Fiction_L Archives Hitchhiker's Guide: funny or not (was: "Books I hated") Dates: 12/13/99,12:56 PM  through  12/13/99,12:56 PM  (1 posting) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2008-current     2006-2007     1996-2005    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to December 1999 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: "Dennis K. Lien" <Dennis.K.Lien-1@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 12/13/99, 12:56 PM

>
>Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 09:22:11 -0600
>From: "Chris Rettig" <crettig@lakeco.lib.in.us>
>Subject: Re: Books I hated.
>
>The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a thousand times more enjoyable when
>you listen to the author, Douglas Adams, reading it (unabridged, by the
>way). I was listening to it while walking through my neighborhood and
>couldn't help laughing out loud.
>
>The neighbors are still trying to figure out what's wrong with me.
>
>Chris Rettig


Just a reminder that THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY was originally
a radio play (a total of twelve episodes). The play was adapted into the
first two novels (with a lot of shifting around of episodes and some new
material and some stuff dropped); the later books were "original" material.

The play was also adopted (pretty faithfully) into the televison series,
and the original scripts have also been published. And tapes of the
radio series and videotapes of the TV series are available. And as you
note there is also a recording of Adams reading his stuff, which I've
not listened to.

My personal take on the whole bit is that the novels are much the
weakest format; the radio series was the format in which I first
encountered the story (via bootleg tapes from a friend of a friend
in England) and the one I against which I measured later formats. The
TV series comes off very well, as do the published scripts (various
footnotes and behind-the-scenes info being added value here). The
novels I can take or leave alone--the first two are a pale shadow
of the radio shows, and the rest are increasingly thin on plot and
jokes. I certainly don't hate them, but have no impetus to reread
them either.

Ordinarily I'm much more interested in prose fiction than in radio/TV/
motion picture versions of the same material, but there are exceptions,
and this to me is a clear-cut one.

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien@tc.umn.edu

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