The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Sadness

Hitchhiker's Guide opens up with the promise of an idea that will make everyone happy and good. Of course, the next line tells us that this idea will be lost forever. We probably shouldn't be too surprised by that since history shows us that sadness and meanness seem to be the usual way things go. Still, this opening does remind us that happiness is something that a lot of people want (for some reason).

Arthur will eventually cry about the whole losing-his-whole-family-and-everything-he's-ever-known thing. But it is interesting to watch him try to deal with the incredible sadness of this event—and to see how Adams keeps this from being a tragedy. For instance, here, both Arthur and Ford discuss the destruction of Earth in a pretty calm and understated way. Instead of crying and hugging each other (the usual response to having a planet blow up), they're just calmly saying, "I'm a bit upset," and "I can understand that."

Arthur does have to deal with the sadness of losing Earth, and it's not a totally funny sequence. (Now losing Mars would be hilarious.) It is a little funny when Arthur first gets sad about his supermarket, Bogart films, and McDonald's, rather than his family, friends, and other people. But at the same time, this sort of shock seems understandable. So if you squint, this section could either be (1) an example of turning sadness into comedy or (2) a reasonable response to an absurd situation.

The "it" in this quote that Marvin hates is the happy door, which makes sense for Marvin: what annoys depressive robots more than happy computers? But we pulled this quote mostly for the way Marvin's depression leads him on towards, well, nothing. This part also makes us laugh because his circuits talk in a very casual way: "Why bother?" is something a fed-up person would say, not the kind of thing we expect to hear from robots.

First impressions are very important, which is why it's so sad that Magrathea comes off as a dump the first time people see it. (Of course, once you get to know Magrathea, you'll see how, underneath the surface, it's even more terrible.) Here Ford sounds a little bit like Marvin: there's nothing here worth doing, he says, which reminds us a lot of Marvin's depressive quips. (Also, note that "Of all the planets in all the star systems of all the Galaxy" sounds like a parody of Casablanca's famous quote: "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world…")

Here's a great quote if you need evidence that Marvin is more depressed than any other character. (Honestly, you probably don't need our help to find that evidence, since it's all over the book.) Arthur has lost his planet and everything he's known, but he can still find some beauty and wonder in the world. Marvin, by contrast, has one setting: extreme misery. Ironically, this makes him very funny.

Arthur and Slartibartfast are discussing the loss of Norway, which was a big tragedy for fans of Scandinavian design. As Slartibartfast notes, that was one of his works and maybe the best one. So it's sad for Slarty, but Arthur seems to think that his sadness isn't the whole story. Maybe, you know, the Norwegians might be a little upset, too. But one thing we see in this book is that people sometimes have trouble imagining other people might be sad.

Ah, the eternal fight between happiness and… everything else in the world. (Spoiler alert: everything else wins.) Slartibartfast is telling Arthur that he wants to make Africa with fjords in Earth 2.0, even though that's not geographically accurate. But who cares? Slarty loves fjords more than he loves being accurate. Unfortunately, it's hard to be happy in Hitchhiker's Guide, even if you're willing to fudge the numbers—or in this case, the glaciers.

Even minor characters get to be sad in Hitchhiker's. It's that sort of equal opportunity book. Here the cops hunting Zaphod express—very directly—that they've got lots to be sad about. The first is sad about having to go around hurting people, though he won't stop doing that; and the second is sad about not being published yet, which he uses to fuel his violence. So sadness here doesn't always lead to good things. (But check the next quote for more.)

Sometimes, sadness can be helpful in the oddest ways. For instance, the only reason that Zaphod and the others escape the cops is because Marvin got the cops' spaceship depressed enough to commit electronic suicide. So our last example of Sadness in the book shows that it is useful when it's your enemies who are sad.