The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy By Douglas Adams: Book Analysis
1. Youth and Education
Douglas Adams was a classic case of genius growing up, from taking longer than usual to develop basic skills to quickly morphing into an incredible writer. Born in 1952 in Cambridge, he was reportedly slow to develop, “I was the only kid who anybody I knew has ever seen actually walk into a lamppost with his eyes wide open. Everybody assumed that there must be something going on inside, because there sure as hell wasn't anything going on on the outside!” (__________). However, he soon overcame this phase and was accepted into the prestigious Brentwood school. Interested in science from a young age, he changed his focus to writing at the age of ten, when he became the only student to ever be awarded a perfect 10/10 on …show more content…
After his modest success with television scripts, BBC Radio 4 commissioned Adams to write a radio play for the channel, which became this piece. The unique plot follows the very few survivors of Earth, after it is destroyed to make way for an interstellar highway, and the people they encounter on their journey. The only surviving human, Arthur Dent, survives because he has befriended Ford Prefect, an alien living on earth for many years to collect information for Earth’s entry in the largest repository of knowledge in the Universe. This repository is the namesake of the story, containing in a handheld format information on every planet, species, custom, and object in the Universe, is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Hitchhiker’s was a hit the instant it aired, and the novel version became the number one bestseller in the United …show more content…
After Hitchhiker’s was done being broadcast via radio, Adams became the script editor for Doctor Who in its seventeenth season, writing several episodes. His other novels include Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul in his Dirk Gently detective series, and he started the third installment but writer’s block prevented him from completing it. Additionally, Adams wrote the quasi-reference books The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff, in which town names are redefined to fill gaps in the English language; to Plymouth means “to relate an amusing story to someone without remembering that it was they who told it to you in the first place” (__________). Finally, Adams wrote a book about his travels to visit endangered animals, along with four sequels to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Douglas Adams was a classic case of genius growing up, from taking longer than usual to develop basic skills to quickly morphing into an incredible writer. Born in 1952 in Cambridge, he was reportedly slow to develop, “I was the only kid who anybody I knew has ever seen actually walk into a lamppost with his eyes wide open. Everybody assumed that there must be something going on inside, because there sure as hell wasn't anything going on on the outside!” (__________). However, he soon overcame this phase and was accepted into the prestigious Brentwood school. Interested in science from a young age, he changed his focus to writing at the age of ten, when he became the only student to ever be awarded a perfect 10/10 on …show more content…
After his modest success with television scripts, BBC Radio 4 commissioned Adams to write a radio play for the channel, which became this piece. The unique plot follows the very few survivors of Earth, after it is destroyed to make way for an interstellar highway, and the people they encounter on their journey. The only surviving human, Arthur Dent, survives because he has befriended Ford Prefect, an alien living on earth for many years to collect information for Earth’s entry in the largest repository of knowledge in the Universe. This repository is the namesake of the story, containing in a handheld format information on every planet, species, custom, and object in the Universe, is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Hitchhiker’s was a hit the instant it aired, and the novel version became the number one bestseller in the United …show more content…
After Hitchhiker’s was done being broadcast via radio, Adams became the script editor for Doctor Who in its seventeenth season, writing several episodes. His other novels include Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul in his Dirk Gently detective series, and he started the third installment but writer’s block prevented him from completing it. Additionally, Adams wrote the quasi-reference books The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff, in which town names are redefined to fill gaps in the English language; to Plymouth means “to relate an amusing story to someone without remembering that it was they who told it to you in the first place” (__________). Finally, Adams wrote a book about his travels to visit endangered animals, along with four sequels to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the