThinIce
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Makes you proud to be a Vergian....
Posted on 2004-04-10 00:51:31
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RageCage
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*Accidently Posted*
Posted on 2004-04-10 07:29:45 (last edited on 2004-04-10 07:32:59)
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Troupe
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Interference! Yes! Douglas Adams is the God of everything! And hey, maybe this thread will go to the post graveyard (although I'm the only with with that honor yet).
Posted on 2004-04-10 07:35:30
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Alex
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Douglas Adams was funny, sure. But the Hitchikers' Guide is the most horribly disjointed "I haven't got a clue what I'm doing" book the world has ever seen. And the TV version was even worse. He improved though.
Posted on 2004-04-10 08:54:39
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Troupe
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Thats the genius of it! The whole thing is complete nonsense! It contradicts itself over and over, yet still manages to retain a semblance of coherency.
Now that's skill.
Posted on 2004-04-10 16:54:46
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loretian
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He was post modern before it became cool and then really uncool to be post modern.
Posted on 2004-04-10 20:38:45
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Alex
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He was only successful because people bought his books. :P If you see what I mean. Terry Pratchett's better. So is ham.
Posted on 2004-04-10 22:01:35
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Interference22
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Terry Pratchett is *good* but Douglas Adams was greater than just his book sales could indicate. The beauty of his work was the way he seemed to be able to have a loose coherent thread running through his books but introduce this random element whereby he'd go off in so many tangents.
The point was, he was illustraiting how huge and confusing the Universe is in his style of writing. Written with more direction, the general feeling of the vast and meaninglessness of space would be lost.
Read the first Dirk Gently novel - also by Adams. That has the same style of writing to a degree but there isn't a necessity to be vast and meaningless and hence sections of the book that appear meaningless turn out to be actually quite important. The best example of this is when we begin to wonder just why this sofa jammed half way up a flight of stairs is so imprtant.
Adams knew what he was doing, its just the whole Universe as a subject matter is perhaps a little too much for some people to take in all at once.
Posted on 2004-04-11 02:06:52
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Troupe
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My god, when I found out what the significance of the sofa was I nearly cried... That's a great book, I'm reading the long dark teatime of the soul right now, which I like equally as much.
As for your other comments, about the vastness of the universe and the point he was trying to get across, I'm right with you. And generally he makes those things connect somehow. Like the bowl of petunias! And I dont think he knew what was going to happen when he put stuff like that in, he just figured out a way to connect it all later.
Posted on 2004-04-11 23:39:09
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Alex
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Written with more direction, the general feeling of the vast and meaninglessness of space would be lost.
Maybe if he'd written with MORE direction we'd have a better book to argue about. :) And I don't see what putting fish in your ears has got to do with how huge and confusing the universe is.
As for the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, I read about the first hundred pages, found he was still rambling about airports, and gave up.
Posted on 2004-04-11 23:42:31 (last edited on 2004-04-11 23:46:25)
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Interference22
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The fish thing is simply a way of demonstrating in a humerous way that the Universe is so huge and has so many species in it that one managed to evolved that can translate languages if you stick it in your ear. I think your deep-seated loathing of Douglas' style of writing might have lead you to miss the point of the whole thing.
And yes, agreed. Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul isn't as good as the first and he does ramble about airports but not for a whopping 100 pages and there are some brilliant bits, especially where a bird suddenly turns back into a fighter jet and destroys the front of Dirk's house.
The Salmon of Doubt would have been a far better book had he finished it. I read the unfinished version and have to admit I loved what there was of it. There's a section where a rhinocerous gatecrashes a party and the scene is described only through smell. And it WORKS. I think you're grossly understating the man's talent. He was a lazy git at times but the guy had talent.
Douglas Adam's work is read by millions but don't take that to mean he's in the same league as Johanna bloody Trollope. Some books are amazing and sell very few. Some books are crap and sell an inexplicably large quantity. Adams was a rare author who wrote brilliantly and sold shedloads.
Posted on 2004-04-12 00:07:42
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Interference22
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I dont think he knew what was going to happen when he put stuff like that in, he just figured out a way to connect it all later.
I don't think that's quite how he wrote, its just the general feeling of surrealness the book has suggests it. Some people don't "get" it because they have trouble connecting events like that together, or even concieving that a bowl of petunias can even think.
The point being made is that what you see as ordinary on this planet is very different compared to the universal interpretation of "ordinary," or rather that "ordinary" is just a word invented by boring people that describes a state of existence that doesn't actually exist.
I'll try not to read into this any more than I need to but in order to fully appreciate Hitch-Hikers you have to accept its a pretty f****ed up Universe up there. And down there. And over there. And right over Patrick Moore's house. And just left of Saturn. And-
Posted on 2004-04-12 00:17:33
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Alex
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The fish thing is simply a way of demonstrating in a humerous way that the Universe is so huge and has so many species in it that one managed to evolved that can translate languages if you stick it in your ear. I think your deep-seated loathing of Douglas' style of writing might have lead you to miss the point of the whole thing.
I don't have a deep-seated loathing of his style of writing at all. I just think that the Hitchhiker's Guide (despite being a good book) has a bit too much of a rushed/incomplete feel to it. But, obviously, I'm alone in that belief. I can take it. And yes, it's definitely true that some books are crap and sell loads. Harry Potter anyone? :D
The Salmon of Doubt would have been a far better book had he finished it.
You know, I think you might be right!
Posted on 2004-04-12 03:41:45
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Interference22
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God yes. Harry Potter! I read the first chapter of the first book and instantly thought what all the excitement was about. The style of writing felt deeply patronising. What sort of an idiot thinks up a world like Muggle anyway?
Douglas Adams could be a lazy bastard at times and missed more deadlines than I've had warm toast. I didn't, however, feel that his books felt unfinished: more a happy, galavanting race from one predicament to another. I always felt the end to any Hitch-hikers' book was never a case of unfinished but more a case of "I'd better stop here or my publisher will have me castrated."
You always felt the end was a long way off and I somehow felt happy with that. The end is usually a sad moment, where you say goodbye to the characters in a book. Adams merely ended with a "So, same time next week, eh?" before buggering off for another eight years.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is also a great, great book, mind you and I heartily recommend it to anyone. Ever. It's a great tonic for anyone who just finished Mostly Harmless and wants some more off the wall weirdness.
"I find religion deeply fascinating. What concerns me is why otherwise intelligent people take it so seriously." -- Douglas Adams
Posted on 2004-04-12 23:54:25
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Troupe
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Right on, Interference! You so nailed what he was all about! And I just finished LDTTotS today. To be honest it wasn't as good as the first Dirk Gently, but it was still awesome. And the great thing about those books was definately that there was no sense of loss at the end. It was just like, "I can't wait to start the next one to continue the story." And then the story changed on you, but you didn't care! Pure genius!
Great quote, by the way =D
And I've been wondering, how did Douglas Adams die?
Posted on 2004-04-13 00:58:35
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mcgrue
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And I've been wondering, how did Douglas Adams die?
A metal man with a limp shot him in the face.
Posted on 2004-04-13 01:09:21
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