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If I had to summarise the story in two words, I would say… forty-two. It was easy.
Arthur Dent could be considered the average Englishman. He is unobtrusive, drinks tea, and doesn’t bother anyone. That is, until a series of events comes to disrupt his well-ordered life…
It all begins one fine morning when a bulldozer rings his doorbell. His house is on the path of a highway under construction. “You had plenty of time to contest the decision”, they tell him. “The papers were posted in the village next door”. True enough, in the back of a dark cellar… Well.
Enter Ford Prefect, an old friend of Arthur’s. He finds him lying in front of the bulldozer and persuades him, not without difficulty, to have a drink with him at the pub, as he has bad news to share.
Two pieces of news, in fact. The first is that Ford wasn’t born on Earth. He’s a journalist for a galactic travel guide. The second? He’s just learned that the Vogons have decided to build a galactic highway. And guess which planet is about to be demolished to make way for the construction site?
Well, it’s not as if you weren’t warned. The papers were posted on Alpha Centauri, and you didn’t even bother to go and get them…
And so, Ford drags Arthur aboard the Vogon spaceship. The last survivor of Earth will experience all sorts of adventures, meet wacky characters like the president of the galaxy, a depressed robot, his daughter from the future, or was it the past, I can’t remember…
A number of major metaphysical questions find their answers in these books, which are adaptations of a radio series. They even made a film, whose script was heavily rewritten, but which I really like (well, the first half, to be honest).
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Zaphod Beeblebrox, my idol!
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Le Guide du voyageur galactique