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+--- Thread: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams (/showthread.php?tid=2200)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - Ninurta - 07-07-2024
A few decades ago, when I was a young man, I was told, repeatedly, that I had a "dry" sense of humor, and when pressed it was explained to me as a "British" sense of humor. I didn't know what they meant then, and I don't know quite what it means now, decades later. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary has been no help at all nor has The Encyclopedia Britannica, which one would think would be the most helpful of all, but nada.
Be that as it may, I know what I like, and over time I've come to like "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series by Douglas Adams. Thrashing around through the tall weeds of YouTube, I stumbled across a copy of the audiobook version, read by Mr. Adams himself. The ravages of age have made reading a less pleasurable experience than it had been formerly, so I glommed on to the audio version as if it were manna from heaven - which it may have been, given the current state of my eyesight as compared to former times.
I reasoned that, being read by the author of the series himself, this is what Adams intended the books to be read like, with all the proper inflections and pronunciations as he intended them to be. That's a rare thing in the audiobook world, it being that most of them are read by professional narrators. Those narrators may be very good, and very professional, but they are decidedly NOT the original author, and so must make the odd faux pas here and there during the reading. My assumption is that the original author is less likely to make such tiny misreadings.
So, without further ado or bloviation, I present to you "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in all of it's original read glory.
The original book in the series:
The second book in the series, "The Restaurant at the end of the Universe":
The third book in the series, which was originally conceived of as a trilogy... so this ought to have been the final book, but was not, "Life, The Universe, and Everything":
Since "trilogy" turned out to be an increasingly inaccurate mislabeling, there is more to come in the next post.
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RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - Ninurta - 07-07-2024
The Fourth book in the "Trilogy", which effectively convereted it into a "series" instead, "So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish":
And, the fifth and final installment, "Mostly Harmless":
Another version of it, which may be incomplete - at least it's 14 or 15 minutes shorter, so who knows?:
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RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - DISRAELI - 07-07-2024
Being aware that this was a BBC radio series before it was anything else, I thought I would share with you one of the episodes \i found on Youtube;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjMqoLBIaek&list=PL8B0E11D798B2314C&index=1
An account called scifigroup has the full series.
Should you decide to go for a movie version, choose the older one, where Zaphod Beeblebrox is given the required two heads (but only one of them shows any signs of life).
P.S. Here is a clip from the above-mentioned, with a bonus Marvin the Paranoid Android.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0yBf1JKTw8
RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - EndtheMadnessNow - 07-08-2024
This might help. This lesson from English Lucy on British humour and comedy discusses irony, sarcasm, deadpan, wit, innuendo, banter & puns. You will learn what they are and how do use them, with examples.
RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - BeTheGoddess - 07-08-2024
If Hitchhikers Guide is something you enjoy, have you seen the TV series Red Dwarf? Its Britcom sci-fii series
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094535/
RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - Ninurta - 07-08-2024
(07-08-2024, 03:06 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: This might help. This lesson from English Lucy on British humour and comedy discusses irony, sarcasm, deadpan, wit, innuendo, banter & puns. You will learn what they are and how do use them, with examples.
Thank you - that did help, and explained it very nicely! Now I no longer have to go around with that dazed and confused look on my face, and can go to my grave knowing that it wasn't some sort of left-hand "compliment"! It was actually very appropriate and spot-on, rather than the insult I've gone all this time thinking it must have been.
It also means I can now stop plotting my revenge on them, and move on to more productive pastures...
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RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - Ninurta - 07-08-2024
(07-08-2024, 09:19 AM)BeTheGoddess Wrote: If Hitchhikers Guide is something you enjoy, have you seen the TV series Red Dwarf? Its Britcom sci-fii series
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094535/
I had actually made it through almost the entirety of my life blissfully unaware of the series "Red Dwarf". However, a couple of months ago, as I was struggling to get the hang of working something called a "smart TV" in conjunction with something called "streaming services", I accidentally stumbled across the series and binge-watched the whole thing from beginning to end, with only the occasional bathroom break and an occasional minute or so break to run into the kitchen to construct a sandwich.
Yes, I loved it. It was fascinating to watch the characters age over time, in real-time, as the show progressed over it's multi-decade run.
Unfortunately, I never quite got the hang of "smart TVs" or "streaming services", and so may never be able to find it again. However, it was a very welcome break at the time from the onerous task of attempting to operate streaming services on a smart TV!
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RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - Ninurta - 07-08-2024
(07-07-2024, 10:03 PM)DISRAELI Wrote: Being aware that this was a BBC radio series before it was anything else, I thought I would share with you one of the episodes \i found on Youtube;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjMqoLBIaek&list=PL8B0E11D798B2314C&index=1
An account called scifigroup has the full series.
Should you decide to go for a movie version, choose the older one, where Zaphod Beeblebrox is given the required two heads (but only one of them shows any signs of life).
P.S. Here is a clip from the above-mentioned, with a bonus Marvin the Paranoid Android.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0yBf1JKTw8
As I was diligently searching YouTube for the last 3 or so audiobooks in the series, I ran across the first episode in the BBC TV series and watched it.
I was immediately as depressed as Marvin the Robot when I realized that I could not find the rest of the series on YouTube. As it turned out, I liked the BBC version better than the 2005 movie version, with the ewxception of Trillian - I thought the latter Trillian conformed to the book much better than the BBC Trillian.
Much of that attitude is down to my being a big Zoey Deschanel fan. I've been a big fan of her since I first saw her in "The Wizard of Oz" and realized that she beat Judy Garland all hollow as Dorothy. So my assessment is as much a function of mere casting as it is a critique of the BBC series.
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RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - BIAD - 07-08-2024
(07-08-2024, 08:10 PM)Ninurta Wrote: Yes, I loved it. It was fascinating to watch the characters age over time, in real-time, as the show progressed over it's multi-decade run...
Then it's only appropriate to deliver one of BIAD's banners!
![[Image: dfaEOWQ.gif]](https://iili.io/dfaEOWQ.gif)
RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - Ninurta - 07-08-2024
(07-08-2024, 08:20 PM)BIAD Wrote:(07-08-2024, 08:10 PM)Ninurta Wrote: Yes, I loved it. It was fascinating to watch the characters age over time, in real-time, as the show progressed over it's multi-decade run...
Then it's only appropriate to deliver one of BIAD's banners!
Either that banner was amazingly quickly constructed, OR BIAD and Tibbs have been plotting to read my mind and muck around with the time continuum, and had it waiting in the wings for just this occasion!
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RE: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Read by Douglas Adams - BIAD - 07-08-2024
(07-08-2024, 08:31 PM)Ninurta Wrote: Either that banner was amazingly quickly constructed, OR BIAD and Tibbs have been plotting to read my mind and muck around with the time continuum, and had it waiting in the wings for just this occasion!
Although he was reluctant to comment on his latest piece of artwork, I would suggest the small robed
figure I saw leaving his shed earlier may well have been involved. However, just like the MSM, I have
no proof!!