Have Thumbs Will Travel
Yesterday, I ventured with Pat to Bugis Junction in search of a decent pair of shorts. Therefore, I popped into Kinokuniya and got myself The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But not just any Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The omnibus edition. The one and only trilogy of five books complete with a bonus story all in one outrageous volume. The paperback edition that costs $6 more than the hardcover one.
I suppose that despite my present financial situation (I am currently facing cash-flow problems i.e. the money isn’t flowing from my boss to me), this is just as good a time as any to have made this… er… investment.
Firstly, even though I’ve read it twice, just looking at that grinning tennis ball sans lines with the camera, hat and suitcase makes me happy. Inexplicably happy.
Secondly, I wanted to get the book way before The-Hitchhiker’s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-movie craze which will undoubtedly sweep the world next year when the movie is released which will see secondary school kids lugging the volume around whining like Marvin the Paranoid Android (or me, as John would have it) or proclaiming themselves President of the Universe ala good old Zaphod. What’s worse having to endure JC students debating, for example, if Douglas Adams’ style is more P.G. Wodehouse or John Irving.
However, having said that, comparing THHGTTG to The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter would be a slight exaggeration. The latter two aren’t even in the same league. What we are talking about in THHGTTG is, after all, the most hilarious, imaginative, eye-popping, gut-swelling collection of stories ever written. The type of book that laments the state of humanity but that also makes you laugh. And laugh out loud at that. (If you are shallow and totally uninterested in the goings-on of the world, like me, just read it for the laughs.) And besides, who ever squeezed five novels about sticking your thumbs up at the stars AND a bonus story into a trilogy?
I suppose that despite my present financial situation (I am currently facing cash-flow problems i.e. the money isn’t flowing from my boss to me), this is just as good a time as any to have made this… er… investment.
Firstly, even though I’ve read it twice, just looking at that grinning tennis ball sans lines with the camera, hat and suitcase makes me happy. Inexplicably happy.
Secondly, I wanted to get the book way before The-Hitchhiker’s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-movie craze which will undoubtedly sweep the world next year when the movie is released which will see secondary school kids lugging the volume around whining like Marvin the Paranoid Android (or me, as John would have it) or proclaiming themselves President of the Universe ala good old Zaphod. What’s worse having to endure JC students debating, for example, if Douglas Adams’ style is more P.G. Wodehouse or John Irving.
However, having said that, comparing THHGTTG to The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter would be a slight exaggeration. The latter two aren’t even in the same league. What we are talking about in THHGTTG is, after all, the most hilarious, imaginative, eye-popping, gut-swelling collection of stories ever written. The type of book that laments the state of humanity but that also makes you laugh. And laugh out loud at that. (If you are shallow and totally uninterested in the goings-on of the world, like me, just read it for the laughs.) And besides, who ever squeezed five novels about sticking your thumbs up at the stars AND a bonus story into a trilogy?
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