The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Universal Laughs

I recently re-read my giant, all-5-books-in-one copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and kept bursting into laughter over Arthur Dent's various mishaps across multiple universes (yes, there's more than one). Even though these books are classified as science fiction and deal with the realm of aliens and spaceships, the author, Douglas Adams, was actually more concerned with writing humorous novels in the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse. It is merely incidental that the setting happens to not be Earth.

The "increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's trilogy" tells the story of Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered Englishman who is friends with a man with the odd name of Ford Prefect. Turns out, Ford is actually an alien from somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse who has been sent to Earth as a field researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a guidebook that helps you see the universe "on less than thirty Altairian dollars a day." Ford has been stuck on Earth for fifteen years, because there have been no passing spaceships that he could hitch a ride on to get out of this backwater locale. However, he gets his chance when a Vogon spaceship approaches Earth.

Unfortunately, the Vogons are a rather fierce alien race and their only reason for being in the vicinity is that they need to destroy Earth and make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Ford grabs a hold of Arthur and they manage to teleport onto the spaceship before the Earth is obliterated. Naturally, Arthur is rather bewildered by these proceedings. In a few minutes, he has discovered that his good friend is an alien, his home no longer exists, and he is on board a spaceship with some fairly unsympathetic Vogons who are ready to kill him and Ford. Things are not looking good.

The series proceeds with leaps and bounds as Arthur tries to find out if he can ever get the Earth back or at least find a different version of it in a parallel universe. Along the way he and Ford are picked up by Zaphod Beeblebrox, the President of the Galaxy who is incidentally Ford's semi-cousin and has stolen the Heart of Gold spaceship that zips through space and time thanks to its Infinite Improbability Drive. Zaphod is accompanied by Trillian, a woman that he picked up from Earth a few months ago, and Marvin the Paranoid Android, the most neurotic robot you will ever encounter in all of science fiction. Together, this motley crew hurtles through a blinding sequence of adventures and near-death experiences, with time to spare for a meal at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The series gets increasingly odd, and by the time I was on the fifth book, I'm not too certain I knew what was going on. But I still enjoyed every page, because after all, you can't expect the universe(s) to make much sense.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a sprawling ode to the imagination and each book in the series tackles increasingly difficult questions and dilemmas. For example, once Dent & Co. find the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, they discover that they now need to find out what the question is. It is that kind of absurdist humor that propels this series and makes it endlessly entertaining, charming, and profound. It is quite possible to learn some valuable life lessons as you read these books. But perhaps the most important one of all is the phrase that is prominently stamped on the cover of the Hitchhiker's Guide in large friendly letters: Don't Panic.