The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams's beloved comic novel is not about some astonishingly lucky guy named Arthur Dent. Nor is it about a two-headed, three-armed, stoner politician. It's not even about that voluminous precursor to the Amazon Kindle called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

No, this slim, unassuming little book is about no less than a twenty-million-year quest for the meaning of life. It tells how a number of tremendous technological efforts, put forth by a race of superintelligent pandimensional beings, fail to find this great Answer, and then how a lonely, burned-out shoreline artisan figures it all out by himself.

There are many lost souls in Galaxy, ranging from the desperate egotist Zaphod Beeblebrox, to the endlessly thinking Marvin, to the money-grubbing, brain-stealing mice from another dimension. Each of them gropes in his own particular way for meaning and truth, and each of them comes up short or has to fudge his way to success. Zaphod and his buddy Ford Prefect are constant freewheelers; clever though they are, they rarely put their minds towards some grand good. They prefer to steal valuable machinery, evade authorities, do whatever comes next, and get wasted when they can.

Marvin and Arthur are more careful and logical in their approaches to life, but they allow their thoughts to carry them away, and they sink into sadness and anxiety. Marvin, being a robot, is gifted with mighty calculative capabilities, and thus he is especially crushed by this. He can navigate complex philosophies and analyze natural phenomena in nanoseconds. With no fulfilling challenges left to him, his boredom strikes him lame.

Other characters just want to keep their jobs, their money, or their reputations, and then get through the day without going crazy. Even these people aren't entirely happy, though. Theoretical scientists lynch each other when they're outsmarted. Colossal civilizations wage interstellar war over petty insults. Boring bureaucrats insist on being seen as creative and exciting, while their poetry is considered an instrument of torture. Even the super-wealthy can't find contentment, as they resort to ordering custom-made planets in their futile search for satisfaction.

So who is the one man who really understands the meaning of life? It's none other than Slartibartfast, one of the craftsmen of the planet Earth, who won an award for designing the fjords of Norway.

Here is how he puts it:

“Maybe. Who cares?” said Slartibartfast before Arthur got too excited. “Perhaps I’m old and tired,” he continued, “but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway.”

He rummaged around in a pile of debris and puled out a large Plexiglas block with his name on it and a model of Norway molded into it.

“Where’s the sense in that?” he said. “None that I’ve been able to make out. I’ve been doing fjords all my life. For a fleeting moment they become fashionable and I get a major award.”

He turned it over in his hands with a shrug and tossed it aside carelessly, but not so carelessly that it didn’t land on something soft.

“In this replacement Earth we’re building they’ve given me Africa to do and of course I’m doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I’m old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it’s not equatorial enough. Equatorial!” He gave a hollow laugh. “What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”

Adams quietly tucks this winning philosophy into his tale as a way of defusing the restless ambitions that constantly boil in his mad universe. Slartibartfast's attitude is very serene; almost Buddha-like. He's even given up on learning where he came from or why he exists. He desires little other than the joy he derives from the work that he does.

In a later book in the Galaxy series, Arthur finds himself in a similar position to Slartibartfast, when he becomes a sandwich maker in a remote village. Sadly, this calmness doesn't last for him, but he does acknowledge it as the one precious slice of time when he felt truly content. I think there's a lesson in that.

People write off the Hitchhiker's books as rubbish novels, but I find it hard to agree with that. They may be comedies, they may be a tad baked in their efforts to be quirky and random, and some of the dialogue is implausible, but I think there is a relevant and universal message buried in there somewhere. You're not going to find it in Marvin, though, so let the little guy go.

Rankin-Bass's The Hobbit

This lovely grey season invariably brings to my mind the creative efforts of one animation studio that has fallen away from society: the great, and yet humble, Rankin-Bass Productions. It was a daring and pioneering studio with tremendous vision, and one that left memories in all those who viewed their work. Compared to those of larger, more renowned studios such as Disney, Rankin-Bass's productions look plainer and cheaper, but there is an unmistakable spirit, a charming atmosphere and a full heart in them.

Even so, most people hate their version of The Hobbit.

