The third book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide series by Douglas Adams, “Life, The Universe and Everything”, is different to the previous two.
As rightly noticed in the foretold by Simon Brett, this particular book contains the most coherent and elaborate plot out of all of them thus far. I don’t really know if I can start to explain what grand adventures Arthur Dent and the rest of the gang are going through, I found it difficult enough to gather my thoughts together on that. I think it may be because when it comes to Douglas Adams, plot is not the thing that makes him a literary genius in my eyes.
It is the thought provoking, life truths he is talking about amidst all the humour. I feel like there wasn’t as much of that as in two previous books and it is a pity, because I enjoyed it tremendously.
We can’t win against obsession. They care, we don’t. They win.
The more of Adams’ work I read, the more absurd it gets and in “Life, The Universe and Everything” it felt as if he started to loose it to a small degree. I found myself to be rereading certain paragraph as they didn’t make sense the first time around. It was incoherent rambling at times.
Regardless of the fact that this book didn’t reach the same standards as the previous two, it was still an enjoyable read, just a little bit more challenging at times. The Hitchhiker’s Guide is a trilogy of five and so there are two more books for me to read and I will gladly jump into the next one, hoping that Adams will pick it back up again. In “Life, The Universe and Everything” I missed those life altering truths that everybody knows or thinks about at some stage, but nobody says out loud. It didn’t have as much impact on me without them, even if the plot had improved significantly. Plot is not the reason you pick up Douglas Adams’ work.”Life, the Universe and Everything” didn’t inspire as I hoped it would.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this review, let me know down in the comment section!
Until next time, Dream on Dreamers!
The Wolf Pad 