Today is Douglas Adams' 60th birthday. Or it would be if he hadn't been thoughtless enough to die in May of 2001, thereby depriving us of yet more of his insanely eccentric humour. I owe Doug a quite considerable debt. For his TV series "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a delightfully lunatic romp through the universe which I enjoyed many years ago, and for his equally delightful and equally lunatic detective stories "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" which I just recently read. I haven't yet ventured into "The Meaning of Liff" and some of his other brilliant stuff and won't until my funny bone has healed.
I would wish him well wherever he now is, but he was an atheist so would have known he wouldn't be anywhere, just his molecules returning to the universe that so fascinated him and out of which he made such great sport. I can only agree with his friend and fellow atheist, Richard Dawkins, who dedicated his book "The God Delusion" to Douglas and lamented on his death that science had lost a friend and literature a luminary. Indeed.
So thanks for the laughs, Doug, and now I will get back to contemplating 42—The Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment