I think one of the great things about rereading this was that I remembered a fairly good portion of the plot (even though I read it for the first timeI think one of the great things about rereading this was that I remembered a fairly good portion of the plot (even though I read it for the first time so long ago I can't tell you if it was in late middle school or early high school, though I'm leaning a little toward middle school), that I could rediscover the book while at the same time follow Malachi Constant's journey and get more out of it than the first time. Every character is so human. It's different and it's out there, but they are all so human.
Also, one of my friends made a Facebook reference to Ransom K. Fern while I was reading this, so I had a great out-of-book experience for a moment....more
The first Vonnegut book I read. Immediately hooked.
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I can't possibly imagine what I thought about this when I first read it.
Okay, that's not entirelThe first Vonnegut book I read. Immediately hooked.
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I can't possibly imagine what I thought about this when I first read it.
Okay, that's not entirely true. I do remember one thing I thought about it, but more on that later.
So let us examine the state in which I first read this book. Obviously, I didn't pay much attention to the statement on page 54, "I am not writing this book for people below the age of 18, but I see no harm in telling young people to prepare for failure rather than success, since failure is the main thing that is going to happen to them." Or if I did, it didn't have any sort of lasting effect on me then, though this time around it caught my attention, for pretty obvious reasons.
Obvious reason number one: I read this for the first time when I was 12.
Obvious reason number two: I'm now 25.
I'm not anywhere near as old as Vonnegut was when he wrote that, but despite lacking in that wisdom granted to years, I have enough experience to see a difference between now and then.
But let's continue on my zeitgeist the first time I read this book.
I don't actually know how it came to be in my possession. I know I acquired it sometime in middle school, but whether that happened before the move or after I can't say. I do know that I read it in Massachusetts, and not Nebraska, so I would have had to have been at least 12.
Since my childhood was spent in the 1990s, coincidentally when this book was written, I am familiar with (and rather liked) a piece of cinematic not-history known as Hocus Pocus, with Bette Midler, about three witches that turn a small boy by the name of Thackery Binx into a cat, or rather an immortal cat, as this happened in Colonial times and then the movie forwarded to the here and now, as some children try to help the boy-cat (cat-boy?) defeat the witches. Same titles, so I assumed this was the novel upon which the movie was based.
Hoo boy, was I wrong.
I then remember being enthralled by the editor's note, about Vonnegut using scraps of paper to write on, not having access to notebooks, being on trial, and digging through the garbage for more paper. An interesting image for sure, and not exactly one having much do to with witches or cats, but a familiar image to me, since I also had a habit of scorning notebooks for scraps of paper on which to write. After reading through this foreword several times, I finally got it into my head to read the book.
I loved it. Like I said above, "Immediately hooked."
But what did I make of it? The rampant racism? The prevalent social disjunct between the Ruling Class and those at the bottom (which is so glaring to me now)? The image of a human head superimposed on a rotting water buffalo carcass? What was I possibly thinking about then?
But I know what I thought. I thought it was hysterical. And now, well, I had to laugh like hell....more
This is probably the most marked up, worn, and otherwise distressed book I own. And I bought it new.
Read for AP English Junior year, and a class SophoThis is probably the most marked up, worn, and otherwise distressed book I own. And I bought it new.
Read for AP English Junior year, and a class Sophomore year of college entitled "Ghosts That Haunt Us;" final paper for that class was a synthesis of Slaughterhouse with the philosophy of the Mind-Body Duality.
It sorta freaks me out, now, how much Spider Jerusalem looks like Eric Shim.
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Rereading this on a oh-woe-is-my-singleness Monday night, and then rereIt sorta freaks me out, now, how much Spider Jerusalem looks like Eric Shim.
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Rereading this on a oh-woe-is-my-singleness Monday night, and then rereading my above comment, yeah, that is a much freakier thought. Thanks, past me....more
The only thing that kept me from reading this book in one day was that I'd just finished a book and had some time to kill before I wanted to go to bedThe only thing that kept me from reading this book in one day was that I'd just finished a book and had some time to kill before I wanted to go to bed, so I figured reading the first two chapters would be a good use of time.
I distinctly remember not expecting to finish it the next day.
I also had a terrible case of bronchitis/flu (that would end up acquiring an ear infection before it'd run its brutal course) at the time, and spent the weekend in my bed "getting better" (as the following week was also spent in bed, I didn't do a very good job of "getting better") w/ sudafed, advil, Robert Jordan, and last but not least Douglas Adams and Detective Dirk Gently.
When I finished it, sometime in the early evening, I was so enraptured with Dirk that I quickly grabbed The Salmon of Doubt off the shelf, skipped to the end, and read the beginning chapters of the next Dirk Gently book, ONLY TO DISCOVER THAT ONLY THE FIRST TWO AND A HALF CHAPTERS EXISTED.
I was devastated.
I think I might actually have screamed.
