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

This is a very important issue and I'm glad you brought it up. People have been avoiding it for too long. I must confess that I have always been hesitant in raising the subject due to its controversial nature. Thank you Jabberwock for taking on a responsibility others have shirked for so long.

The layout of your presentation is eye-catching and easy to read. I think you have brought up some interesting points. Your final point however, despite being the most poignant, is difficult to decipher. Perhaps some added punctuation would help.


How about:

"Contrarywise, I would add that the fact it is a WHY question has not been satisfactorily taken into account by commentators. The answer to 'WHY a raven is like a writing-desk', in this sense, could be 'Just because it is', or 'God made them that way', or 'That's the way things are', and so forth. WHY questions like these are notoriously difficult to answer satisfactorily, or may be unanswerable outside a religious or ideological context. Ask any parent!"

To add a personal comment to this issue may be considered tongue in cheek at this juncture. I do not claim to be an expert in Alice issues and realise that my inexperience compared to other Alice commentators should result in silent reverence rather than bold statements. I do feel however, that I may have something to add to this particular area. I will therefore make the statement and beg you forgive my insolence and guide any misconceptions I may have.

It is obvious to me why a raven is like a writing desk. Alice probably didn’t get it because she wasn’t herself that day and the hatter…well the hatter was unlikely to work it out for himself.

You see, ravens are black, and black gold refers to oil, and oil is used for burning, and wood is very combustible. Wood is used to make paper, paper makes up the pages of a book and when writing in a book one leans on a writing desk. You see the link? It’s simple.

Hi Madame Cone,

Thanks for your comments. I've incorporated your suggestions, together with a couple of commas of my own, and I think you'll find that last passage much easier to read now. Thanks

I think your solution is very ingenious and very funny - one of the best I've seen in fact. If you can get hold of the Annotated Alice (in a library, or from Penguin Books) you'll find more suggestions, including Lewis Carroll's own, which was made up after the fact and put in the preface to the 1896 edition, (the book was first published in 1865-Wonderland and 1871-Looking Glass - the Mad Tea Party was in Wonderland). It wasn't a very good answer. Here's the text:

'Enquiries have so often been addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz "Because it can produce few notes, tho they are VERY flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!" [by 'it', he means both] This, however is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.'

Your answer is quite obviously better.

J