Earth survived, through some clever writing, and Arthur Dent is back on Earth. Although it’s not Earth as we know it, or in fact as Arthur knows it – in fact it’s not Earth as anyone knows it really.
But this doesn’t matter to Arthur, as he’s back home, albeit tired, flustured and frankly exhausted from all the galavanting he’s been doing around the world. He sets his eyes on a girl while, funnily enough, hitch hiking a car ride back home. Smelling, and you can argue looking, like a garbage disposal, Arthur is aware that no one else is aware of what’s happened. To the rest of the Earth, it’s tomorrow, to Arthur it’s been a bloody long time, and it’s going to be a bloody hard to explain why he’s been away for so long – aside from, oh I don’t know, the Earth exploded and terminating all living life with it. Someone also seems to have left him a fish bowl with a curious message.
In many ways Adams takes a detour with the galactical shenaningans of the previous adventures, and decides to settle Arthur on Earth. A chance encounter with a girl called Fenchurch ends up with the two falling hopelessly in lust, and involves some rather odd sexual exploits that would raise the eye of at least old granny in an aeroplane. More over, the book retains the quirky humour of the previous titles, but adds a degress of normality to the proceedings.
Of particular note is a story about a packet of biscuits which had me in absolute stitches; I wasn’t sure if I would be able to remove the grin off my face having finished the passage regarding an encounter Dent has with a business man who sits at his table and starts pinching his biscuits, much to the annoyance of Dent himself. Even thinking back to that part of the book makes me smile. It is, without question, absolute genius.
It was the speed with which the whole thing was wrapped up – as though Adams had a quota for 200 pages
Most of the book revolves around the entanglement of heartbeats that Fenchurch and Dent find themselves. They do the usual things couples do, including going to the park, talking about this and that, and not a lot of other stuff, with any remaining time occupied with tongue-tennis. It’s all done with Adams’ clever writing style, and his humourous handling of a subject that does feel sometimes mushy, but mostly a good read. Then of course they do some rather peculiar things; such as finding God’s message.
Inexplicably, Marvin is brought into the equation perhaps to level the universe out so that it doesn’t turn into a Cagney & Lacey affair with the two lovebirds. The story does seem rather rushed towards the end, however, and seems to peter out with regards God’s message. It’s great fun, but rather rushed as 90% of the book is simply the relationship. The encounter feels rather over cooked, paticularly when you read the final book of the Guide Quintology, which pretty much makes the whole experience more than a little redundant and obsolete in Dent’s life.
Prefect makes, what feels like, a guest appearence and although mentioned in increments during the book, it doesn’t feel like he’s really part of the story. He seems to just be a bystander, waiting for his que to jump in and say “that’s all folks!”. The “message” turns out to be quite the anticlimax, not because of the delivery of the message – that was actually really well done, and it did make smile contently. It was the speed with which the whole thing was wrapped up – as though Adams had a quota for 200 pages and just remembered that he had another part of a the story to tell, but couldn’t fit it into the quote. It’s pretty disappointing to say the least, as I really enjoyed the book otherwise.
Marvin is brought into the equation perhaps to level the universe out so that it doesn’t turn into a Cagney & Lacey affair with the two lovebirds
The down-to-Earth (if you’ll pardon the unintended pun) nature of the fourth book is certainly welcome, and really adds something more visually, particularly as a Londoner, and finding Adams rather accurately described locations then as they still remain now for the most part. The attitude, the environments; the living, breathing city of London condensed into pages and a few spots of brilliant writing.
Once more it seems a case of brilliance mixed with falws. I wouldn’t have expected perfection from Adams, but it seems with every book, the writing loses a level of consistency and flow that the first two titles had pretty well sewn up. There’s no lack of imagination, but perhaps there was a lack understanding on how to tie up loose ends.
Whether Adams thought about ending the book at And Thanks for All the Fish, or if intended to continue the adventures of Dent in further books I can’t say. What I can say is this book is enjoyable and disappointing in equal measure, and because of that it is perhaps the weakest of the series I’ve read so far. It’s not quite the albatross of the series (that comes later), but only deep fantatics will accept this book as brilliant – everyone else will see this as a bit average.
Verdict: A enjoyable, but inconsistent read; moments of brilliance marred with bigger moments of confused and contradictory narrative.