So Long, and thanks for all the Fish - Douglas Adams

...the Earth here after being so unexpectedly blown-up in the first book?
On the way home, he hitchhikes (not surprisingly!) and is picked up by a robust ginger-haired man called Rufus. Nothing particularly odd about that, until Arthur glances behind him and looks upon the sleeping woman-of-his-dreams; Fenchurch (named according to the London station where she was conceived...) But, before he can find out more about her, Arthur is dropped off ...
...her again.
At length, he returns to his normal life on Earth - his apartment is still there, his friend's are still present and well and the destruction of the Earth branded as 'something funny in the water' - nothing more than a mass hallucination. It also appears that it's only been a few months since Arthur Dent's mysterious disappearance. But Arthur knows better and goes about finding the exact location of the cave he lived in, in Prehistoric ... more

For those of you who have never read 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series', here is a brief character summary for the following review -

Arthur Dent - Last male Human Being and hero of the Hitchhiker books.
Tricia McMillan - Last female Human Being and only rational, intelligent person on the ship. Nicknamed Trillian.
Ford Prefect - Arthur's best friend (who turns out to be an alien very early on in the first book) and field researcher for the guide.
Zaphod Beeblebrox - Ex-President of the Galaxy with massive ego. And two heads and three arms.

And, as it is only really necessary to know a little bit about the first book to understand the following review, below is a very brief summary of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. If you've read it before, feel free to skip past to the review -

In 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy', Arthur Dent soon discovers that his friend Ford, isn't really from Guilford after all. Not even from England for that matter. He's from a small blue-green planet somewhere in the vicinity of Beetlejuice. Ford warns Arthur of the planets impending doom - that it will soon be destroyed to make way for an inter-stellar bypass. He and Arthur escape from the planet and, sure enough, the Earth is blown-away... After adventures occupying the following two books ('The Restaurant at the End of the Universe' and 'Life, the Universe and Everything'), we come to 'So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish'...

'So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish' (SLATFATF) is the fourth book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. I bought it as part of a box-set and vaporised my way through the books as fast as possible. But... years later, SLATFATF is the book I keep finding myself coming back to. The one I've read more than the others. The one that, in a completely different way to the rest, is the most imaginative, the most intelligent, and the most readable. The one that has that vague nostalgic atmosphere which comes to me when I begin to read it. Why?
Because of this -

Unlike the majority of the other stories, it's set on Earth. The book begins with a disgruntled Arthur Dent standing in the pouring rain shortly after arriving on the planet (arriving just outside Islington, to be exact). He's damp and confused. Why is the Earth here after being so unexpectedly blown-up in the first book?
On the way home, he hitchhikes (not surprisingly!) and is picked up by a robust ginger-haired man called Rufus. Nothing particularly odd about that, until Arthur glances behind him and looks upon the sleeping woman-of-his-dreams; Fenchurch (named according to the London station where she was conceived...) But, before he can find out more about her, Arthur is dropped off outside his town and is sure he will never see her again.
At length, he returns to his normal life on Earth - his apartment is still there, his friend's are still present and well and the destruction of the Earth branded as 'something funny in the water' - nothing more than a mass hallucination. It also appears that it's only been a few months since Arthur Dent's mysterious disappearance. But Arthur knows better and goes about finding the exact location of the cave he lived in, in Prehistoric Earth. By charting the star formations that he remembers, he gets a pretty good idea of where his cave was and discovers that not only is it a house just outside London; it's the woman's he saw when he first returned to Earth!

Cue pleasing romance with all Adams' usual intellect and wit - the character of Fenchurch is superb, and a perfect balance to Dent's personality. In this way, the characters compliment each other well and are very realistic and convincing, which you somewhat don't expect from the Hitchhiker's series.
Soon, Arthur goes on a search for the last message of the dolphins, second most intelligent creatures on Earth (next to mice, of course) and goes to meet a man who might just know where they've gone. A man who is apparently the only sensible person left on the planet and is pleased to call himself Wonko the Sane (bit of a contradiction there, I think!).
As Arthur discovers more about the mysterious return of Earth, he learns that there is something pretty special about Fenchurch too. Why does she seem to be the only one who has memories of the big yellow ships that are just too vivid to be 'hallucinations'?

By now though, fans of the series will be saying 'But where is Ford, Marvin, Trillian and Zaphod? Where are the rest of the main characters?!?' and to be honest, this was something that troubled me when reading for the first time. I had gotten a fair amount of the way through the book and they hadn't made an appearance at all. Inevitably though, Ford does appear in the book much later on and mentions Trillian and Zaphod very briefly. Then he, Fenchurch and Arthur plan to make one more discovery. God's last message to the Universe. His parting comment...

In this book particularly, Douglas Adams' character development is outstanding. The readers are introduced to a different side of Arthur which many believe means that SLATFATF doesn't really 'fit' with the rest of the series. However, in my opinion it adds much more to the books and certainly to my enjoyment of them. I found that Arthur became much more three-dimensional - instead of the mostly 'bewildered' Arthur that had been described in the first three books. Fenchurch as well, is a very accomplished character and Douglas Adams manages to place her into the series seamlessly. Rather impressive, I think, as introducing a new important character four books in can provoke some negative responses. My criticism of the book also comes in this section though. As I've said above, some of my favourite characters don't appear until much later, and some are left out entirely.

As storylines go, Adams pulls off a modern comedy sci-fi set on Earth exceptionally well. Although the book is different from the others, it has the same familiar style and sense of humour, which really ties all his novels together. I mentioned above that this book produced for me a nostalgic sort of atmosphere - I'll try to describe this as best I can, as this is one of the most pleasing attributes of the book. Put simply, it's written beautifully - bit of an over exaggeration you might think, but it has little of the hard to follow randomness of the other books, is more descriptive, charming, witty and intelligent. In particular, a part where Arthur and Fenchurch are telling real-life stories to each other is both very funny and incredibly insightful into the nature of human beings - a theme Adams uses throughout his books but it is never accomplished as well as here, I think.

Price-wise, I got all five books as part of a box-set from Borders for £29.99. Alternatively, you can buy it separately from Amazon for £5.99 or used starting from a penny.

Many who read the series don't read past book three ('Life, the Universe and Everything' is usually seen as fairly disappointing) but I would urge audiences to persevere until this book. I guarantee you will continue to the fifth and last. Thanks very much for reading.

P.s. Douglas Adams - Rest in Peace.

 

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