Then, in my sickness-frazzled mind, I convinced myself that SOMEWHERE OUT THERE lay the rest of The Salmon of Doubt (the Dirk Gently book, not the Douglas Adams collection), and that the people who found and published these few chapters were toying with us, the readers, and that they hadn't looked hard enough for the rest of the book, that it existed somewhere on his computer, and I would be able to read the rest of Dirk's zany adventures with a rhino named Desmond (or whatever the rhino's name was, it's been a while since I read it).
I'm sure you can imagine the heartbreak of waking up after being sick and realizing that there was no more Dirk Gently. Those final two and a half chapters were it.
To this day, however, the image of Dirk standing on the rooftop, shaking his fist at the sky and shouting, "Stop it!" is still one of my favorites in all of time, space, and literature....more
It took me two years to track this book down, and one day to read it.
I actually had a moment at work the other day, now that I have a job w/ a desk, wIt took me two years to track this book down, and one day to read it.
I actually had a moment at work the other day, now that I have a job w/ a desk, where for some reason I felt like Dirk Gently's secretary, ripping out the middle of the dictionary so that it would fit in the drawer. Not that I was ripping out pages of books (I think my employers would have a conniption, I work in a library), but something about the moment just reminded me of it, and I smiled.
The day I can reread this (read: the day I can retrieve it from Massachusetts) will be a glorious day indeed. And then it will be followed by its mate. :)...more
After having read it several times (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless one less time than the others), you really do start to piAfter having read it several times (So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless one less time than the others), you really do start to pick up on various little things between each book.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is probably by far the best known, if only for the fact that not only was it a radio play, then a BBC special, but then also it's bizarrely adapted 2005 feature film release (which I'm partially okay with, because Douglas Adams cowrote the script, and because Alan Rickman voices Marvin). We all know and love it for its zany screwballery, subtly scathing satire (fucking alliteration), and half a dozen token terms (42, knowing where your towel is, the Vogons, the Babel fish, not entirely unlike, the Infinite Improbability Drive, Slartibartfast, Deep Thought, and so on and so forth).
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe follows in much the same manner, half continuation and half entirely different story line. For some reason, I can never remember that the Frogstar attack on the Guide offices comprises the first half of the book, which is particularly odd because I love the tank shooting out the floor and yelling "Hell's bells!" on its way down; I always think it's in the third book, which makes no sense at all. Actually, it does make a sort of sense, because I grew up watching the BBC serial before my parents decided it was time to enlighten me as to the actual book series, and the Frogstar attack and Zarniwoop are not in the BBC serial. (My favorite part of the serial went from the beginning up until right before they landed on Magrathea, and pretty much any of the bits where the Guide spoke. I wasn't entirely a fan of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe bit, and discovering that the serial ended before the end of the second book threw me for a loop.) But for the most part, the first and second book follow with the same comic vein, and everything seems to make a sort of sense.
Life, the Universe, and Everything is, for me at any rate, a bit of a turning point. It's still uproariously funny as the first two (Krikkit Wars! ha!), but the feel is just that side of different. To me, it sits between the rampant ridiculosity of the first two books, and the dark humor of the last two. It's also the point at which things get a little bit more "mucky," as in, our protagonists are now doing more mucking about in time and space than we saw before (picking up from where Restaurant left off, but starting on a course that is a bit more . . . involved, we'll say). It's also the end of Zaphod's quest, and the last time the character actually shows up, and he doesn't really do much. In a way, I guess, Zaphod lends a sort of levity to the proceedings because he is so bouncy and vacant, and his position of power as captain (and ex-president) of the Heart of Gold kind of give him that edge as the person you tend to allow to lead even if you don't think it's really that good of an idea. Arthur is the ultimate protagonist, yes, because he is the everyman and a reflection of humanity, but he's not the person leading the expedition. He's the person stuff keeps happening to on a cosmological level.
(Hmmm, I could've been an English major and written my thesis on this. Oh well.)
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish marks, for me at least, the beginning of the dark humor. Zaphod and Trillian are only mentioned a few times, Ford is stuck in a bizarre space ship with tools whizzing through the corridors (to be honest, I still don't get that part), and Arthur is now in love with a woman named Fenchurch. It is also, of course, the death of Marvin. I mean, who doesn't love Marvin? He's so depressed.
And then on to Mostly Harmless. When I first read the entirety of the trilogy, having already gone through the first three before being stopped in the early chapters of the fourth (I think that's when I moved . . . maybe), I felt like there was something off about Mostly Harmless. I chalked it up to the fact that I hadn't read it before, whereas the other books I'd had previous experience in, and settled on knowing the least about it. Rereading it, however, proves that it actually wasn't me that was off, it's that the book is actually decidedly different from the others (Adams, himself, noted that the last two books where different, and described Mostly Harmless as "bleak"). First of all, a lot of the zany craziness has dropped away, appearing mostly in the Ford Prefect storyline. Trillian is an entirely different character than her previous incarnations: she's presented as rather heartless and self-centered, whereas before she was sort of quiet and calm and hyper-intelligent. Also, the traveling that's done in Mostly Harmless is caught up in parallel universes, creating schisms upon schisms in the cosmological makeup that gives quite a different feel than simply an Infinite Improbability Drive. Perhaps it's too, I dunno, heavy? Too heavy in the sense that it's more "mundane," more of a normal thing than a ludicrous Infinite Improbability Drive, which is easier to grasp because it's completely beyond our means to grasp it. Parallel universes, though also completely beyond our scope of comprehension, are more well-known, and not just the creation of a comical genius.
