Of Mice and Dolphins

So I am reading Douglas Adams.. yet again.. I can't seem to get enough of the bizarre, intelligent, witty world of his that doesn't quite fit into any genre at all - science fiction? humour? fantasy? not really - everything is very real and very improbable. But it's consuming nonetheless.

You love to see Arthur Dent in his innate misery - the quintessential common man- not so lucky with the ladies, not so lucky with anything for that matter. Zaphod Beeblebrox is irritatingly hard to resist - clueless, vain and patronising - yet very essential.

As you read the book you are only wondering how Adams conjured all that up. One quality that stands out in his style of writing is that the reason you can't keep the book down is because there's a bombardment of pictures in your head as you read. Adams will be talking about something as abstract as the enormity of the Universe projected in a vortex and come up with a piece of fairy cake. So the reader is looking at a fairy cake and something tells him that he is able to grasp the concept since he can visualise the idea - even though it is just the hungry thought of a stupid fairy cake.

Douglas Adams has been quoted to the point of belonging to a list of hackneyed phrases. And I'm sure you've quoted him without even knowing it.

To all who've read Adams you already know what I mean. To those who haven't, you're missing something!