The Science Fiction Classics Interpretation Column is an explanatory column designed to provide help to science fiction beginner readers and quickly explain the historical science fiction classics to readers in the shortest possible length.
We have selected dozens of the most classic novels in the history of science fiction in the world, one for each issue, so that readers can quickly understand the content and characteristics of this science fiction classic in about 5 minutes of reading time. Through this column, readers can understand the evolution and development of science fiction history, the types and sources of various science fiction imaginations, and provide guidance for their future science fiction reading.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > The Guide to Navigating the Galaxy</h1>
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author | Douglas Adams
First edition | In 1979
Just because it blocked the way of the alien project, the earth was destroyed in an instant. Its only survivor, Arthur Dunther, and his alien friend, Lord Ford, board the Heart of Gold spacecraft and embark on a hilarious adventure through the universe.
In the Galaxy Hitchhiker's Guide and four subsequent sequels, their experiences include, but are not limited to:
Discover that Earth is really just a supercomputer built by rats, and its purpose is to explain why the "ultimate answer to life, the universe, and anything" is 42;
Meet the controller of the entire universe , an ordinary man living in seclusion with a cat;
Brutal and belligerent, Krikkit, trying to destroy all life in the universe, attacked the Earth before it was destroyed, because one of the keys to opening their cage was actually the trophy of the cricket game...
Arthur was overwhelmed by these crazy adventures until he finally discovered the New Earth, built with the help of dolphins, where he found true love. He thought he had finally returned to a normal life, but he didn't know that the gift of fate had already secretly marked the price...
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > interpretation</h1>
What makes science fiction fans around the world laugh is a number that can't be simpler
01
Thank you to all the fish, and thank you Douglas Adams
At the time of writing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams probably didn't anticipate how deeply his work would leave a mark on the history of science fiction. Today, if science fiction is likened to a religion, it is undoubtedly one of the most important saints. One of the disciples' names is 42, he likes to drink pan-galactic explosive fluid (this strange name can be easily typed verbatim by associative input method), and always wanders at various sci-fi fan gatherings with a big-headed robot that makes people cry, and occasionally makes sounds of unknown significance.
The Guide has been adapted into radio dramas, TV series, stage plays and computer games, and even towels printed with related patterns have also sold well (towels are also one of the important props in the novel). It was enough to keep Adams fed, but for Adams, there was a long accumulation behind the success of the Guide. In elementary school, he showed his writing talent that was admired by his teachers, and because of this, he was inspired to write, and finally entered Cambridge University to study English literature. But before he became famous, his life was a long trough: he worked as a small actor and director, as well as a hospital concierge, a construction worker, a bodyguard and even a chicken cleaner. During this time, he became acquainted with John Lloyd, and the two collaborated on screenplays for several radio plays, including the predecessor of The Guide.
Adams' own life is as wonderful as a novel, and his humorous personality and wild imagination—even alcoholism and procrastination—are missed by his friends. Had it not been for his sudden death from a heart attack in 2001, we would have been able to clock in to more attractions in the Galaxy today.
According to the original plan, Adams was going to write six separate stories that would destroy the earth in different ways; as he wrote the first play, an alien supporting character gradually attracted his attention. He ended up setting the alien character as a wandering writer who wanted to write a very, very good book, The Guide to The Galaxy. When the first story aired, the "guide" became the main line of the story, and the alien became the Ford Grand Master in the book. The Guide, on the other hand, was inspired by a Kerouac-style hitchhiking trip: he lay in the fields of Innsbruck, looking at the stars, with a copy of the European Hitchhiker's Guide in hand— a scene so dramatic that it seemed to be part of the novel itself.
02
"Turn the telescope upside down"
It's easy to summarize the charm of the Guide—it's funny enough and the ideas are brilliant enough; but it's not easy to say why. In fact, there are many works with humorous styles, but there are very few that can be called classics. Why does the Guide stand out through the wash of time?
We might as well think of science fiction writing as a process of using telescopes to see the world. Imagination forms the mirror body of the telescope: the writer is a stargazer or recorder, recording on paper the reality magnified through the telescope. This is the magic of scale, and it is what Liu Cixin does best: thin invisible nanowires can instantly disintegrate an aircraft carrier; insignificant "water droplets" destroy the entire Earth fleet; paper-like two-way foil destroys the solar system in two dimensions. The progressive scale game of the "Three-Body" trilogy is a game of scale that encompasses the very small, and produces sublime or terrifying beauty in the tension created by this contrast.