Is this making any sense?
On another note (and another thing!), there are some funny coincidences I've recently noticed between the Guide and new technology. For instance, the Amazon Kindle or iTouch/iPhone . . . wouldn't they make a weird sort of sense with the words "Don't Panic" written on them?
Also, Wikipedia. Could this possibly be the current form of the Guide? It can be, for the most part, "wildly inaccurate" and it has "supplanted" the Encyclopedia Brittanica as "the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom". It's also cheaper, because you don't have to buy it. Hmmm, makes you wonder....more
I read this before I read the Illuminatus! Trilogy, and though it only took me one time through that and one and half times through this, I enjoyed thI read this before I read the Illuminatus! Trilogy, and though it only took me one time through that and one and half times through this, I enjoyed this so much better.
For one, it's much sillier.
For another, it's more scifi.
For another, it made much more sense.
Not that I didn't like Illuminatus!, just that Schrödinger's was much more digestible. Less conspiracy theory, less Christian-related mythology. More scifi, in other words. But still crazy and out there.
I got stuck the first time in the middle when suddenly everyone seemed to be having sex ALL THE TIME (another reason why I think I still haven't gotten through Dahlgren), but the second time through it didn't bother me so much (by that time I was also in college, and with a little more time to devote to reading). My favorite thing is still that the story repeats itself over and over and changes each time. Brilliant....more
What I really loved most about this book was that, unlike most other dystopic stories, the main character in this one does not want to break out of thWhat I really loved most about this book was that, unlike most other dystopic stories, the main character in this one does not want to break out of the system, and when he's suddenly given the choice he refuses to take it, saved by his willful ignorance of any choice instead of destroyed like his freedom-choosing counterparts. By remaining a cog, D-503 highlights more of the totality of the society, how deeply it affects him, and it is this choice that is more terrifying to us who choose the freedom and identify with I-330 who dies before the Benefactor....more
I borrowed this from my roommate's bookcase while she was in Puerto Rico and read it in the overstuffed leather chair that smelled absolutely foul in I borrowed this from my roommate's bookcase while she was in Puerto Rico and read it in the overstuffed leather chair that smelled absolutely foul in the living room of my first apartment over the first two weeks of winter session Junior year of college (preposition much?). I am convinced there is not much of a better way to spend two weeks in January, or to read this book, and though I desperately want to re-read it, I know it just won't feel the same. That first read was such a moment in my life.
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Just as good the second time around (I actually had moments where I couldn't stop laughing on the subway, particularly at the "Où sont les Neigedens de l'anton?" line). Oddly enough, I remembered basically everything that happened (more or less), but in a different order!...more
This was honestly one of the scariest things I've ever read, and not because it was particularly scary, but because it was my first exposure to PKD anThis was honestly one of the scariest things I've ever read, and not because it was particularly scary, but because it was my first exposure to PKD and I was a sophomore in highschool. For the longest time, a copy floated around the basement floor of my house, and why we never put it back on the bookshelf I have no idea, but eventually we moved and the book didn't come with. So my mom wanted to read it again, and I got the only copy from the library were I worked, and she reread it, and I read it.
This and "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" are my favorite PKD books of all time.
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The introduction of Joe Chip, hungover at his homeopape machine, too poor to pay his front door, will forever be my favorite character introduction of all literature....more
This was the third PKD book I read, starting right after "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," which had already blown my mind.
"Three Stigmata" was aThis was the third PKD book I read, starting right after "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," which had already blown my mind.
"Three Stigmata" was a mindfuck and a half.
So, "Do Androids Dream" had pretty much hooked me on PKD. "Three Stigmata" made me an addict.
The thing I love the most about PKD's novels, I got from reading this, and hinging on having read "Ubik" and "Do Androids Dream" beforehand: how he completely suspends reality as we know it at the end of his books. It is incredible.
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I simply don't have the words to describe how amazing it was to reread this. Still a mindfuck, for sure, but simply . . . powerful. And, obviously, since I have read it I know what's going to happen (to an extent, what I haven't forgotten over the years of course) that allows for greater understanding of the presented text and its inherent philosophy, but also having read VALIS earlier this year, perhaps that lends something to my reaction, in that I have a better informed sense of the ideas that Dick is grappling with. Regardless, I was swept along, just as drawn in and just as excited to turn the pages as when I first read this; I have a very distinct memory of me as a high school junior camped out on my bed one evening, probably in the middle of the week, zipping through the last several chapters and then everything suddenly solidifying with Barney's line, "My God. We would all have become your children." And the fact that that happened AGAIN really speaks to Dick's talent as a writer and a theologian.
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