1August
We've been reading M. J. Simpson's Hitchhiker
, a semi-authorised biography of Douglas Adams. It covers his life in 50 chapters, which Mr. Simpson divides into 42 chapters proper and eight interludes. It's a meaty book, something over 350 pages, but the short chapters and brisk style mean that it's a breeze to read. Mr. Simpson has done a remarkably thorough job, talking to pretty much everyone who was anyone in Mr. Adams' life. He's then sorted them out into chronological order, and goes from his schooling at Brentford, through Cambridge, his credit with Monty Python, and Dr Who
. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide doesn't enter the narrative until about a third of the way through, and goes on to dominate about half the book.
In spite of the name, this is not a history of the Hitch-Hiker's books; that task is covered by Neil Gaiman's Don't Panic
, to which Mr. Simpson contributed (uncredited) revisions in 2001. For that reason, many of the anecdotes in Mr. Gaiman's book are missing from Mr. Simpson's, and the latter contradicts the former on many occasions. Mr. Gaiman's book does give a brief overview of Mr. Adams' career before and after Hitch-Hiker's, but about two-thirds of his book concerns the radio series and aftermath.
Mr. Simpson has tried to put together a definitive guide to his subject's life, has had to resolve many inconsistencies and incorrect memories, and has largely succeeded in both aims. If there's one criticism of Mr. Simpson's work, it's that relatively little attention is paid to the two Dirk Gently books – they're mentioned in passing, with next-to-no discussion. His book is not a place for a literary criticism of the work, though he's clearly capable of writing one – on many occasions, he suggests that the five-part trilogy is a sort-of quest novel where Arthur Dent finds himself. There's a good lit crit book to be written about the Hitch-Hiker's works – indeed, about all of Mr. Adams' work – but Mr. Simpson knows his limits, and doesn't try it here.
Our main feeling? That Mr. Adams had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies – he did a lot of work to bring the threat of extinction to public knowledge, was a radical atheist (something ignored in Mr. Gaiman's book), and had the right idea about the internet back in the days when the dotcom boom was ruining it for everyone. It is something of a shame that he is best known for a work he did half-way through his life, and was never allowed to shake that particular monkey off his back. Hitch-Hiker's made him rich, but it defined him in a way that made it impossible to be considered as a serious thinker. Indeed, the pressure he put himself under to produce a motion picture version of Hitch-Hiker's, coupled with the strange machinations of Hollywoodland, were prime contributors to his untimely death in 2001.
We've been reading the hardback version, completed in late 2002, and published in early 2003. The book is properly and copiously cited, with a dozen pages of footnotes and attributions, and an even longer and thoroughly comprehensive index. Our notes suggest that we purchased it from a remainder store in (ulp) late 2004.
