Not all of Douglas Adams' writing is easily
grasped first time round. This section includes explanations of
some of the trickier sections, or best guesses in the case of the
rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.
This book comes first because it often requires
more explanation than all of Douglas Adams' other books... put
together. The producers and adaptor of the novel for the stage
production Dirk have found similar problems and resorted
to resolving some of the trickier parts of the novel by simply
ignoring them... see C.5. for details.
In our reality, Coleridge claimed to have
composed Kubla Khan in its entirety while on a laudanaum
trip (and not in his sleep as previously stated in this FAQ), and
was in the process of writing it down when a local interrupted
him. When Coleridge returned to his work, he found that he could
not remember the rest of the poem. Hence, there never was a
second part of the poem. Yet, at the end of Chapter 6 when The
Director Of English Studies is reading Kubla Khan the book
states 'The voice (that of the director of english studies)
continues, reading the second, and altogether strange part of the
poem.'
In the book, Kubla Khan has a second
part. The book is not actually set in our existence. It is set in
an existence in which the second part of Kubla Khan
exists. This second part of the poem tells the ghost about the
existence of the time machine and how to travel back and stop the
ship from exploding. As we well know the explosion of the ship is
what caused life to begin on this miserable little planet of
ours. When Dirk and Reg realised this they simply went forward in
time to when Coleridge was writing the second part of Kubla
Khan and stopped him. Dirk just interrupted him and talked so
much that Coleridge forgot what the second part was going to be
about and therefore could not finish it! This change of history
sent reality back into our perspective and the human race lived
on (Yay, yippee!).
Quite simple really.
In an interview in a back issue of Mostly
Harmless (see section Z), Douglas
mentioned that he had made this pattern of 42 squares into a
puzzle that depicted the number '42' in ten different ways. Here
are six of the solutions:
1. There are 6 rows of 7 spheres, making a grand total of 42.
2. One of the globes has a bar code- 4 of the lines have no thick
line next to them, 2 of them do. The barcode is 42.
3. If a red-tint filter is used so that red, purple, 'dark
yellow' and black become black (binary 1) and the rest become
white (binary 0) then the lines of the diagram become 0101010,
which is 42 in binary.
4. Similarly, using a blue-tint filter shows the number '42' in
quite big letters.
5. Using a yellow-tint filter shows up 'XLII' across the top of
the page, which is forty-two in Roman numerals.
6. The Earth is the forty-second sphere (this may sound tenuous
but this was admitted by Douglas Adams himself...)
It's a mistake, actually. What happened is that
the original 6 episodes were 35 minutes long in the original BBC
run. When they came to the States, in the interests of American
advertising they were edited and cut, giving birth to a
'legendary' seventh episode.
Why was Pink Floyd's music taken out of the
radio series? Well, from the man himself:
"That's a very good question, and quite
an instructive answer (I think!). The BBC Clearing the Use of
Seventies Rock Music in Comedy Science Fiction Stories Department
tried to clear the use of this snatch of music. They didn't ask
me about it and had no idea that I knew any of the band. In fact
there's no reason why they should ask me P if I had every detail
of every obscure copyright negotiation referred back to me it
would be a full time job. The BBC department in question would
have been dealing with PF's lawyers, and exactly the same
applies.
So we were all locked in a legal battle
without any of the principals having the remotest idea. Another
point is that I think that the actual piece was probably
copyrighted at least in part to Roger Waters, whom I don't know
at all. In fact, being a friend of Dave and Nick would probably
have weighed against me in that case..."
Anyway, to sum it up: Copyright Law. 'nuff said.
Okay, this is the footnote from the original
radio scripts, and clears up all this speculation and questioning
of how it is everyone calls Ford by his Earth name, and not by
his Betelgeusian one.
Not that we want to encourage discussions about
this, but one thing that's not explained is how Arthur can
read the words "Don't Panic" written on the Hitch
Hiker's Guide that he is given by Ford. Go figure that
(silently).
Paul Neil Milne Johnstone is a real person, who
wrote some appalling poetry. Douglas Adams used his name, but was
force to retract it for the books and later recordings of the
radio series. Hence the original programmes have Paul Neil Milne
Johnstone, whereas the later works have Paula Nancy Millstone
Jennings.
Either way, the poetry still sucks. Check it out
here.
The bit about monkeys was a reference to a
probability theory that if you were to put an infinite number of
monkeys at typewriters, pressing keys randomly at a steady rate,
eventually one will bash out the script to Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Although why Shakespeare kept pet monkeys has never quite been
properly explained to me.
For brief details on where to find this Hitch
Hiker's Guide short story by Douglas Adams, see X.1..
The big questions surrounding this story seems to be about the
escaped robot, and his/her identity. So who/what exactly is this?
