Thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me onto the blog tour for this book and for the beautiful copy for review. The book is out now and published by the fabulous people at Unbound.
As always, opinions are entirely my own.
From the Publisher:
-A full-colour compendium of hundreds of never-before-published artefacts from Adams’ archive, including diary entries, notes and musings, letters, photographs, scripts, poems and more.
– Authorised by the estate of Douglas Adams, it includes personal memorabilia from his family.
– Features a foreword from Stephen Fry and letters written after Adams’ death from friends and fans: Neil Gaiman, Margo Buchanan, Dirk Maggs, Robbie Stamp, Arvind David.
When Douglas Adams died in 2001, he left behind 60 boxes full of notebooks, letters, scripts, jokes, speeches and even poems. In 42, compiled by Douglas’s long-time collaborator Kevin Jon Davies, hundreds of these personal artefacts appear in print for the very first time.
Douglas was as much a thinker as he was a writer, and his artefacts reveal how his deep fascination with technology led to ideas which were far ahead of their time: a convention speech envisioning the modern smartphone, with all the information in the world living at our fingertips; sheets of notes predicting the advent of electronic books; journal entries from his forays into home computing – it is a matter of legend that Douglas bought the very first Mac in the UK; musings on how the internet would disrupt the CD-Rom industry, among others.
42 also features archival material charting Douglas’s school days through Cambridge, Footlights, collaborations with Graham Chapman, and early scribbles from the development of Doctor Who, Hitchhiker’s and Dirk Gently.
Alongside details of his most celebrated works are projects that never came to fruition, including the pilot for radio programme They’ll Never Play That on the Radio and a space-inspired theme park ride.
Douglas’s personal papers prove that the greatest ideas come from the fleeting thoughts that collide in our own imagination, and offer a captivating insight into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers and most enduring storytellers.
My Review:
I can’t remember a time when ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ references weren’t part of my life – my dad is a fan and I worked my way through the novels, the Dirk Gently books, ‘The Meaning of Liff’ and sequels when I was really quite young. It started out that I simply found the books funny, but it grew to just be part of my cultural landscape. I totally live in a world where ‘Don’t Panic’ is a mantra, carrying a towel is sensible and 42 is the answer to everything!
Despite this, I didn’t know much about Douglas Adams apart from the fact that he left this earth tragically young, way back in 2001.
So I absolutely jumped at the chance to review this beautiful book which collects together elements from Douglas Adams’ own archives. I didn’t anticipate that it would be such a visual treat – this is 300 pages of photos, copies of handwritten notes, annotated scripts, letters, theatre programmes and lots more. Every page has something intriguing and often quirky – although I was very happy with the editor’s decision to transcribe longer passages of handwriting as reading it was a challenge in places!
The chapters are arranged in chronological order so we start with Adams’ school days and some fabulous hand-written reports – I loved the comments and the fact that some teachers wrote loads while others settled for ‘Good’. As a teacher, I wish I could get away with that now! We then move through Adams’ time at Cambridge University and various Footlights productions he was involved in, something that surprised me as I expected he would be more ‘behind the scenes’. Then it’s on to various projects he did over the years, from ‘Doctor Who’ to ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’, various collaborations to ‘Dirk Gently’, ‘The Meaning of Liff’ to a (sadly not produced as he envisaged) theme park ride. There’s also numerous diversions into other interesting things from the archives – musings on technology, fan mail and fan clubs being particularly interesting.
The structure of the book is logical and gives the (I expect) chaotic archives a sense of order. However, it’s also kind of heartbreaking as you learn about Douglas Adams in his own words, warm to him as a funny and lively character, appreciate his genius – only to know that you’re leading up to a reminder of his untimely death. It’s beautifully done, but letters along the way from his friends and admirers and a funny-but-sad obituary by his book editor make for a depth of emotion I wasn’t expecting.
On a lighter note, a lot of the book is in Adams’ own words which are often hilarious, always thoughtful and sometimes surprising too. There’s lots about technology that make you wonder whether he had access to a time machine! There’s also unseen drafts of shows and notes about his writing that will appeal to the true fan. A few things might not have got through modern sensitivity readers but I’m sure that’s true of most writers of his vintage, especially those writing not knowing that these words are going to be pored over by super-fans in the distant future!
There’s so much in the book that I could write essays – but I’ll refrain and just point out a couple of things that I found really interesting. One is a speech written for Brentwood Debating Society when Adams was just 18 – the topic might be unusual (‘This House would shave its head’) but you can see some absolutely brilliant twisting of arguments and the some early comedic turns of phrase. The other thing I loved was the set of programmes for the Cambridge shows that Adams performed in during his time at university – there’s some very funny elements hidden in cast lists, biographies of the actors and blurbs for the shows.
I could honestly write about this remarkable book for a very long time, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll just suggest that this is a fabulous book for die-hard fans of Adams and those relatively new to his work. His visionary outlook on technology makes this interesting and relevant for modern readers, while others will appreciate the nostalgic feeling of being re-introduced to favourite bits of Adams’ varied and eclectic projects.
It’s an easy FIVE STARS for me – and I’ve just put (a re-read of) ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ onto my towering TBR pile.
About the Editor:
After the Hitchhiker’s Guide radio series aired in 1978, young art student Kevin Jon Davies sought out its little-known author Douglas Adams to record an early fanzine interview. He went on to direct The Making of Hitchhiker, the 1993 documentary for BBC Video, and Adams invited him to art-direct The Illustrated Hitchhiker, a large-format book with pioneering digital composites. Since then he has contributed to a number of Adams-related projects, including The Hexagonal Phase (2018), the final radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
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Thanks for the blog tour support. x
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