I do not share this opinion. I still recall with warmth and fondness the years when the television networks aired The Hobbit without fail in November. I still recall those soft lute ballads, those gorgeous watercolor backgrounds, and the deep, rich voices of John Huston and Hans Conried engaging my child's senses. Sure, it's a cartoon that takes liberties with J.R.R. Tolkien's timeless story, diluting some of its more horrific scenes and themes of passage, but I still associate it with the thick, reflective nature of the holy season, and I think it's an excellent venue for introducing people to The Lord of the Rings, what most assume to be a ponderous text.

There are people who make the mistake of saying that The Hobbit is an adolescent fantasy dreamed up and admired by antisocial Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts. It's an understandable misunderstanding, as most folks of the age of The Hobbit's popularity had never before heard of Tolkien, who published his stories in the early 40s and 50s. The fact is, however, that Gary Gygax developed the D&D tabletop role-playing game as a way to relive hobbitty adventures. To plunge Tolkien fans, who were sad so see the stories of Frodo and Sam cease, right into the hiking boots of those hobbits, dwarves, and elves, and allow them to live out their own fantasies in Middle-Earth. Though some of its creature names and lore were changed for copyright purposes, Dungeons & Dragons is really no more than a detailed, imagination-fueled Tolkien simulator.

Such was the lure of the untamed and mystical world Tolkien devised. Rankin-Bass saw this, and decided to take on the tale of Bilbo Baggins and how he uses wits and determination to overcome tremendous dangers and bring peace to his society. The cartoon is only ninety minutes long, so many of the episodes described in the book are expectedly truncated, but others, thankfully the more memorable ones, are lavished with attention and treated royally.

What impresses me most about The Hobbit is its striking artistic style, which depicts its characters not as baby-faced, wide-eyed cherubs, but as aged, callused, wrinkled creatures, full of thought and desire. The wondrous voice acting adds to this. John Huston gives Gandalf the kindness which is the badge of experience and wisdom, while Hans Conried brings just the right amounts of pomp, pride, and power to the dwarf prince Thorin. There is still a gee-whiz quality in Orson Bean's Bilbo, but I think this helps to relate him to younger viewers, and it works for the rest of us because the hobbit is indeed a fifty-year old man who has lived a hopelessly sheltered life. Later in the movie, when Bilbo is confronted with his companions' unshakable greed, he takes on a disillusionment and disappointment that is immediately appealing and cheer-worthy.

The most haunting performance, however, is provided by Brother Theodore, who plays that pitiful prisoner of the One Ring, Gollum.

Tolkien fans never tire of berating the Rankin-Bass depiction of Gollum, who was described in The Lord of the Rings as having once been a hobbit, and who, in this cartoon, looks less like one of Bilbo's kin and more like an amphibious beast. Gollum is drawn as a being indigenous to deep, wet caverns, and he speaks and moves in a slow, meandering style. While this conflicts with how the character was described in The Lord of the Rings, to readers who've only enjoyed its predecessor, the Rankin-Bass Gollum probably won't seem too distracting. I like to remember that Tolkien rarely describes how his characters look in detail, and aside from Bilbo and Gandalf, most of the faces of Middle-Earth are left clear for the reader to construct. This version of The Hobbit is Rankin-Bass's, and thus it is only one interpretation of another man's words. Let's be a little fair to it, all right? The Riddles in the Dark chapter is one of most important in the book, and it is given its due time in the cartoon. Gollum's expressions are speech here are genuinely scary, and his raspy, echoing delivery of Tolkien's riddles always gives me chills.

The best part of the Hobbit, and this is my opinion as both a reader and a writer, is the terrific twist that occurs once the story's main quest is ended, and the many factions encountered by Bilbo converge for a massive battle. Sadly, it seems that Rankin-Bass lacked the budget or the permission to fully realize this battle, but there is still some surprising violence shown. The theme isn't lost, either, and my favorite scene of them all, in which Thorin redeems himself to Bilbo, is extraordinary, and darkly relevant in these depressing, deadly times.

I think people need to go easier on this particular vision of The Hobbit. It's a child of the 60s, when music was soft and loving, and not loud and self-serving, when people took pride in mankind's courage and generosity, and weren't constantly presented with its vices and indifference. It's also when cartoon specials really were special. If you think that The Hobbit is for nerds, or that its message is buried behind a mythology you lack the patience to penetrate, I think that Rankin-Bass's version is the door you should open.