A Time for Tea

The quintessential food that describes Douglas Adams's hilarious novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy happens to be the most discussed: tea. Tea fits perfectly as the representative of the book due to many of its unique attributes that it shares with Adams's book. The most obvious comes from its country of origin: Britain. Both Tea and The Guide hail from Britain, bringing with them a certain foreign appeal to their American audiences, such as myself. Next comes the variety of tea; one can order tea in many different ways, with many different things mixed in or server with it. The same principal goes for the novel, one can take it at face value where Adams's book acts merely as a wacky space adventure tale, they could take it as an argument for how utterly boring and petty our world seems compared to the Galaxy, or one could view it as the opposite, that the Galaxy most likely functions the same as boring old Earth, just with a few eccentricities that come from the culture. Another parallel comes from the protagonist's, Arthur Dent's, love for tea; his friends indirectly characterize him as a tea lover, stating that the only things Arthur says are "What? and I don't understand and Where's the tea?" (133). It only makes sense to chose the main character's favorite food as the food that his story will become. Finally, one of the most striking parables with tea and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes from its abstract forms and customs. The number of proper etiquette when drinking tea comes off as mind boggling, a specific time exists to drink tea, one should hold the tea cup properly and never with the pinkie extended, one must measure the temperature of the beverages to an exact heat of 42 degrees Celsius and so on. The Galaxy also comes with the same kinds of insanities, such as improbability physics, babel fish, our rodent overlords, and a planet factory (just to name a few). Adam's work clearly embodies all the essential characteristics that makes tea tea, and vice versa; therefore tea becomes the perfect example of food to represent The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in this alternate, food-based world that has manifested itself. Wow, I'm thirsty.

I Chortled

It only makes sense to do a blog entry on when I laughed aloud while reading Douglas Adams's hilarious book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This actually may turn into one of the hardest blog entries for me to write due to the numerous occasions I have laughed out loud (lol'd for the hip and happening out there) while reading Adams's book. I really do love British humor, the subtleness and dryness really makes for much more hilarious jokes than the typical "HUEHUEHUE IM SO FUNNY" humor that us Americans somehow adore. My favorite moment has to come on the last page of chapter sixteen, right before the missile attack on the Heart of Gold. The way Adams narrates the scene, his matter-of-fact tone, the very blunt foreshadowing, the logos of the straight facts he gives makes an otherwise dramatic scene very comedic. Adams almost narrates like a computer, dissecting the implications and effects his narration give on the reader; he states "In order that some mystery should still be preserved, no revelation will yet be made concerning whose upper arm sustains the bruise" (82). The author completely pulls the air out of a life or death moment, then uses his hyperbolic diction to try to get the reader nervous for who will get a bruised arm (intentionally, of course). This matter-of-fact tone and diction coupled with the utter randomness of the event serve to make the scene even more funny. The book tells of the "sudden demise of a bowl of petunias and an innocent sperm whale" (82). Adams narrates many situations like this; talking about complete random and insane events like everyday occurrences and it makes him a very, very funny writer. Actually, when I read this page I was at the summer camp I work at, the campers I was looking after looked at me like a crazy person; even after I tried to explain to the children what happened, I read the passage and even explained all the humor and how it works (like any good english teacher would), but they never understood how I found it funny. Oh well, I guess only amazing people can enjoy amazing British comedy.

A Bitter Reminder

In Douglas Adams's short novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the reader finds themselves thrust into an amazing world of eccentricities, wonder, and danger. The juxtaposition of the Galaxy and the Earth creates a sort of culture shock with the protagonist, Arthur Dent. Adams alienates the reader aswell, by introducing foreign concepts that seem completely illogical (or improbable), Adams clearly does this to create a parallel with Arthur, Adams knows he can't just throw the reader at the entire galaxy and not explain anything, so he creates the Earth Man, Arthur, so characters can explain to him the world his surroundings. The good of using this tactic comes very quickly and apparently, the alien worlds, ships, and people Arthur visits, travels on, and meets come at a much milder rate, Adams turns down the orb of confusion from eleven to eight. However, the 'new guy' character also comes with some down sides- most notablely when the reader becomes aware of the storytelling strategy Adams uses. Arthur Dent really does not have much of a personality when examined and juxtaposed with his fellow companions; he only asks questions, acts confused, and makes snarky remarks. Really, the only characteristics I could give to Dent would be sarcastic and confused. This works very well for the unaware reader, and enhances the story by making it more accessable, but when looked at for solely the characters, the protagonist doesn't really exist other than to help explain things to Adams's audience. Maybe je just is boring because he is too similar to myself and other people of the planet earth; he has no eccentricites to make him special in our human eyes. Perhaps if Adams is ever published in space they will find the character of Zaphod annoying.  This simple reason makes Arthur Dent my least favorite character in Adams's otherwise spectacular book.