Today, 12 October, it is exactly 40 years since Douglas Adams published his classic, “The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy.” Adams, who died in 2001 of a heart attack at 49, sold 15 million books in his lifetime. The BBC, ranking the country’s best loved books, put Hitchhikers’ Guide at Number 4.
Quotes from the Guide:
- “A towel is the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.”
- “Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”
- “In the beginning the universe was created. . . This made a lot of people angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”
- “Ford,” he said, “there’s an infinite number of monkeys out there who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out. “
Adam’s book tells the story of Earthman Arthur Dent, who is rescued by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for “The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy”. This is an enormous volume that describes every planet in the universe. Just before Earth is destroyed by Vogons to make way for an intergalactic highway Arthur and Ford escape on a spaceship called Heart of Gold, piloted by Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ford’s cousin more or less and the President of the Galaxy. The ship’s crew, Arthur, Ford, a depressed robot called Marvin and an Earth woman called Trillian, embark on a journey to Magrathea, a world known for selling luxury planets. On Magrathea the five are taken to the centre of this world by a character called Slartibartfast. They learn that a race of hyperintelligent, pan-dimensional beings had created a supercomputer called Deep Thought. When Deep Thought was asked to determine “The Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe and Everything”, Deep Thought said the answer was . . . 42.
The Hitchhikers’ Guide was published as a “trilogy”of six, five written by Adams. Others in the series: “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, “Life, the Universe and Everything”, “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”, and “Mostly Harmless”. The series generated a TV show, stage plays, comics, a video game and a film. Adams also wrote “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”, “The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul” and “The Meaning of Liff” as well as episodes for “Doctor Who” and “Monty Python”.
The author was an advocate for conservation, campaigning to save endangered species, a lover of fast cars and technology and a self-proclaimed radical atheist. On religion, he wrote, imagine you are a sentient puddle who wakes up one day and thinks,”This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather well, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it.”
When Elon Musk launched a Tesla into space on a Falcon rocket last year it carried the words, “DON’T PANIC”, a copy of the Hitchhikers’ Guide and a towel.
On 25 May 25 2001, two weeks after his death Adams fans inaugurated Towel Day, which has been held every year since.
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