I can't tell you the number of times that I have felt like an outsider at some fancy cocktail party when someone has dropped an allusion to the "Guide" and I had no idea what they were going on about. Naturally I was made to feel like an complete clod, an unwashed beast, a hopelessly disconnected lout. ... What's that you say? What is the "Guide"? ... Well hello fellow clod. I am, of course, speaking of the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Actually now that I have read it, every last word, I feel like I have somehow evolved to a higher plain. Watch out folks at future cocktail parties!
The book that I read actually was an omnibus of all of the parts of the "Guide". These included the books:
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
- Life, the Universe, and Everything
- So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish
- Young Zaphod Plays it Safe
- Mostly Harmless
Now I can chitter on at length about Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and poor Marvin the robot. I shall no longer be left behind when folks go on about the Vogons destroying the Earth to make way for a new galactic superhighway. Now I can be nauseatingly condescending to the uninitiated!
Actually, this vast tome was a pretty humorous body of work. Kind of random and stream-of-conscious-like. Sometimes pure silliness that every now and then approached the neighborhood of poignant. Definitely worth going through once and then crossing off your to-do list so that you can finally get on with your life.
