Resenhas - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Maria7598 19/05/2020

Nonsense Espacial
A princípio não é possível entender muito bem o que está acontecendo, nem o porquê de tanta criatividade gasta com coisas sem sentido.

Mas enfim fica claro que a tônica do Mochileiro é exatamente o inesperado, o surpreendente, a falta de sentido (até porque sem compromisso nenhum com qualquer lógica terráquea), ao mesmo tempo em que recheado de referências e críticas à forma como a humanidade vive.

Um livro engraçado, dinâmico, e que exige certa dedicação, mas se revela também envolvente e cria expectativas para a sequência.

dan_rbn 05/11/2013

É como está na contra-capa:
"Extremamente engraçado... lunaticamente inspirado... e muito, muito cedo."

A leitura deste brilhante livro, cheio de absurdos engraçadíssimos, é recomendado para qualquer pessoa que goste de ficção científica e de uma literatura leve.
Só recomendo que já tenho comprado todos os próximos da série. Não dá para acabar de ler este e ter que esperar pelo próximo.

jwlima 02/07/2021

42
Cara, vale demais a leitura. Eu confesso que tinha um pé atrás com este livro, por causa do fandom. Mas a forma que autor utiliza conceitos filosóficos complexos para satirizar a condição humana e criar efeito humorístico com uma boa dosagem de nonsense: É bão demais. Vale a leitura, muito além de navinhas e raio laser. Mas o leitor de embarcar no nonsense e aceitar a estrutura de sketch.

the_sheeper 18/09/2021

Engraçado e ao mesmo tempo existencial
Demorei um tempo pra pegar o ritmo do livro e compreender o humor non-sense. Mas, me diverti muito durante a leitura e agora, já estou ansiosa para a leitura do próximo.

Thales Moreira 21/10/2021

Entertaining and fun
This is just the second time I read/listen to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but it seems that each time, this book gets more interesting for me. Maybe it's because of age, but some things I didn't find funny in my first reading, this time cracked me up.

It's also interesting to observe how we evolve as readers, since the experience of reading this at age 16 and now when I'm almost 30 has been utterly different.

Pati 22/07/2023

Um dos meus livros favoritos!
Já li esse primeiro volume incontáveis vezes, essa foi a primeira no inglês original. Foi bem simples até, a linguagem não é difícil e as palavras inventadas são explicadas.
Recomendo para todos que gostem de ficção-científica fritação de cérebro a la Doctor Who, muito engraçado!

DTK 26/02/2021

Four stars only cause I am difficult to please these days.
This is, in fact, the second time I have tried reading this book. The first time the plot didn?t really conquer me, but this time I was simply addicted to it (finished it in three days).
The book is so absurd in so many points and the author has such a good way around the words, it is literally a masterpiece, loved it and already started readingo the second

Ps.: do you think it would be ok to name my daughter Magrathea? Such a good name, can?t get over it

Bianca 16/03/2022

Eu gostei muito do senso de humor desse livro e do personagem principal, o Arthur. Foi uma leitura divertida e interessante, mas teve momentos bem confusos, então não acho que é a melhor série pra se ler em inglês

Dear_poirot 31/12/2022

Nonsense gostoso
Marvin eu te amo melhor personagem do mundo. Entendo porque esse livro foi tão marcante e porque é um grito nerd. Inspirou quase tudo da nossa cultura

Rick 08/01/2020

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”
I can't talk about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy without talking about death first.
There is a reason why I would ever talk about death in a review.

Writing this review is very important to me and hard just as much, because this book speaks volumes about my story as a whole, it represents the beginning of my alter ego - Marvin, it represents the end of my childhood, it's got its own meaning, one that which I cannot describe nor give it a name. Do you imagine yourself laughing at the face of death? Living with her in the same house and sharing the same food? The black dog chases you and you start to run away looking for a tree to climb, looking for a house to break and enter.

I talk personally because I should. It could have been any other book that could have represented the calm after the storm in my life. But it was this one, and oh am I so glad that it wasn't any other.

My mum died. It was hard, yes it was. I dealt with it in a rather different way. They cry and cry. I used to cry and laugh. Because I didn't know how to feel really. Whenever I was alone - that for weeks, I would lose the strength that keeps me standing up, feel as if my body was decaying, my bones were breaking, and gravity was so high that I would cling to the ground, and I would cry and I would silently scream and I would die a thousand times. But whenever there were people close I would smile and laugh and be meself. And see, I was never able to understand why that would happen to me, it did never bother me though, but it was just such an eccentric way to deal with grief that it made me wonder.

With the death of my mum, I didn't have to just move house, but move city, and that broke me inside. I ended up losing a lot of friends, a lot of places, and a lot of smells. I figured my mind was adjusting to the fact that I had to cherish the people round me at those particular moments because those were to be the last ones. At least that's whatever I could figure.

The funeral was fun, quite literally. My 3 cousins, my sister and I were laughing at random shit while people would come, stay, and go. I didn't feel the need to cry, not for a single moment. But after the people were gone, the voice would scream behind my shoulders.

After weeks, I decided to start reading again. A dear friend had taught me that - a lesson I never forgot.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had me since the beginning. To think that Earth was about to end and you would be the only survivor was indeed crazy and scary, but not in the way Douglas Adams put it down. Douglas wrote so smoothly every bit of this book, filling it up with gibberish names for people and planets, absurdity scenarios and jokes that would only make sense in a book quite unique like this one, a sci-fi comedy, also known as Douglas Adams' finest dream. A dream that took form only in 1978 when Douglas Adams (mainly) created Guide to the Galaxy and introduced it to the world in the shape of a comedy radio broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The franchise would be, from then on, adapted to other formats. Douglas himself decided to write the first book of the series in 1979, and despite his difficulty with deadlines he managed to write 4 more books to finish the series - it did take 13 more years, but let's not talk about that.

