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New Hitchhiker's Guide Book "Not Very Funny"
daria42 writes "An early review of part of the Eoin Colfer-penned sequel to Douglas Adams's Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy series has panned the book as not being very funny. If you read Hitchhiker to have a good laugh, maybe you're going to be disappointed," wrote Nicolas Botti, on his Douglas Adams fan site earlier this month."
They said the same thing about the Hollywood movie, and look how that turned...
Oh, CRAP!
I always found spinach in food overrated. A few tasty bits in any dish is fine, but to eat an entire dish that was suppose to be spinach. I dunno I can't see myself enjoying it that much. Even if the spinach was quality and well prepared.
On the plus side, Eoin Colfer has won the Ambiguously Pronounced Name Award!
Tell me about it, I hate when I read a really good book that keeps me entertained for hours.
You didn't read Discworld, then? Is not that the entire books means to be funny, but have a lot of good laughs, and that in a story interesting enough that have a bit of everything. When i have to classify the secondary genre of those books, i doubt between fantasy, terror, sci-fi, philosophy and others, but the first one is humor definately.
> A few funny bits in any book is fine, but to read an entire book that was suppose to be funny. I dunno I can't see myself enjoying it that much. Even if the jokes were intelligent and witty.
Normally I would agree with you, except Douglas Adams was the guy who introduced me to the pleasure of laughing. After all, he was the guy who figured out humour for the geek.
I always found humor in literature overrated. A few funny bits in any book is fine, but to read an entire book that was suppose to be funny. I dunno I can't see myself enjoying it that much. Even if the jokes were intelligent and witty.
Humor in literature is in fact vastly underrated because a lot of insecure people have the primitive feeling that if it is fun, then it can only be inferior art. Humorous books aren't wall-to-wall jokes, but often subtle literary works employing a wide array of literary devices to convey the authors intentions. Joseph Heller's "Catch 22", Cervantes' "Don Quixote", Jaroslav Hasek's "The Good Soldier Svejk", Franz Kafka's "The Castle", Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" are all humorous works of the highest literary grade.
Try a funny book someday, you may like it.
--
Regards
Really,
What was left unsaid, unexplored, unpadded, etc. in the original Doug Adams volumes? As a series, they were one book too long as it stood, really.
The creme was in the two BBC radio series, and the material was presented it its most delightful and appealing way in this format.
The books were little more than these programmes, padded with the narrative required to contextualize in written form. It's my belief that they suffered under this treatment. Certainly, they labored the humor - without the excellent timing and auditory cues, which were integral.
So. A good author now contributes a mediocre and unnecessary addition to an entertaining body of work, derived with some encumbrance from a superior and lively original radio play. To reiterate my original question, what had not yet been mined from that vein? What had not yet been wrung and worried from that corpus?
Oh, yes. More publishing revenues.
I think the Python's were quite good at satirizing this sort of thing - and Adams would have a good turn at it, himself: "The Contractual Obligation Beyond the Reasonable End of the Universe", or so.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Funny, geeky, fantasy.
He told me he was a page. "Go on," I said, "You ain't no more than a paragraph!"
I only found the first two books funny. The rest... not so much.
Third was pretty good. Not as good as the first two, but pretty good (in my opinion).
The fourth was OK. Definitely a "OK, here's your damn book, get off my back." The best parts seemed self-referential - the supposedly final book is "so long, and thanks for all the fish?" Cute move.
The fifth was hilarious in a way because it seemed to be a genial "fuck you" to forces that insisted on a new book. He closed the book in a very clever way that resulted in the main character being killed off.
Then of course he died himself, which if he could have written it would have been hilarious. I mean no disrespect, but I think he'd have appreciated the symmetry.
so long and thanks for all the fiction.
rewriting history since 2109
I think Mostly Harmless made it pretty clear that Douglas Adams was more than done with the series. If any further proof was necessary, I had an opportunity to talk with Adams shortly before his death, and got the same impression -- he was sick of the series, and wrote Mostly Harmless because he had to.
I would much rather have read a third Dirk Gentley novel than a half-hearted Hitchhiker novel, and might have but for rabid Hitchhiker fans. Not that I'm bitter.
It doesn't really matter what the new novel is like. I'm done with that.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Humor in literature is in fact vastly underrated because a lot of insecure people have the primitive feeling that if it is fun, then it can only be inferior art.
Cue the Calvin and Hobbes comic contrasting 'high art' and 'low art':
Calvin: A painting. Moving. Spiritually enriching. Sublime. "High" art!
Calvin: The comic strip. Vapid. Juvenile. Commercial hack work. "Low" art.
Calvin: A painting of a comic strip panel. Sophisticated irony. Philosophically challenging. "High" art.
Hobbes: Suppose I draw a cartoon of a painting of a comic strip?
Calvin: Sophomoric, intellectually sterile. "Low" art.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I have never said this before but...Boy I wish I had mod points. (I might have but I don't think so). Calvin and Hobbes is by far one of the most insightful things I have ever read. Yet to most people it is still 'low art' and the same goes for the Guide. It is smart, funny, and so obviously about humanity that if the Vogans showed had little tags that read 'post office' or 'DMV' it would go quickly from funny to sadly real. Anyway, +5 insightful
We are the Borg...
I am a book, "Contractual Obligation to end 5 book trilogy", Mark 2. I have been activated. I will explode into outlet bookstores and recycling programs in 7 days. 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 45 seconds. 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 30 seconds. 6 days...
"Oh, Dear." uttered the ghost of Douglas. The ghosts of the other authors twittered behind him. "We told you this would happen" spat Tolkien, who had assumed a rather ungainly set of almost holographic elven ears...
dig out a copy of last chance to see. that has some of adam's best work...
Sleeping in Labuan Bajo, however, is something of an endurance test.
Being woken at dawn by the cockerels is not in itself a problem. The problem arises when the cockerels get confused as to when dawn actually is. They suddenly explode into life squawking and screaming at about one o'clock in the morning. At about one-thirty they eventually realise their mistake and shut up, just as the major dog-fights of the evening are getting under way. These usually start with a few minor bouts between the more enthusiastic youngsters, and then the full chorus of heavyweights weighs in with a fine impression of what it might be like to fall into the pit of hell with the London Symphony Orchestra.
It is then quite an education to learn that two cats fighting can make easily as much noise as forty dogs. It is a pity to have to learn this at two-fifteen in the morning, but then the cats have a lot to complain about in Labuan Bajo. They all have their tails docked at birth, which is supposed to bring good luck, though presumably not to the cats.
Once the cats have concluded their reflections on this, the cockerels suddenly get the idea that it's dawn again and let rip. It isn't, of course. Dawn is still two hours away, and you still have the delivery van horn-blowing competition to get through to the accompaniment of the major divorce proceedings that have suddenly erupted in the room next door.
At last things calm down and your eyelids begin to slide thankfully together in the blessed predawn hush, and then, about five minutes later, the cockerels finally get it right.
Eoin is a perfectly standard spelling in Gaelic, we tend to use too many vowels, a friend of mine, Aoife (pronounced eefa) has great fun in other English speaking countries. Now try Aodhan, ;)
How about you quit hogging all those vowels and share some with those poor Welsh?