Friday, July 3, 2009

Life, the Universe and Everything


Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams
(Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy #3)
originally published in 1982
massmarket paperback, 227 pages
ISBN-13: 9780345391827
reread

From the Publisher
Why is it a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes?
How the planet Krikkit, hostile to anything that is not Krikkit, comes to be encased in a Slo-time envelope...
Why Arthur Dent has such an urgent wish to return the Ashes to Lord's Cricket Ground, and why a can of Greek olive oil becomes his most prized possession, symbolizing as it does the oneness of things...
How the Campaign for Real Time is determined to reverse the erosion of the differences between one century and another caused by easy time travel...
Follow Arthur Dent on a day which begins with his visit from Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (whose goal is to insult everyone in the universe - alphabetically) and ends with the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth - which turns out to have entirely too much to do with frogs.
My thoughts:
My reread of the Hitchhiker's trilogy continues for the Summer Lovin' Challenge. (If interested in this series you need to read them in order.) highly recommended

Quotes:

The regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Dent waking up and suddenly remembering where he was. opening

"For those of you who have just tuned in, you may be interested to know that, er...two men, two rather scruffily attired men, and indeed a sofa - a Chesterfield I think?"
"Yes, a Chesterfield."
"Have just materialized here in the middle of Lord's Cricket Ground. But I don't think they meant any harm, they've been very good natured about it, and..."
"Sorry, can I interrupt you a moment, Peter, and say that the sofa has just vanished."
"So it has. Well, that's one mystery less. Still, it's one for the record books I think, particularly occurring at this dramatic moment in play, England now needing only twenty-four runs to win the series. The men are leaving the pitch in the company of a police officer, and I think everyone's settling down now and the play is about to resume." pg. 21

Arthur's consciousness approached his body as from a great distance, and reluctantly. It had had some bad times in there. Slowly, nervously, it entered and settled down into its accustomed position. pg. 22

"It isn't my towel," insisted Arthur, "that is the point I am trying to..."
"And the time I which I would like you to shut up about it," continued Ford in a low growl, "is now,"
"All right," said Arthur, starting to stuff it back into the primitively stitched rabbit-skin bag. "I realize that it is probably not important in the cosmic scale of things, it's just odd, that's all. A pink towel suddenly, instead of a blue one with yellow stars." pg. 25

Bistromathics itself is simply a revolutionary new way of understanding the behavior of numbers....it is now realized that numbers are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in restaurants..... Numbers written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other piece of paper in any other part of the universe. pg. 45-46

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