The first book is quite unfinished, I have to say. As if there were pieces missing. Fortunately all the missing pieces of the puzzle were at the end. I just keep thinking that if Douglas were to write another series (I wish he could sad_face) nowadays in the same structure, I would be so mad at him for writing such a tiny book. As soon as you finish it you crave for more.

We tend to like Marvin way too much even though he is mostly absent in most chapters, but I could understand completely why one would like such a pathetic, unreasonable, and depressed robot. He is pretty much everything that is sad in humans. When I read this book, years ago, I started seeing myself as Marvin. I was down. I was defeated. Marvin could do or say anything and I would fully understand it from the bottom of my heart. It was just like going through puberty. I'm not even afraid to say that Marvin touched me in such a peculiar way that to this day, I still like to call myself Marvin even though that is not even my name.

Well, there wasn't only Marvin in the story, was there. Arthur Dent was normal. And by that I mean, he was neither hysterical like most people would be in that situation - if that were to happen, nor impressed with anything. As the book goes on, Arthur starts to become more and more interesting, a fearless bloke that was prepared for whatever was ahead. Meanwhile Ford goes from smart and influential to ordinary and disposable, and I cannot blame this on nothing but the size of the book, had it been bigger Ford could've been more essential to the story during the last 2/3 of the book. Zaphod, the captain of the (stolen) ship, is a very interesting anti-hero (or unethical hero, whatever) and a narcissistic character, which turns out to suit him very well and he would surely be missed if absent in the following books. As for Tricia I have nothing to say, at most times it felt like she didn't even exist, I truly hope she will have a lot of character development in the continuation of the series.

This would be 4.5 up to now, but I decided it to rate 4 for the sole reason that the book doesn't have a purpose, a goal. At least not one that is achieved at least partially within this piece. And the reason is clear, this book was never meant to be 'a' book, but the first part of it. The book feels like it just ends abruptly. It would be dishonest of me to say I wasn't a tad bit disappointed. I'm guessing Douglas is at fault for this. Even though I meant all of this criticism, I still think the book is good for what's it's supposed to do, and whether we like it or not, its main purpose is to introduce us to the world and characters and prepare us for the second book. It does the job quite well, and my only hope is that the following books don't have the same problems, even though I wouldn't mind... My affinity with the characters and Douglas' fine writing style are enough for me.

And by the way, living with death is not as bad it seems when you've got people around you.
And also,
Don't Panic.

Yasmin.d.Leon 27/02/2021

Great audiobooks
This very general review is for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Let me start with the story itself which is in essence great, we have a kind of cynical little human who is “saved” from the Earth’s demolition and now wanders the universe while encountering a series of unique beings and situations. I thought the first book was great, the humor in the series is not a laugh-out-loud humor for me, is more subtle, its humor resides in the absurd, in the nonsensical things, names, situations happening everywhere, all the time, it’s really interesting.

Nevertheless, as I started with this impulse in the first book, the others became tiring to the point that I stopped at book number three, and I don’t know if I’ll continue...Maybe someday. What I think I should have done is wait. Wait some time between books, maybe a couple of months, read something else in between. I just think the spark of the refreshing nature of the story got lost on me.
On the Other hand, wholeheartedly recommend the audiobooks narrated by Martin Freeman (I think that he appeared in the movie too, however I don’t plan on watching it anytime soon, so I can’t really give my opinion in that respect), they are just wonderful, his voice is great, even just by itself you feel the humor and he really knows how to imprint this emotions as he goes along with the story.

Denis Vitor 28/02/2022

A perfect classic
What to say, I just re-read it in English, almost ten years after reading the Portuguese version, and it is as awesome as before.
I'll be honest and say: I didn't remember lots of things and it made the experience new again.
Listening a few chapters in Stephen Fry's voice just made the reading experience even more amazing.
This was a mixed reading, from this old used hardcover version I bought in 2018, Kindle and the audiobook. If I should be true to my words, most of it was read on Kindle, as I insist on being crutched by word-wise feature.
But be bold, take this as your first "true English book reading" and be delighted. After many new invented words frustrations, of course.

This is a classic. A sci-fi classic, an English lit classic, an comedy classic, a brit classic. This reading should not be mandatory only because every pleasant thing made a mandatory action is turned into a suffering.
Ar thur spiral of events is priceless and should be read as often as possible. At least, that's what I'll do. As far as I remember and just re-confirmed, the first one is the magnum opus. Although I remember having uncontrollable crisis of laughter in all of them.


A light, off for a long time in my sleeping writer's heart, was lit again.

I had a similar feeling as my 15 year old self: the wish to meet Douglas Adams and thank him for every crazy nonsense paragraph this bastard put together in perfect sense.

(To be translated)

Jean 03/06/2023

Muito bom
Incrível, muito bom e muito criativo. Leitura obrigatória de todo nerd, todo mundo que gosta de ficção científica.
Apesar do livro ser muito bom, acredito que deve ter sido mto difícil fazer um filme dele (que tem mas eu nunca vi). Não ia me espantar se o filme for meio ruim. Mas o livro é impecável, extremamente inteligente, diálogos muito criativos e interessantes. Amei cada parte de uma maneira diferente. Recomendo demais a leitura.