Douglas Adams is the complete opposite. From the last glimpse of Arthur's exploded Earth and the "Golden Heart" spacecraft, this mediocre human being has witnessed the craziest and most nonsensical spectacle in the universe all the time: the earth is a supercomputer made by a higher civilization, and its only purpose for the existence of all mankind is to calculate the truth of the universe; a certain civilization eventually self-destructs only because it has too many shoe stores, which eventually leads to an economic crisis; strange people from various planets gather in restaurants at the end of the universe. Just to catch a glimpse of the Big Bang.
And the logic generated by these wonders is to wrap a large shell to wrap up one of the most trivial, boring little things. It's like looking at the vast starry sky with an upside-down telescope and finally seeing only petri dishes. "Turn the telescope upside down" – this metaphor comes from Adams himself. He hid "minimal" in "very large", as if he had built a Taj Mahal to hide a cherry. The process of discovering this cherry can be called deconstruction or whatever, and it is in this process that the jokes — perhaps the largest "scale" of humanity's history — are produced in the process.
03
Can be mourned, but Don't Panic
However, it is not an easy task to turn the "telescope". Before Adams, another master, Kurt Vonnegut, did the same job. It needs to add a little hippie casualness and a little philosopher's frustration to the equally brilliant imagination. It is these small mechanisms hidden behind the laughing belly sections that make the real beauty of the novel.
Without a doubt, the most beloved character in the novel is the mournful Marvin. It claims to have unfathomable wisdom, but all of this wisdom is used in ridicule and cold water, which can be called the spit of the whole novel. If Adams buried an incarnation of himself in the novel, as every writer loves, then there is a good chance that Marvin will be: when Arthur and Ford are desperate to save the world, Marvin will always be the one who stands by and sneers, but he is always the one who lends a helping hand at the most critical moment.
It is precisely because of Marvin's "frustration" that the Guide has not become a simple nonsense joke that spills footwash water on people's heads. In the second volume, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, philosophers are ugly in trying to prevent computers from calculating the truth of the universe: those who should have wanted the truth the most are obviously more concerned about their unemployment. Or the destruction of the earth in the novel, it is meaningless at all: it could have survived, but the bureaucratic delay led to a step too late to save the earth. If you insist on reading it, you will find that its laughter is rooted in various cruxes and foolishness in human civilization. The repetition of "Don't Panic" in the novel is like emphasizing that in the story, stupidity is a joke, and when stupidity occurs in reality, it is a complete disaster.
Of course, we can summarize or introduce the wonderful features of the Guide, but there is no way to restore the subtle humor in it. The most direct way to appreciate its charm is to read it with a "Don't Panic" mentality. Even without bothering to read it, Adams's British humor is wonderful enough. Tired of reading obscure or bitter science fiction, then you may wish to read and love the Guide like Flaubert was obsessed with circus performances – not to mention that today, a cheerful laugh may be what we need most.
Golden Sentence Appreciation
Deep in the unexplored, unexplored, unexplored, remote region at the end of the Milky Way's Western Spiral Arm, there is a small, unattended yellow star. Orbiting it in a radius of about ninety-two million miles is a tiny blue-green planet that is completely inconsequential, and the life forms derived from apes on it are so primitive that they think that a digital electronic meter is a very clever idea.
"It's simple. I was so bored and depressed that I ran over and connected myself to the computer interface outside it. I spoke to that computer for a long, long time, explaining my point of view to it, from the universe all the way up to itself. ”
"And then what?"
"Then it killed itself."
"Forty-two." Deep thought speaks in an infinite majesty and a calm tone.
04
Many years ago, it was also a prosperous and happy planet, and there were people, cities, shops, and it was a completely normal place. There is only one problem, and that is that there are slightly more shoe shops on the high streets of the city than necessary. And the number of shoe stores is still growing slowly and insidiously. It's a tragedy to witness this famous economic phenomenon unfold in reality, because the more shoe stores there are, the more shoes must be made, but the worse the quality of the shoes, the more uncomfortable it is to wear. The more uncomfortable it was to wear, the more people would run to buy shoes, and the more shoe stores there would be, and eventually the economy of the entire planet would cross the limits of what the term "shoe horizon" would be, and it would be economically impossible to build anything but a shoe store. The result was collapse, destruction and famine. Most of them died.
Author | Providence