Is Douglas Adams overrated?

Douglas Adams - of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame -  would have been 72 today, if he had not died in 2001. 

Is he overrated? Yes - in the sense that he is regarded by many people as one of the great comic writers. 

My evaluation is that Adams was only great in Hitchhikers Guide, all his other work being second-rate (or worse) - therefore he is essentially a one-hit-wonder, rather than "great". 

Furthermore; it is only the first and second BBC radio series of Hitchhiker's Guide broadcast 1978-80) that were truly, unsurpassably, great - and all other versions and variations of HHGG are significantly worse. 

Yet, Adams cannot take all the credit for the greatness of the radio HHGG. 

It is instead a masterly collaboration; in which actor Peter Jones (as The Book) is vital; and so are the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; and - in general - the producers and directors responsible for creating the "soundscape" which was marvelous and unlike anything else. 

Of course Adams's radio scripts are absolutely superb. I tuned into Episode Five of Series One, Sunday 5th April 1978, shortly after the programme had started. And, knowing nothing whatsoever about what I was listening to - I was immediately stunned by the sheer brilliance and originality, and captivated by the world Adams had created. 

So I do not under-rate Douglas Adams - far from it!

But The LP recording (which I bought in 1979) was somewhat less good than the radio version; the novelizations (beginning from 1979) were nothing like as good as the radio; the 1981 BBC TV show was worse than any of the above... and so forth. 

After the arc of the radio series one and two had finished in 1980,  Adams's work described a progressively downward trajectory in quality. The later books were almost embarrassingly thin on ideas - it felt like the authors was squeezing harder and harder, to extract ever-fewer drops of inspiration out of ever-staler old ideas.   

We ought to judge artists by their best work. As such, Adams best work was his earliest radio work, and he maintained that level for two years, that is six hours of radio. 

Having experienced his best work before reading the novelizations; my evaluation of Adams as a writer of books was that he was always less than first-rate. 

Therefore, insofar as Douglas Adams's books are regarded as first-rate - he is indeed overrated.  

Douglas Adams' attempt at nihilism

*

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) was the writer of one of the most perfectly satisfying comedy works; which is the 12 episode BBC Radio production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

(Not the abridged Vinyl version of HHGG, nor the BBC TV version, nor the novelization, nor the movie - but the original BBC Radio production which ran in two six part series the first from 1978 and the second in 1980).

In this, Adams underlying metaphysic is just about the most complete nihilism that has been achieved in any popular work of art.

It is interesting to see what response Adams made to his own world view - in HHGG and also in his own life.

*

For a start - hear the revelation of near-complete nihilism in the character who is the 'ruler of the universe' which they finally encounter at the end of the final episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRVd7EQq2-4

Starting at 46 minutes and going on to 53:40.

*

In such a universe, how are the characters motivated?

Essentially they seek distraction (touring the universe in search of pleasing amusement and interest - parties, sex, etc; or failing that then adventure); they seek the gratification of status (most successfully pursued by the total egotist Zaphod Beeblebrox); and failing all this they seek mental oblivion (especially by the super-intoxicating drink called a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster).

Douglas Adams, consistent with this, became one of the most public and outspoken of British 'militant atheists' (his own terminology) - he wrote some more books, scripts etc (all on significantly lower level than the original radio series), got rich and famous, traveled, bought cars, became a keen technophile (an early advocate for Apple/ Macintosh computers), had a chaotic relationship eventually leading to marriage and a daughter, became known for his interest in conservation issues - and died young of a heart attack induced by hard exercising in a gym.

In other words, Adams' own life was fairly typical of the most successful members of the modern liberal elite and of the successful characters in HHGG and his other novels: a mixture of status seeking, fashionable activism, and serial distraction (of a high status type).

*

Aside from being cut short, Adams life was a complete success within the terms of his own world view - he was likable, popular with famous friends, did the kind of exciting things people want to do, and as a bonus produced a work of genius.

And he was a near-complete nihilist.

Of course, Douglas Adams was not a wholly consistent nihilist - such a thing is a logical impossibility. Obviously, no true nihilist could be 'militant' about anything, nor would they engage in strenuous activism.

But we can look at the nature of life as conceived in Adams novels and in his own existence to see the best that modernity has to offer - and to decide whether it is good enough: whether or not it is worth living (and dying) for that kind of life.

