Maailmanlopun ravintola (1980)

My favourite re-reads are even better this time around, as narrated by Martin Freeman! ( )

Surreal, satirical and occasionally dances on the rubble of the 4th wall. One of the greatest works of fiction of all time. ( )

Martin Freeman should do the narration for all books that have a majority of male characters. The book itself is fun, but Freeman made it for me. ( )

The universe is weirder and more wonderful than Arthur Dent could ever have imagined. Ever since Earth was destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass, Arthur has been hitchhiking with his friend, Ford Prefect, who is from a small green planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. Now they’re looking for a spot of lunch, and what better place to dine than the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

I tried reading this in audio earlier this year and didn’t get on with it at all. In print, however, it was delightful. I remember a lot of moments primarily through the lens of the 1981 TV miniseries: Hotblack Desiato, Max Quordlepleen (who always scared me a bit, frankly) and the Golgafrinchans (may I never be as useless as they are). The book was much funnier than I remembered: I was laughing out loud frequently. I especially liked the piece on the grammar of time travel, and the Scrabble scene was unexpectedly amusing. “The only word they know is grunt and they don’t know how to spell it.”

I’d certainly recommend this if you read and enjoyed the first book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy of five. ( )

I’ve read the print edition of this book, but not nearly as often as the first book in the Hitchhiker’s trilogy of five. So perhaps that put me at a disadvantage when reading the audio edition, which is narrated by Martin Freeman. But I couldn’t finish listening to it. The primary reason was the choice of accent for Zaphod; Martin made him sound like some kind of Tri-State alien (my first thought was of Brooklyn or Joisey), and it grated on my ears. It was especially grating because this installment of Hitchhiker’s spends a LOT of time with Zaphod. I might have preferred a narrator such as Mark Wing-Davey, who played Zaphod in the 1981 miniseries. I also found, perhaps because of my previous experience, that Freeman’s Marvin voice wasn’t deep and doleful enough.

I did like the voices with effects: the Vogon voice nearly made me choke on my water with laughter, and Gargravarr, the Custodian of the Total Perspective Vortex, was wonderfully resonant and amusing. And the intergalactic cruise ship was creepy and funny in equal measure due primarily to the robot flight attendant. Freeman’s rendition of Eddie the shipboard computer was fun too. But the Zaphod voice stopped me right in my tracks. Perhaps this would have worked better with a few narrators, if not a full cast. ( )