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Douglas Adams’s ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’

When I first picked up “The 

Hitchhiker’s 
Guide 
to 
the 

Galaxy,” it was one of those 
nights that doesn’t come with 
any specific days attached. I 
was 10 or 11 years old, lying on 
the floor next to my brother 
in the darkened study of my 
mom’s boyfriend’s apartment 
in 
Jacksonville. 
I 
couldn’t 

sleep.

The fact that I couldn’t 

sleep, in my opinion, had less 
to do with being on the floor 
and more to do with the fact 
that I could hear my mom 
and 
her 
boyfriend 
talking 

downstairs. It was the night 
before 
Thanksgiving 
and 

before 
my 
now-stepfather’s 

birthday, and they were trying 
to have a nice time, just the two 
of them: drinking wine, talking 
in hushed voices on the couch 
and laughing at each other’s 
jokes. This was before they got 
engaged, before I had any idea 
that I would eventually wind 
up making a home for myself in 
Fla. At the moment, I was just 
a kid marooned in the darkness 
of a study, kept awake by my 
own anger and indignation, 
which resurfaced every time 
I heard another sound from 
downstairs.

I had no watch, but it felt 

as 
though 
eternities 
were 

passing, suspended there in the 
darkness next to my sleeping 
brother 
while 
soft 
laughs 

and snatches of conversation 
drifted below me, annoying me 
for no rational reason. I ended 
up resorting to the bookcase, 
which sat against the wall only 
a foot or two away from me. I 
picked out a book at random: 
a smallish paperback with a 
shiny blue cover.

I read until I couldn’t hear 

anything at all.

I had never read anything 

like “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to 
the Galaxy” before, and I don’t 
think I ever have since. I loved 
it at the time because it was 
simply fun to read. The opening 
passage, which explains outer 
space and the position of 
humanity before zooming in 
to focus on a house, felt to me 
like the beginning of some 
broad, galactic fairy tale. The 
book was full of thoughtful, 
omniscient musings on the 
total 
improbability 
and 

absurdity 
of 
the 
universe, 

with language that sounded 
comfortable, as though it were 
possible to acknowledge such 
things and still feel safe and 
self-assured.

And yet it was the characters 

who really stood out to me, 
who stick with me to this 
day. I loved Zaphod, with his 
wildly unpredictable schemes 
and strangely touching quest 
to recover his past self, and 
Marvin, the iconic robot who 
would respond to a question 
like “What’s up?” with “I don’t 
know, I’ve never been there.” 
I was enchanted by Ford, who 
accepts the dangerous and 
the tortuous with matter-of-
fact fairness, and Trillian, the 
spontaneous 
mathematician 

who 
could 
fly 
an 
alien 

spaceship and stand up for 
herself in a room full of men in 
the middle of an apocalypse. I 
identified with all of them in 
turns, but perhaps most of all 
Arthur, who embarks on his 
own journey so haphazardly 
and cluelessly and yet tries to 
do his best at every step of the 
way.

These were characters who 

were faced every day with 
the destructive, nonsensical 
nature of the universe. And 
while they were almost never 
sure of themselves in anything, 

they also remained unfazed. 
They expected nothing specific 
of life, and when life gave them 
exactly that, they didn’t feel 
the need to do anything other 
than stay true to themselves. 
They could get arrested by 
Vogons, thrown back and forth 
through time and space, be 
cornered by soldiers, shot at 
and have their home planets 
destroyed. Marvin would still 
be 
miserable, 
and 
Zaphod 

would still be ridiculously 
over-the-top. In one of the 
climactic scenes, Ford decides 
he’s going to investigate what’s 
going on, and he asks the 
others, “Is no one going to say, 
‘No, you can’t possibly, let me 
go instead?’” When they all 
shake their heads, he says, “Oh 
well,” and stands up and goes 
anyway. Because that’s just 
what Ford would do.

I ended up stealing the 

paperback from my mom’s 
boyfriend and rereading it over 
and over. Eventually, as a gift, 
I received the bound Barnes & 
Noble Classics edition of “The 
Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide,” 
featuring all five books in the 
series plus a short story. I fell 
in love with the way Adams 
could tell a story, deeply clever 
but seemingly effortless. By 
some miracle, each character 
was compelling and dynamic, 
despite 
the 
fact 
that 
the 

writing itself really doesn’t 
spend very much time in their 
heads. The story is a comedy 
and an adventure, but it’s also 
surprisingly sad, complex and 
thoughtful. My reaction to any 
given line or scene depends in 
large part on the day, whether 
I’m feeling bored — in which 
case I’ll turn to any given 
page and start laughing — or 
truly down and emotionally 
vulnerable, in which case some 
of the story’s more existential 
preoccupations 
will 
really 

LAURA DZUBAY

Daily Arts Writer

BOOKS THAT BUILT US

stick with me.

Maybe this is part of why 

it’s so easy to return to this 
story over and over again. 
It works for any day. I want 
to think like Trillian, react 
like Ford, party like Zaphod, 
love like Arthur. I don’t want 
to feel depressed or wry 
or cynical, but when I am 
feeling it anyway, I want to 
be able to articulate it like 
Marvin.

I still have both copies 

with me, the black and 
gold classic volume and the 
paperback, which is now 
worn, with dog-eared pages 
and a creased spine. I flip 
through them whenever I 
need to drown out the world, 
telling myself, “Hey, it could 
always be worse. My entire 
planet could be destroyed 
— and look, these people’s 
planet was destroyed, and 
they’re 
still 
doing 
OK.” 

Then, eventually, I set the 
book back down and go out 
into my own world again, 
knowing that it will not 
make any sense and that I 
shouldn’t expect too much 
of it, and telling myself not 
to panic along the way.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, March 16, 2018 — 5