*

Total perspective vortex: the nihilist universe

*

Among the ways in which Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy expresses his nihilistic view of the universe

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/10/douglas-adams-attempt-at-nihilism.html

(a nihilism which is in fact mainstream in modern public discourse - thought very seldom expressed with such economy and wit)

is the concept of the Total Perspective Vortex.

*

The TPV is a punishment (indeed a capital punishment, in all but one instance) which shows the victim the (nihilist) Truth that they - and indeed everything they might value - are in 'reality' utterly insignificant, and that reality is (therefore) meaningless.

*

[The modern nihilist perspective should be contrasted with the description of the human situation of pre-modern man - for example the Medieval cosmology:

[ http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/06/medieval-cosmology-looking-up-at-stars.html

[A difference was that although the Medieval cosmology shared the sense of insignificance of size between humans (and earth) and the universe, and indeed regarded the earth as the lowest and most corrupt part of the universe - there was a spiritual sense which transcended physical differential by the centrality of the salvation of each individual soul.

[Adams believed and argued that this Medieval perspective, and indeed all genuine religious perspectives, were 'evil' (that is, evil in the sense of leading to sub-optimal human happiness) - and that adoption of the actuality  exemplified by the imagined operations of the Total Perspective Vortex would lead to a better world with less suffering.

*

[How Adams believed this, I understand - because I believed it too - but I don't know of any coherent rational argument which truly, actually gets you from accepting the validity of insight deriving from the TPV to Left-Liberalism, Relativism and Lifestyle Hedonism. Let's just say that this link is accepted.]

*

The nihilist cosmology which the Total Perspective Vortex forces upon its victim has no real answer - the only answer (as Adams makes clear) is to avoid thinking about reality - perhaps by distracting the mind with serial pleasures such as going to parties, perhaps by obliterating consciousness with a Pan Galactic Gargleblaster; or perhaps by the conviction of total egotism as possessed by Zaphod Beeblebrox: the grandiose delusion of one's own importance.

*

For Adams, as a representative modern elite intellectual, the most important thing about reality is to avoid it as completely as possible and for as long as possible.

To do this is assisted by Lifestyle Freedom and Serial Distraction - indeed, these are imperative.

The body's 'natural' appetites are exploited to (ideally) overwhelm consciousness with absorption in pleasure (preferably pleasure, but if this doesn't work then just absorption in something like status-seeking, plans of seduction, consumption; and if this doesn't work then daydreams about these things.

*

Nihilism is the attempted avoidance of reality by denial of the reality of reality; because if reality really was what it seems to be, and one is really an insignificant speck, then one's own knowledge of reality could not be valid (since insignificant specks lack valid knowledge).

The choice, then, is to accept a self-refuting and paralyzing reality, which kills you; or to avoid the whole question until you are taken by death.

(Modern society does both, mostly the latter - so far - but increasingly more of the former...)

***

(From Episode 8 of the BBC Radio series transcript. I still recall listening to this broadcast live and for the first time - one of the great comedy moments of my life.)

The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettling big place. The fact which, for the sake of a quiet life, most people tend to ignore. 


Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings, in fact, do.


For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the great forest planet Oglaroon. The entire ‘intelligent’ population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they’re born, live, fall in love, carve tiny, speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death, and the importance of birth control, fight a few - very minor - wars, and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches. In fact, the only Oglaroonians who ever leave their tree at all are those who are hurled out for the heinous crime of wondering whether any of the other trees might be capable of supporting life at all, or indeed be anything other than illusions brought on by eating too many Oglanuts. 


Exotic though this behaviour may seem, there is no life-form in the galaxy not in some way guilty of the same thing. Which is why the Total Perspective Vortex is as horrific as it undoubtedly is. 


For when you are put in the Vortex, you are given just one, momentary glimpse of the size of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation along with a tiny little marker saying, “You are here”.

Scene 7. Int. Frogstar

GARGRAVARR: [Humming]

MAN: [Blood-curdling scream]

ZAPHOD: Hey man, what was that?

GARGRAVARR: A man being put in the Vortex I’m afraid. We’re very close to it now.

ZAPHOD: Hey, it sounds really bad. Couldn’t we maybe go to a party or something, for a while… think it over?

GARGRAVARR: For all I know I’m probably at one. My body that is. He goes to a lot of parties without me… says I only get in the way. Hey ho

ZAPHOD: I can see why it wouldn’t want to come here. This place is the dismalest. Looks like a bomb’s hit it you know.

