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

Nice, concise run-down of what the book is about. I can't think of anything that needs to be included (though you might say that some editions have a glossary at the back. This, while being helpful, takes a lot of the mystery and hard work out of the book).

kathy

Nice entry, was wondering about Nadsat:
I always wondered whether another one of the reasons that Burgess used Nadsat was to distance the book further from reality:

Clockwork Orange is chilling not just because the reader ends up cheering for Alex the entire time, but also because the story is so imaginable as a real occurence today. One of the things that makes it more bareable is the use of Nadsat. Imagining a London culture where russian has come to the fore in teenage slang helps the reader believe that what is portrayed couldnt really happen.

Hmm, I failed to make my point as clearly as I would have liked, but you should get my drift - what do you reckon?

I see what you mean - but then perhaps we *do* have versions of nadsat, though of course nowhere near as extreme; youth dialects always exist and divide. Funnily enough, I thought much the opposite about nadsat. I thought that perhaps is was intended to make the book more real, creating a seamlessly authentic society that is believeable. If Alex spoke with the Queen's English, the reality of the novel would appear too artificial. Though I see your point that it may be to separate it from *our* reality.

Another reason for my thinking that it was to distance the book from "our" reality is that Anthony Burgess' then wife was attacked a by some thugs in London whilst he was out of the country, resulting in the miscarriage of their child to be.

The anger/grief Burgess felt at his wifes miscarriage (I think this is right, but its a while since I read the source of my "info") is meant to be reason he wrote the book, and makes the way one feels about Alex all the more amazing.
Seems reasonable to want to distance oneself from such a reality.

(As far as I remember from whatever it was I was reading about Burgess at time, he wrote the book in the period just after the attack on his wife, whilst drunk most of the time.)

Have you got a PR thread for this St Emily?
I would make one - and copy this lot over to it as well.

I personally like the entry - I just read the book (and had a panic attack when I thought I'd left it on the train with only a couple of chapters to go)

It's a nice little entry, with what it needs in it.
Take it to the peer review!

Welly well well,

I viddied your little entry, my brother. Real horrorshow good.

More seriously, I think it's a nice little entry on the book. You might want to expand a bit more on what actually happened in that missing chapter, since it does have an effect on the way the Kubrick film came out. I suppose you could also say a bit more about the film, but it is an entry about the book, so I can understand that.

Funnily enough, I recently wrote an entry about the Korova Milkbar in New York. It's a bar designed to look similar to the milkbar in the movie and book. Rather freaky to visit sometimes.

Yours,
Jake