h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ah so! You finished it then? I remember you saying you were finding it a bit depressing. I suppose it is heavy going. I can't really remember all that much of it now though, it's maybe 8 years or so since I read it.

Could be my memory is playing tricks on me, but I remember there being quite a lot of funny episodes in it. Though asked to pick one out I can't really do it. One was the workmen at lunch organising some kind of mock unemployed march around the room or something.

I might try to get around to taking another look at it sometime just to see if I can refresh my memory of it a bit.

Anyway cheer up, it's behind you now -
You're allowed to feel smug and moral for wading through it!

KB

Sorry, just saw this.
What I found so depressing about it was that we seem to be veering back to that sort of society, the rich and the poor and everyone trying to scrape past and take advantage of anyone in even a slightly weaker position.

It makes me glad I live where I do.

There were some funny parts, but it was the sort of black, barrack type humour I used to enjoy in the Army.

10 years ago the book wouldn't have bothered me so much. But now I have too children, and found it hard going when I stopped work for 3 years, so I can't bear to think what it would have been like back then.

And now I'm reading Vile Bodies, which is the other end of the spectrum.

I get your drift entirely. Sometimes it seems like the biggest gains made during the 20th century are being rolled back a little at a time. Still, at least people (at least in some countries) are a lot better off than they were then.

Didn't realise you have been in the army - maybe with a few more liberal lefty types in the army the world would be a better place!

Who is Vile Bodies by? I've not heard of it. I'm about halfway through Foucault's Pendulum at the minute. Alternating it with a PG Wodehouse book of all things!

Needless to say, I'm finding that they are quite different in style!


KB

Oh Focualt's Pendulum? Good luck with that... I slogged through it when it first came out in English (from the book club, of course) and really liked it. Of course I couldn't tell you a thing about it now, except that I like Eco's style.

Vile Bodies is by Evelyn Waugh - if you like PG Wodehouse (which I also do, love Jeeves & Wooster) it's set in the 20s and the same social set as the Jeeves & Wooster crowd.

But it is very frivolous.

As for the Army, well I did Russian A level, then drifted around a bit thinking about what I wanted to do, and ended up in the Army. Intelligence Corps, so it was full of "intellectual" types, who weren't really like your average soldier, I suppose. I think you'd be surprised at the amount of liberal types there are in the Army - not so many out and out lefties, but left leaning liberals certainly.

Although this year I've been out 15 years, they could all be jackbooted facists now for all I know

Ah well, I can still live in hope of a mutiny then!

The thing I like about Jeeves and Wooster is just what an unadulterated clown Bertie Wooster is. I was reading it, and a friend of mine, a bit of a knee-jerk Rik from the Young Ones type anarchist, said something like "Why are you reading that aristocracy arse-licking?" I just thought Come on, along with Wooster's thickness, he and all his friends seem to live of hand-outs from rich aunts etc... It's really pretty damning if you read between the lines! Main point is it's a bit of a laugh though. That's the reason to read it, nothing wildly intellectual.

Also bidding on a few Sharpe books on ebay at the minute. About 2 days to wait, some bugger's bound to outbid me by then!

I love Jeeves & Wooster (and anything of that ilk) for exactly that reason. Apart from Wodehouse's ability to have me in complete stitches by using only about 6 words.