The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is literally the most memorable book I have ever read
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”
I am a huge, colossal fan of Douglas Adams’ writing—of literally the words he used, the way he structured sentences. I even have an all-time favorite quote: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” That quote is taken from perhaps Adams’ most famous book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I didn’t have to look it up; I remembered it by heart.
What I find so astonishing about Douglas Adams’ words is how many of the phrases and sentences I can quote verbatim. “The Nutri-Matic machine had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.” Or, “An expression of deep worry and concern failed to cross either of Zaphod’s faces.” And, perhaps the most apt, “Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
I can think of no other book I’ve read that I remember so much or so well. I can’t recall half of what I wrote last week as accurately as I can lines from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (or H2G2, to use internet colloquial), a book I first read over 46 years ago. (I wish I had written this essay in 2020; then it would have been 42.) Many of the book’s quotes and phrases are seared into my brain in much the same way that Zaphod Beeblebrox branded his initials into one of his.
In full disclosure, I’ve not read all of Adams’ books. I’ve read the five Adams-penned books in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (it’s often called a trilogy in five parts, and before that a trilogy in four parts, and so on) as well as The Meaning of Liff, which Adams co-wrote with John Lloyd. For some reason, I never finished Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency; it just didn’t click for me. The Meaning of Liff, on the other hand, was a hoot—a “dictionary” of British town names with seemingly random meanings attached to them. I even have my favorite sentence from that book: “GOOSNARGH (n.) The pleasant coolness on the reverse side of the pillow.”
If memorability is a factor of worth, then The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is truly a wholly remarkable book. The novel was first published in the UK in October 1979 and was a huge hit. And particularly with me. It became an interesting counterpoint to my obsession with Frank Herbert’s Dune books. Dune was serious sci-fi, full of political intrigues and wheels within wheels plot structures; I adored it.
Hitchhiker’s Guide, too, had wheels within wheels plot structures. But in its case, the storylines were less concerned with far-future Machiavellian-like powerplays and more on the adventures of a wholly unremarkable hapless English bloke getting sucked into a planet-hopping journey, learning about universal translators (Babel Fish), the cosmic importance of towels, and the answer to the ultimate question of life, universe, and everything (see 42, above). The fact that (spoiler alert) that book begins with the revelation that the answer to the ultimate question was discovered by a young woman “sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth” made the book feel instantly familiar. Rickmansworth isn’t that far from where I grew up—The Meaning of Liff defines Rickmansworth as “The feeling of slight but persistent anxiety caused by not having the foggiest idea what’s going on.”
Whereas most sci-fi I was reading and watching at the time was American—Dune, Star Wars, Blade Runner, et cetera—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was unashamedly British, written with an unapologetic British aesthetic and undeniably British sense of humor. The book had more in common with Doctor Who (Douglas Adams was the script editor for season 17) than Star Trek. It’s also far sillier, which is no mean achievement considering Tom Baker’s scarves.
My friends and I would recite bits of the book (and radio and TV series) to each other and laugh uproariously in the pub over pints of local Brakspear’s Bitter, Snakebites, and Rum & black. (You can legally drink alcohol in the UK at 18, which I was at the time, and which is also why we had disgusting drinks—after numerous nights with our heads down the toilet, we learned the hard way). We could see ourselves in the characters, especially Arthur Dent, a hapless, baffled nerd wandering through the galaxy wearing his pajamas and dressing gown and reacting in the most English way possible to all impending threats of death: “I don’t want to die now!” he yelled. “I’ve still got a headache! I don’t want to go to heaven with a headache, I’d be all cross and wouldn’t enjoy it!”
But I suspect that the main reason that I find The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy so memorable is because of when and where I first read it. I grew up in Henley-on-Thames, a small market town in Oxfordshire, most noticeable for its regatta (see the rowing scene in The Social Network), gorgeous countryside, and the home of George Harrison, who lived over the road from me in Friar Park.
The early 1980s was the time of “Thatcher’s Britain,” with high unemployment, inner city riots, and strikes. At that time, Britain was, to say the least, a bit tatty around the edges. The youthful optimism of my friends and I was a tad strained even living in an idyllic country town like Henley, maybe especially because we were living in an idyllic country town like Henley. No wonder we were all down the pub drinking shitty drinks.
No more was this gray outlook more graphically illustrated than sci-fi shows on our televisions. On ITV (aka channel 3), we had the American import of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century from America starring the chisel-jawed Gil Gerard as Captain William “Buck” Rogers and the svelte (and extremely blonde) spandex-wearing Erin Gray as Colonel Wilma Deering. Meanwhile over on the Beeb, we had Blake’s 7, set in a dystopian far future where a gang of space criminals in an alien spaceship battle against the totalitarian Terran Federation, and almost the entire cast dies in the end in one of the bleakest and depressing finales in British sci-fi television history; it was positively Shakespearian. I suspect we all went down to the pub that night, too.
Whereas the special effects of Buck Rogers were handled by John Dykstra, the Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor who worked on Star Wars, Blake’s 7 was made by the BBC for about five quid. The series became known for its wobbly spaceships and decidedly English-looking alien worlds: regardless of what planet our intrepid band of rebels landed on, the planet invariably looked suspiciously like a quarry in Dorset, which is precisely because it was a quarry in Dorset. That same quarry also turned up in Doctor Who.
Yet, where Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 had to fight against a comparison with American sci-fi series with far bigger budgets, better special effects, and actors with much whiter teeth, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy “couldn’t give a pair of Dingo’s kidneys.” The radio series, then the book, and then the TV series embraced their innate Britishness as canon, with constant references to British habits, traits, humor, and place names. The TV series even used a clay pit in St Austell, Cornwall, as a stand-in for the stark alien world of Magrathea. The spaceships were all decidedly wobbly, too, and I suspect on purpose.
The period during which I first read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was also when I had to read The Merchant of Venice and King Lear as part of my English Literature course. I read both plays multiple times and have seen both performed live, most recently King Lear at BAM in Brooklyn with Frank Langella as Lear. Sitting here now, I only remember one line from Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. (Act 4, Scene 1) and the first four lines of Portia’s speech in The Merchant of Venice (also Act 4, Scene 1):
“The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes”
Etc.
After two years of study, writing multiple essays for the A-level course and examination (I passed, just), those five lines are the sum total of what I can recall from memory. Yet, ask me about Hitchhiker’s Guide, and I can reel off passages seemingly ad infinitum. I bring up certain quotes so often that a few friends and colleagues have commented on it. Up until I read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy again in preparation for this essay, I hadn’t touched the book for years. I even wrote down most of the quotes I cite here before re-reading the book to make sure I didn’t cheat; the vast majority of the quotes listed here were from memory, barring some light copyediting.
I have been trying to think of a conclusion as to why The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is, without doubt, the stickiest book I have ever read and why I can recall the passages and quotes, many as written, decades later. Like the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, it’s simple; it is this: I’ve read many books I have loved. But The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the only book I have ever read that I wish I had written. I love the way Adams writes, his turns of phrase, his choice of words, and his ability to make the mundane hilarious—to make the absurd feel normal. But most of all, I love how he turned being British into an art form: Who but Douglas Adams would cite the Basingstoke roundabout to explain interstellar travel? I only wish I’d thought of it.
Life. Don’t talk to me about life.