Author remembered for humor, destroying Earth

Michael Rosen-Molina Spit blurble gurgle gurgle
sluuuuuuurp. I repeat, e-mail Michael Rosen-Molina at [email protected].

The inventor of the improbability drive, the pangalactic gargle
blaster and Vogon poetry has shuffled off this mortal coil.

The news has come as a shock to fans the world over. Douglas
Adams, author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy,” passed away last week at the unseasonable age of
49.

His name might not spring instantly to mind when discussing
great literature; Adams’ list of books seems modest when
compared to most writers. But in this flash-in-the-pan era, where
the world will quickly forget any figure who leaves the public eye
for a good month, Adams was a novelty.

His famous Hitchhiker trilogy ““ the series that redefined
the term by coming out in no less than five installments ““
put Adams in the forefront of today’s authors.

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
managed, by the cleverness of its title alone, to remain in the
public eye since its initial publication.

The contents of the book were no less clever, combining
slapstick humor with droll social satire. Adams was never the most
prolific writer, but what he lacked in quantity he made up for in
quality.

For lack of any better characterization, the Hitchhiker books
always appeared in the science fiction sections of bookstores.

Douglas Noel Adams attended school in England at St.
John’s College at Cambridge University in 1970, where he
sowed hints of the humorist he was to become.

While UC Berkeley was known as a hotbed of liberal activism,
Cambridge was known for making comedians.

Adams’ classmates were to become the giants of British
comedy. Dudley Moore, John Cleese, Peter Cook and “Monty
Python’s” Graham Chapman were all products of a
Cambridge education.

Adams was no slouch himself, joining The Footlights Club, a
well-known satirical production group. He collaborated with writers
who would later go on to work on “Monty Python” and
“Not The Nine O’Clock News.”

The inspiration for Adams’ biggest project came to him
when he was away from school, on spring break. Traveling around the
continent, following the advice in “The Hitchhiker’s
Guide To Europe,” he stopped in the town of Innsbruck.

There, Adams lied on his back, semi-drunk, reflecting on the
stars above. The idea suddenly struck him that ““ wait!
““ someone should write a hitchhiker’s guide to the
galaxy!

It took six years for the idea to finally became a book, but,
when it did, there was no looking back.

After graduating from Cambridge, Adams moved to London to break
into television writing. He wrote several episodes for “Dr.
Who,” a popular BBC science fiction series with special
effects so famously bad they proved that shouldn’t let the
government run your TV.

During his free time, Adams worked on his original Innsbruck
idea. It eventually became a radio serial, which he sold to the
BBC. The show soon attracted a cult following, becoming so popular
that it was aired four times.

Ultimately, the “Hitchhiker’s Guide” gave rise
to a television series, several records, a stage show, a video
game, and, of course, the Hitchhiker’s trilogy. Plans for a
movie came to nothing, but the books continued to sell well.

Adams proved that he could write more than sci-fi parody when he
teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine to write “Last
Chance to See,” a hilarious and moving look at vanishing
wildlife.

In addition to his Hitchhiker books, Adams wrote two
not-so-gritty noir-ish books about surly, lazy detective Dirk
Gently and his holistic detective agency.

Surely, though, Adams will be most remembered for his
“Hitchhiker’s Guide.” More a hodgepodge of
’50s B-film clichés and metaphysical gibberish than
actual sci-fi, the books still managed to capture the imaginations
of readers all over the world.

Gods existed alongside aliens, and no one seemed to mind. The
threadbare plot was little more than an excuse to propel the heroes
““ perpetually bewildered Englishman Arthur Dent and his alien
companion Ford Prefect ““ on ever stranger adventures.

Adams somehow made the picaresque novel work, so that the reader
never got bored and never realized that Arthur and Ford
didn’t accomplish much of anything.

Adams was a man who painted the cosmos with a peculiar British
flavor ““ one where universal chaos offends a proper
Englishman’s refined sensibilities, and all problems dissolve
into a vague concern with finding a decent cup of tea.

Ultimately, under all the tomfoolery, the
“Hitchhiker’s Guide” is a book about the comforts
of home, the one safe haven in an otherwise insane and
unpredictable universe. Surrounded by the wonders of the galaxy,
Arthur Dent never took any notice because all he really wanted to
do was go home.

The guide provides the best advice possible in this unstable
world: Don’t panic. Nothing else so aptly sums up
Adams’ writing, which tempered all the wacky hi-jinks with a
unique optimism for the future. Even when dealing with such morbid
topics as species extinction ““ topics that other authors
would treat with solemn reverence and profound pessimism ““
Adams’ hope for a better future shone through.

From his books, nothing was so apparent as that Adams truly
believed that things could get better, and that the earth
wasn’t a hopeless case. Getting this idea across was
certainly no mean feat in a book that begins with the Earth being
demolished to make way for a new hyper-space freeway, but Adams
managed to pull it off. Even after multiple accidents of fate bring
the Earth back from the dead, the little green planet just
can’t seem to avoid being blown up in various ways.

Adams destroyed the Earth with the same glee that pervaded his
work, an attitude that told you, hey, it’s all in good
fun.

Countless happy nerds grew up with “The Hitchhikers
Guide,” and I can only hope that countless more will. It
would be sad to think that a new generation might only know the
Babel fish as an Internet translation device.