I just read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for the first time, and yes, I deliberately waited until I was years out of high schoolmate read it for fear of liking it and then being entangled in a conversation about it that would be overheard by others which might actually make people think something about me. Horrors. (After overdosing on Cormac McCarthy, I've decided to really shake up my reading list. So, I've hit 100 Years of Solitude, All the King's Men, Hitchhiker's Guide, and now am on to Zola's Germinal which so far is about coal miners in Northern France in the 1800s who expectorate black foam.)
So, after hearing so much about it, and after reading that the Washington Post said it was inspired lunacy and all manner of other superlatives, I was pumped. And when I finished, I wasn't blown away. Sure, I found it really entertaining, specifically the depressed robot Marvin, but it wasn't like this was the weirdest and wildest space odyssey I had ever read. That would be Borgel. What, you haven't heard of Borgel by Daniel Pinkwater? that's because no one has because it's completely idiotic (and hilarious). Same kinda thing, person living on earth is really an alien, takes human off of earth, they have crazy adventures, earth animals are really sentient, and there's a giant computer that talks. Except in Borgel there is a dancing popsicle that is somehow a representation of God/supreme power, Borgel being zapped back to the old country, an incredibly disgusting bloboform running a root beer stand, and traveling near the gates of Hell by way of Terre Haute.
It's not that Hitchhiker is boring, it just wasn't as mind blowing as I was expecting, plus I'm a huge Pinkwater fan, so I've become desensitized to weirdness. And I thought the writing was much better than much of Pinkwater's stuff. (Trust me when I say that The Last Guru might be one of the worst things ever written. Same is true of the Worms of Kukomlima. On the other hand, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, and Young Adult Novel are absolute classics. Young Adult Novel changed my life and launched me into my "absurdist plays" writing period.)
So, after hearing so much about it, and after reading that the Washington Post said it was inspired lunacy and all manner of other superlatives, I was pumped. And when I finished, I wasn't blown away. Sure, I found it really entertaining, specifically the depressed robot Marvin, but it wasn't like this was the weirdest and wildest space odyssey I had ever read. That would be Borgel. What, you haven't heard of Borgel by Daniel Pinkwater? that's because no one has because it's completely idiotic (and hilarious). Same kinda thing, person living on earth is really an alien, takes human off of earth, they have crazy adventures, earth animals are really sentient, and there's a giant computer that talks. Except in Borgel there is a dancing popsicle that is somehow a representation of God/supreme power, Borgel being zapped back to the old country, an incredibly disgusting bloboform running a root beer stand, and traveling near the gates of Hell by way of Terre Haute.
It's not that Hitchhiker is boring, it just wasn't as mind blowing as I was expecting, plus I'm a huge Pinkwater fan, so I've become desensitized to weirdness. And I thought the writing was much better than much of Pinkwater's stuff. (Trust me when I say that The Last Guru might be one of the worst things ever written. Same is true of the Worms of Kukomlima. On the other hand, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, and Young Adult Novel are absolute classics. Young Adult Novel changed my life and launched me into my "absurdist plays" writing period.)
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