Скачать или смотреть The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Book Summary

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a comedic science-fiction novel written by Douglas Adams and published in 1979. Based on a radio series by the same name, it is the first installment in what is comically referred to as Adams’ five-book “trilogy” and became a bestseller shortly after its publication. The novel, which explores the unknowability of our universe, follows the galactic adventures of Arthur Dent, a man rescued by an alien minutes before Earth’s destruction.

The story opens on Arthur Dent, a nervous yet otherwise unremarkable Englishman whose home is about to be demolished to make way for a bypass. Soon, his friend, Ford Prefect, arrives and convinces Prosser, the unreasonable bureaucrat set on destroying Arthur’s home, to hold off on knocking it down while the friends go to the pub. Once there, Ford conveys urgent news: that the end of the world is mere minutes away. Sure enough, a fleet of large yellow ships descends on them.

The grotesque Vogons controlling these ships announce that the earth will be destroyed in order to make space for a hyperspatial express route, and that they are sorry for the inconvenience. Ford and Arthur hitchhike onto one of the ships, where Ford tells his friend that he is not actually human, but rather an alien from Betelgeuse who was stranded on Earth fifteen years ago while researching the famed Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a massive electronic compendium of almost everything.

Meanwhile, in outer space, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the charming yet clueless president of the galaxy, steals a ship called the Heart of Gold with his beautiful, human friend Trillian. The Heart of Gold contains an improbability drive, which allows it to travel intergalactic distances instantaneously and causes spontaneous coincidences.

Back on the Vogon ship, Arthur is given a small device—“the Babel fish”—that allows him to understand the Vogons’ language. But when he and Ford are discovered, they are forced to listen to terrible Vogon poetry and are eventually kicked off the ship. Just as they are about to die, the Heart of Gold starship picks them up.

Zaphod and Trillian send their pessimistic robot servant, Marvin, to check up on the newcomers. Marvin explains to them that he is the result of a failed experiment designed to give robots human-like characteristics, but which left Marvin eternally gloomy. Marvin takes Arthur and Ford to see Zaphod and Trillian, whom they recognize from Earth. In the control room, the foursome realizes that they are near Magrathea, the wealthiest planet in the universe.

As the ship nears the planet, they are greeted by a five-million-year-old recording that tells them about two missiles bound for their ship in less than 30 seconds. They panic, but when Arthur turns on the improbability drive, the missiles suddenly turn into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias. Grateful for their survival, Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian explore Magrathea’s cold and bleak interior while Arthur stays with miserable Marvin on the surface.

It isn’t long before Arthur and Marvin encounter an innovative old man named Slartibartfast, who tells Arthur that Arthur's arrival on Magrathea is the third-most improbable event in the history of the universe. He shows Arthur a factory in which countless new planets are being created, explaining to Arthur that Earth was actually built for a scientific purpose. Next, Slartibartfast shows Arthur a supercomputer called Deep Thought, which has the power to answer many of life’s questions.

Millions of years ago, two scientists asked Deep Thought for the answer to the universe. After seven and a half million years, it announced the answer: 42. Sensing the disappointment caused by this answer, it created an organic supercomputer, “Earth”, to answer the question. Slartibartfast goes on to tell Arthur that Earth was destroyed only five minutes before answering the original question, and that Magrathea is now in the midst of creating a second Earth, commissioned by the same hyper-intelligent species, “mice”, that created the original.

Reuniting with Trillian, Zaphod, and Ford, Arthur is stunned to encounter two mice named Benjy and Frankie, who inform Slartibartfast that he will no longer need to create a new Earth because Arthur’s brain may contain the answer to the universe. When Arthur refuses to sell his brain to them, the mice become hostile. As an alarm sounds, two armed Blagulon Kappa policemen arrive to arrest Zaphod and recover the stolen Heart of Gold.

Suddenly, the policemen’s life-support systems explode, killing them and saving Zaphod and his companions. Fleeing Magrathea, Arthur, Ford, Zaphod and Trillian ride Slartibartfast’s air car back to the Heart of Gold, where Marvin tells them that he plugged himself into the computer controlling the policemen’s life-support system, sharing his morose view of the universe with it.

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