Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

This is the last assignment for me while studying English.

Once upon a time long long ago I read a book after listening to my older brother who said it was a great book. He said it was a trilogy in four parts. Impossible, I thought, but it was true! And that's the way this book works.

When I had to read a book now I thought: “Why not read that book again, but in English, it is always better to read in the original language”. (Of course I have read a lot of other English books lately, mostly by Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum, but now I had to read for the class)

First short about his language, before I proceeds with the subject I have chosen: Critics of the society.

Language

The author Douglas Adams had got magic fingers when he tapped on his computer, unfortunately he died before he wrote the last book “and another thing...”, which is the sixth part (Eion Colfer wrote it as a 30 years celebration of the first part).

He uses the laws of physics and the words different meanings so that you sometimes feel lost in a jungle of misunderstandings. One of my favorite quote is “the (space)ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't”.

Even the babelfish is an invention of Mr Adams which has been used in a lot of places, for example yahoo's translation tool Babel Fish.

Critics of the society

God

Religion is alway a nice subject to talk about, because everyone have something to say about it.

First of all, in the begining of the book he wrote about "a man nailed to a tree just because he wanted everyone to be polite to each other" (not a quote). It says a lot about how we humans are. Cruel and without logic.

Talking about logic we'll se how he kills God! "I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." (chapter six) Just a logical proof and God ceases to exist.

Capitalism

Much of the critisism is hidden in peculiar was, like the money transactions "Many solutions were suggested for this problem (depressed people), but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." He's got a very good point there, in the introduction to the book. The moving of green papers have killed many and made even more suffer a lot. 

Bureaucrazy

In the third chapter of the first book the Vogons (space creatures) tells the humans that their planet are going to be destroyed, and that the plans have been out in the public for 50 years (in the center of the galaxy), so no use to complain. It is so obvious that the ordinary people have no chance against the bureaucrats when it comes to complain. There are even more places in the book about this, but I will let you read those passages by your self.

Why read this book?

That's a good question! The book is very strange and I know that a lot of people, especially non-nature science-people, have a hard time with it. If you are going to be an engineer you must have read it. It is a classics!