Good question. The reference to the shining city on a hill is
probably a reference to Matthew 5:14. Some people also assume the
"mystery person" in question is Jesus Christ. As YZPIS
was originally published in the Comic Relief Christmas
special book, that would make sense.
However, Douglas Adams himself now claims that the
mystery person is, in fact, Ronald Reagan. A short piece by
Douglas in the compilation book The Wizards of Odd (which
also features the entire story) quotes parts of the story as
evidence to support this, so it seems even more feasible than any
other explanation you might care to come up with.
Cast your mind back to the party scene in
"Life the Universe and Everything". Remember how
someone had won an award. 'So what?' Well it turns out things
happened rather differently in the American version of the book;
the passage was altered almost certainly for fear of offending
people...
Original UK phrasing (page 114):
Has been filled out to become:
- "The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word
"Belgium" in a Serious Screenplay. It's very
prestigious."
"The most gratuitous use of which word?" asked
Arthur, with a determined attempt to keep his brain in
neutral.
"Belgium," said the girl, "I hardly like
to say it."
"Belgium?" exclaimed Arthur.
A drunken seven-toed sloth staggered past, gawked at the
word and threw itself backward at a blurry-eyed
pterodactyl, roaring with displeasure.
"Are we talking," said Arthur, "about the
very flat country, with all the EEC and the fog?"
"What?" said the girl.
"Belgium," said Arthur.
"Raaaaaarrrchchchchch!" screeched the
pterodactyl.
"Grrruuuuuurrrghhhh," agreed the seven-toed
sloth.
"They must be thinking of Ostend Hoverport,"
muttered Arthur. He turned back to the girl.
"Have you ever been to Belgium in fact?" he
asked brightly and she nearly hit him.
"I think," she said, restraining herself,
"that you should restrict that sort of remark to
something artistic."
"You sound as if I just said something unspeakable
rude."
"You did."
In today's modern Galaxy there is of course very little
still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions
which only a matter of decades ago were considered so
distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be
breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned,
barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot
through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and
proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is
seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally
un****ed-up personality.
So, for instance, when in a recent national speech the
Financial Minister of the Royal World Estate of
Quarlvista actually dared to say that due to one thing
and another and the fact that no one had made any food
for a while and the king seemed to have died and most of
the population had been on holiday now for over three
years, the economy was now in what he called "one
whole joojooflop situation," everyone was so pleased
that he felt able to come out and say it that they quite
failed to note that their entire five-thousand-year-old
civilization had just collapsed overnight.
But even though words like "joojooflop,"
"swut," and "turlingdrome" are now
perfectly acceptable in common usage there is one word
that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is
so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the
word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the Galaxy
except for use in Serious screenplays.
There is also, or _was_, one planet where they didn't
know what it meant, the stupid turlingdromes.
"I see," said Arthur, who didn't, "so what
do you get for using the name of a perfectly innocent if
slightly dull European country gratuitously in a Serious
Screenplay?"
In case it doesn't all fit together...
The Grebulons were set up by The Guide MKII to
blow up the Earth after all of the stray earthlings were back on
it. The astrology wasn't important, but it may have helped them
to decide to blow up the Earth. The Grebulons were set up by the
Vogons who took over the Guide and made The Guide MkII. The
psychologists hired the Vogons to destroy the Earth because
knowing The Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything would
put them out of a job. The Earth was made to find out The
Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. The first time
the Vogons blew up the Earth, they failed to do it throughout the
Whole Sort Of General Mish Mash, and Arthur and Trillian utterly
failed to be blown up at all. This was supposedly fixed at the
end by The Guide MK II (which made the destruction of the Earth
inevitable in all realities), and so the Earth was finally
destroyed, the Prostetnic Vogon Geltz could check off the little
box, and the psychiatrists could live knowing they were going to
have jobs for as long as they cared to live.
Now for Arthur. After meeting Agrajag, Arthur
knew he couldn't die until he had been to Stavromula Beta. At the
end, they all met coincidentally (as a result of The Guide MkII
as described above) and Arthur ducked when he was shot at. The
guy who got hit was, of course, Agrajag, and commented on it
being Arthur who killed him again. Then Arthur picked up a card
from a table and noticed what it said. Stavoro Muller: Beta.
Notice the similarity to Stavromula Beta. There was now nothing
keeping Arthur from dying, so he figured that there was no way
out of this one.
This answer is newly added (and thoroughly
nicked from Brian Kofford) so if you have a different take on
what happens, make a post about it.
"They can't all be dead!"
They can, and they are, until the next book.
Of course it's fifty-four. We all know it's
forty-two. We're not thick, and neither is Douglas Adams. The
thick one is whoever actually genuinely asked this question, and
didn't get the idea that the joke is that it is the wrong
question for the answer (or the wrong answer for the question, if
you prefer). Got it?
Arguably, 6x9=42 in base 13. Some people refute this with the common sense that people don't write jokes in base 13.