AP English 12 Criticism On The Hitchhi
Criticism
Donna Woodford
Woodford is a doctoral candidate at Washington University. In the following essay she examines the search for the meaning of life in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The first thing that readers and critics usually notice about Douglas Adams's novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is that the book, written in a sharp and witty style, is remarkably funny. What may seem less obvious to readers, and what has often puzzled critics, is the meaning behind this light, clever exterior. David Leon Higdon has noted that imagining the end of the world has long been a tradition in science fiction, as it has been in myth and theology; and Brian Aldiss has observed the tremendous impact that the invention of bombs, which could conceivably cause the end of the world, have had on science fiction and science fiction writers. But while Adams's book does describe the destruction of the earth, his humorous, irreverent treatment of this subject does not fit neatly into the traditions described by Aldiss and Higdon.
This book is just the first in a series about Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and the colorful characters that they encounter in their travels through space and time. Fans have followed them through a series of five novels, including this one, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe, and Everything (1982), So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (1984), and Mostly Harmless (1992).
For fans who have trouble keeping a handle on the characters and events in the Hitchhikerbooks, Pocket Books published a guide in 1981 that covers the original trilogy, called Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion.
Mark Leyner's novels have been compared to Adams's for their unpredictability and sense of fun. His most recent, 1997's The Tetherballs of Bouganville, bounces through a cultural land scape strewn with markers of our time, such as scholarship awards, lethal injection, screenplay writers, supermodels
Donna Woodford
Woodford is a doctoral candidate at Washington University. In the following essay she examines the search for the meaning of life in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The first thing that readers and critics usually notice about Douglas Adams's novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is that the book, written in a sharp and witty style, is remarkably funny. What may seem less obvious to readers, and what has often puzzled critics, is the meaning behind this light, clever exterior. David Leon Higdon has noted that imagining the end of the world has long been a tradition in science fiction, as it has been in myth and theology; and Brian Aldiss has observed the tremendous impact that the invention of bombs, which could conceivably cause the end of the world, have had on science fiction and science fiction writers. But while Adams's book does describe the destruction of the earth, his humorous, irreverent treatment of this subject does not fit neatly into the traditions described by Aldiss and Higdon.
This book is just the first in a series about Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and the colorful characters that they encounter in their travels through space and time. Fans have followed them through a series of five novels, including this one, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe, and Everything (1982), So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (1984), and Mostly Harmless (1992).
For fans who have trouble keeping a handle on the characters and events in the Hitchhikerbooks, Pocket Books published a guide in 1981 that covers the original trilogy, called Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion.
Mark Leyner's novels have been compared to Adams's for their unpredictability and sense of fun. His most recent, 1997's The Tetherballs of Bouganville, bounces through a cultural land scape strewn with markers of our time, such as scholarship awards, lethal injection, screenplay writers, supermodels