GARGRAVARR: Several have - it’s a very unpopular place. The Vortex is in the heaviest steel bunker ahead of you.

MAN: [Blood-curdling scream]

ZAPHOD: The universe does that to a guy?

GARGRAVARR: The whole infinite Universe. The Infinite sums. The Infinite distances between them, and yourself. An invisible dot on an invisible dot. Infinitely small.
 
The Vortex derives its picture of the whole universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.


To explain - since every piece of matter in the universe is in someway affected by every other piece of matter in the universe, it is, in theory, possible to extrapolate the whole of creation - every galaxy, every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history, from, say - one small piece of fairy cake. 


The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so, basically, in order to annoy his wife. 


Trin Tragula, for that was his name, was a dreamer, a speculative thinker, or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he would spend staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake. “Have some sense of proportion,” she would say, thirty-eight times a day.


And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex - just to show her. And in one end he plugged the whole of reality, as extrapolated from a fairy cake, and in the other end he plugged his wife - so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.


To Trin Tragula’s horror, the shock annihilated her brain.


But to his satisfaction, he realised he had conclusively proved that if life is going to exist in a universe this size, the one thing it cannot afford to have, is a sense of proportion.


And it is into this Vortex that Zaphod Beeblebrox has been put, and from which, a few seconds later, he emerges.

Scene 8. Int. Frogstar

[The Vortex door opens]

ZAPHOD: Hi.

GARGRAVARR: Beeblebrox! You’re…!

ZAPHOD: Fine, fine. Could I have a drink please?

GARGRAVARR: You’ve been in the Vortex?!

ZAPHOD: You saw me kid.

GARGRAVARR: And you saw the whole infinity of creation?!

ZAPHOD: The lot baby - it’s a real neat place you know, heh-heh.

GARGRAVARR: And you saw yourself in relation to it all?!

ZAPHOD: Yah, yeah, yeah.

GARGRAVARR: And what did you experience?!

ZAPHOD: It just told me what I knew all the time: I’m a really great guy! Didn’t I tell ya baby, I am Zaphod Beeblebrox!!

***


Note: In my college year book for 1982 the class elected each other for various spoof 'awards': mine was 'The Zaphod Beeblebrox Ego Award'...

*

Review of The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin by L Jagi Lamplighter

*
L Jagi Lamplighter, The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, 2013. pp 380.

This was one of the most wholly enjoyable books I have read for some time, thoroughly entertaining and thoroughly interesting; an experience especially welcome coming from an author new to me. And unusual; given that I am increasingly hard to please, therefore not always reading fiction nowadays. I may go for a few weeks without having a novel 'on the go' - and even longer if re-reads are not counted.

It is in the Young Adult fantasy genre, set in a co-educational boarding school for sorcerers - something like a more wholesome and hopeful Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams: that is to say, a highly intelligent and witty fiction, bubbling with ideas.

The action is seen through the eyes of a thirteen year old girl who - as well as being an untrained sorcerer - has (inherited from her mother) a special power of memory, with total recall and rewind facilities. This ability is central to the plot - and depicted very convincingly. She is just starting at school, and the action of the book unfolds over the first days, consisting of detailed scenes almost in 'real time'.

As might be expected from a young teen heroine and in the 'girls boarding school genre' (a few Enid Blyton examples of which I read as a kid); nearly all the characters are depicted as very good looking, but in different ways and degrees; and life is seen through a lens of friends and friendship-groups. In addition, each child and teacher seems to have some distinctive magical or personal ability - rather like Marvel or DC superhero teams - so the characters are not inter-changeable.

My point is that the style is light, humourous, somewhat detached. Although there is plenty of emotion and action; these have a 'classical' objectivity - more like a Shaw play or a Mozart opera, than the emotional focus of Shakespeare or Puccini! Rachel Griffin has its passions and romances; but is a world away from the 'hormone storms' and doomed love of most YA fiction. The young heroine is precociously intelligent, sensible, philosophical as well as empathic - and consequently dominates the situation in a way which is essentially feminine - but tom-boyishly feminine. 

So, from my perspective, Rachel Griffin was a completely-successful example of its type - and had me beguiled and mentally-stimulated throughout. And I was pleased to note that this is the first of a series, and there is another Rachel Griffin book for me to look forward to!

*