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

I'm still working up the courage for a *third* attempt!

Although this is my second attempt at reading Q, I've yet to finish it.

shh! don't spoilt it for me - I'm in the parts in Venice when our anabaptist is on course to discovering the identity of Q.

I started reading it when a friend recommended it to me and unfortuately my copy was semi-destroyed in an accident (technically I suppose it is still readable but the spine is all warped and the pages twisted)

My finacee has her own copy (she didn't like it) so I picked it up from where I left off (the decadent fall of Munster) and have carried on from there.

Once I've actually finished reading it, I'll be interested to go back and read it again. Because Quolet's identity isnt yet revealed, and all of his actions are discussed in flashback (or rather all of the protagonists failures are revealed in Q's epistles to have orchastrated by Q), forearmed with the knowledge of who Q is in the sequence of events will I think lend the story a different flavour.

But we'll see.

The translation from the italian suffers quite a bit I think. The speech is often flowery and bluntly slanglish in very short order. Maybe that's how they spoke in the 1500's but it makes it a tough read.

What's brining you back to the book for a third attempt?

Er...that's a third attempt at *trying* to read it . I've not even got as far as you seem to have.

Why persist? I was told it '...really kicks in after the first 187 pages or so.'

oooooh. Well then let me not spoil it for you.

It is a long book and the structure of the novle and time-span it covers is long and complex. I strongly advise paying particular attention to the dates that accompany each new chapter - events can take place over motnhs and years, and weeks apart. Neither the narrative nor the dialogue yeilds much information in explaining that time may have moved on. You are sort of expected to keep up that the episodic account has moved on. This is also true when moving between flashbacks and reality so to speak. Do watch out for those.

I can't speak on exactly when the book picks up pace, however I'd say the sequences leading up to Munster are possibly the best thus far (Venice comes across as far too gaudy and rich - and the characterisations are as bad.) However by this point the two principal characters are growing more aware of each other so what the plot gives up in terms of grand landscaping of European Reformation politics, it benefits by seguing into greater emphasis on the long-running intrigue and batle between Q and the anabaptist protagonist.

Keep reading.

It's in my pile! I'm not sure when it will reach the top.

I finished Q by the way.