The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Absurdity

Adams doesn't pull punches in the introduction: he comes out and tells us this wonderful idea that would make everyone happy is "lost forever." That's a pretty permanent and terrible way for a story to begin. Even worse, the reason this wonderful solution to sadness is lost is "a terribly stupid catastrophe." This is our introduction to the universe according to Hitchhiker's: not just sad, but sad for stupid reasons.

We marvel at this perfect nugget of absurdity: proof of X means not-X. This is a story from the Hitchhiker's Guide (the book inside this book) and it soon tells us that some people don't agree with this proof. But if you buy the premise of this argument (God requires faith, evidence denies faith, the Babel fish is a big piece of evidence), then the conclusion seems undeniable: there is proof God exists—therefore God doesn't exist.

As we note in the Writing Style section, Adams loves reworking clichés so that we pay attention to the language. (He also loves long, colorful scarves.) Like here: usually when someone says: "I really wish I'd listened," what that person means is: "I wish I had followed that advice." But what Arthur means is just what he said: he wishes he had listened—and heard. That's only part of what makes this absurd. The other aspect of the absurdity is how specific this scenario is—Arthur's mother presented a lesson that would come in handy for only one very particular event.

So many characters in this book wonder about the meaning of life: were we created by a loving god or an evil god or no god at all or by mice? And the answer is that Zaphod's stolen spaceship caused life to begin. Adams uses a bunch of interesting words here to show how strange and terrible the whole thing is: "improbable fashion," "seriously traumatized," "random group," "extraordinarily unlikely," "massive trouble." And then he gives the killer punch line that this terrible trouble is life.

We usually laugh at absurdity, but there's a dark side to it, or at least an uncomfortable side. This is what the crew of the Heart of Gold feels, as if their lives are not under their own control (that's the "volition" part) but also not just random (that's the "coincidence" part). That means that there might be some other reasons for them to be together, some big reason—only they can't see it. Eddie has an opinion on this: he thinks "that most people's lives are governed by telephone numbers" (12.68). But that's absurd, right?

Let's not blame the universe for all the absurdity out there—some of the absurdity in this book has to do with people. So here's Arthur, facing an alien planet (his first—and you always remember your first alien planet). That's an amazing thing (which is why we have more on Magrathea in Awe and Amazement). But Arthur is more interested in something as ordinary as tea, which is an absurd way to prioritize your attention.

We had to include the whale (oh, poor, sweet whale), this beautiful, intelligent creature who absurdly gets created from a nuclear missile and then pointlessly crashes into a planet. What makes this absurdity especially poignant is how smart the whale seems, how friendly (even trying to make friends with the ground), and how sincere he is about trying to find the meaning of his life. And it doesn't go so well for him.

This is like an onion: each layer is absurd and it gets more absurd with each layer. First, hyperintelligent pandimensional beings just happen to look like us; second, their favorite game involves hitting people for no reason (so hyperintelligent); and finally, their interest in finding an answer to why we're here is just so their game doesn't get interrupted. While each layer is absurd, notice how Adams uses parenthetical asides to drive home each bit of weirdness.

Reading Hitchhiker's Guide is like taking a course in disappointment: long set-up, with a disappointing anti-climax. The centerpiece of this learning experience is probably the long, drawn-out moment, when Deep Thought finally tells the answer that it has taken 7.5 million years to figure out. If you ever write a paper with this many ellipses ("…"), your teacher will probably fail you; but Adams uses a ridiculous amount of ellipses and repetition to make sure we feel the pause before the final, absurd let-down.

Adams uses this pattern of three more than once in order to let us down hard, so that the absurdity of the final element lands as softly as an anvil. "How can we eat?" and "Why do we eat?" are serious questions, questions that science and philosophy may be interested in. But "Where shall we have lunch?" is a completely different type of question, a question that's less scientific and serious. It has more to do with our schedules than with our position in the universe.