National Towel Day

National Towel Day
*salutes Douglas Adams*

Monday, April 26, 2010

Don't forget to bring your towel!

The Guide' has always been one of my more favorite subjects of science fiction. It provides that wonderful British humor I grew up with due to my dad's love of it. I read the book years ago, barely remembering details of all the spontaneous and improbable events that took place and in what order they happened. I had watched the newer of the two Hitchhiker's movies when it came out, still enjoying it though it possessed foreign elements not included in the story and in different order. Honestly, I don't think order matters a whole lot. After hearing the radio drama just now in its entirety, I believe every version of this story bears its own weight in gold. Douglas Adams is a fantastic writer and his story can be taken to any form while maintaining the same humorous quality.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy struck me as a cross between Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Doctor Who. It certainly bears the existential theme that the parody play mentioned had only it takes place in space and there are infinite planets, aliens, and 'stuff' we're not familiar with. Though the story could practically be jumbled in any order, the beginning remains where it stands in every telling. Arthur Dent is introduced as a rather average fellow living on a dismal and soon-to-be demolished planet, Earth. He is rescued by an old friend originally from another planet just before the Earth is destroyed. From here, the story presses on into spiraling improbability. Arthur and his friend Ford are caught in Zaphod's stolen ship, the Heart of Gold, and from there they go from one adventure to the next. When I looked the story up on the internet, keen on attempting to remember what the 'true' version was supposed to be like, it was brought to my attention that Adams actually wrote several variations as to where their journeys end up going.

The radio version was actually not all that hard to follow...at first. Then the plot sort of got lost in obscurity as questions were answered but they left me confused all the more. It wasn't a bad sort of confusion though. I sense the story is supposed to have this quality to it. After Dent was told of Earth being an organic computer, the story spiraled into madness from there. I remember the bits in the book about the restaurant at the end of the universe too, though I couldn't remember exactly what happened next. Listening to the radio drama reminded me of telling stories to your friends and making things up as you go along. Because the universe is so infinitely big and there are an infinite number of things to talk about that could be completely nonsensical at one moment and history the next, it's easy to have the audience just believe whatever you're telling them because you know more than they do about it. Arthur is the character that takes the listener and plops us into this situation. He's rather incredulous, what with the universe being a new idea and all, and just like us he has to put up with so much new and possibly ludicrous information that he takes it all like a true Englishman. This only makes the story more humorous.

I couldn't help but compare this to the movie though, because it was the most recent thing I could compare it to. The one thing I really liked about the new movie's telling of the story was the acting. When the world was just about to be blown apart, Ford was actually visibly nervous about it and Arthur was equally just as skeptical and oblivious about it. I wasn't fond of how Zaphod was portrayed in the movie however, because in both the book and the radio drama he wasn't a complete madman and idiot. He had a class about him, despite his overwhelmingly immense ego. He also struck me as a very chill kind of guy. Still, the movie did its job to condense the spiraling plot{s} into a movie-sized story that ended with a sense of closure {until at the very end the idea for a pop over to the restaurant is brought up}. It didn't have much ado with the book or radio drama after certain points, but it wasn't terrible. It still kept the spirit of The Guide.

Did the radio drama continue past what is given to us in resources? I'd hope so, since well...Doug's no more {rest in peace}. I'm picking up the book again when I finish A Clockwork Orange. I thought the radio drama was nice and because of it I'm going to be thinking with a British accent all day. Which...isn't bad.

-Cheerio

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