A friend from school bought me the first book as a present for my Bar-Mitzvah. For many years these books were extremely rare in Israel and it’s a shame because this is a book that combines the characteristics that we talked about in Sterne’s book – i.e. the fact that you can read these books again and again and only then understand their deep meanings. On the other hand, the humor in Douglas Adam’s books is a parody on science fiction or travel books but it is now accepted as a part of the genre itself, hence following in the footsteps of Swift. The omniscient narrator is not a persona but he is outside of the story, but what is so funny is that he is deadly serious about everything that happens and he is using history, philosophy and science in a grossly exaggerated way. It is true that this book catches you with honey and not with vinegar, but I believe that from the beginning, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy deals with the question of happiness and more than that, the fact that Jesus is mentioned from the beginning shows that we have made a full circle. Both of the author’s that wrote satires in the beginning of this week were priests and the idea that in a secular age a popular book can indeed talk about Jesus, brings us to the point where we see that the secular and the profane are both susceptible of humor. And this is a very important lesson for writers today, not to take themselves too seriously and they must know that they can make a difference with humor.
Next week we shall deal with my all-time favorite science fiction books.