The Gospel according to Douglas Adams

I've been working my way through books, radio series and TV series. And then I've had a bit of a sit down and think. And then I had cheese on toast for supper and had some amazing and disturbing dreams last night.  And I''ve seen the light. We've all missed the point in reading Douglas Adams. In thinking that The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an infinitely materialistic, anti-religion, evolutionary text that extols nihilism - we've not noticed that it is in fact a deeply Christian work.

In the forthcoming analysis, I explicitly exclude the 3rd through 5th books of the trilogy, as the creativity clearly dribbles away at this point. And of course the 6th book, which is strictly extra-canonical in my opinion. I see them as the equivalent of the last chapter of John's Gospel - a bit added on after the main action has been completed. I also make reference to the TV and radio series and novels - regarding these as canonical, even where they are contradictory, just like a proper fundamentalist. I should say that as well as cheese on toast, this line of thought was was also inspired by my hearing this link of the Church Mouse on @twurchofEngland website. In which His Mousiness sounds remarkably like the pan-dimensional, hyper-intelligent being, Benjy Mouse.


So. In the first place, take Arthur Dent. Arthur, as well as being Everyman and the Pilgrim, is Noah. When the world is threatened with destruction - in this case due to humanity's laziness in not going to the nearest planning office - Arthur is saved and carried off, like Noah or indeed Gilgamesh, on a great journey. The Vogons are symbols of primeval chaos - they are the Flood, and are also representative of those great enemies of the Jews and eternal enemies of God's People - in other words, the Vogons are the Babylonians - destroying the homeland, inflicting their awful poetry on people, and yet paradoxically providing a haven for the remnant.


Throughout the story, the part of the Tempter is provided by Zaphod. Superficially attractive, yet interested in the end only in his own best interests, Zaphod constantly leads Arthur and his friends into temptation. To draw analogy with another belief system, Zaphod is Loki. And yet,  through the intervention of his guardian angel, Ford, and with his Bible - the Guide itself - Arthur perseveres to the end. Meanwhile, Adams satirizes the failures of psychology to deal with our human condition - "Zaphod's just zis guy, you know?"


And the false prophets abound - people that promise to give us the answers and yet fail every time. The philosophers who are in it only for the money, the computer geeks that think they will get all their answers from silicon. Deep Thought himself - the representative of science and technology -  who, after pondering for seven and a half million years can only come up with a meaningless answer.


Realising that I could not be the only person to have noticed this in a world of six billion bloggers, I found this blog which identified a similar theme. And yet I feel that the author has missed the point. In his view (and to be fair he's only seen the movie) Ford Prefect is somehow a Christ-figure. But Ford never sacrifices anything. Likewise it might be tempting to see the Great Prophet Zarquon as the Christ-figure in the movie - infinitely delayed and ultimately disappointing. But that's what Adams thinks you're going to think he thinks. There is only one Christ-figure in the Hitch-hiker's guide. He is the one who sacrifices himself in order that the others may live. He is on this world, deliberately given to give help to others. He has a Genuine People Personality. He is that Android of sorrows, Marvin. He is the one who  has to "lay down my life selflessly for you? Make the ultimate sacrifice?  Consign my brain, which is the size of a planet, to death in a blazing sun, so that you can all pursue your futile little lives?" However I will stop drawing the analogy here, as it's becoming needlessly messianic - and indeed perhaps a little docetic.


After being teleported out of a rock group's stunt ship moments before crashing to his death in a blazing sun, Arthur ends up on yet another Ark - this time a B-Ark. Through this Ark he comes safely to land in his new Eden. And yet, like Noah's landing, although all is new and pristine, the Ark has brought the seeds of its own new travails with it. Arthur himself - and a group of middle managers and telephone sanitizers -  have wrecked the algorithm - the one that would produce the Ultimate Question to the Answer 42. In the future lay wars and rumours of wars, county council environmental officers, and a Hyperspace Bypass. And yet beyond that lays the promise of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the feast at the end of time.  Which holds safe all those who have saved up their worldly wealth (or, at least, one small part of it at compound interest). Here the Blessed sit, watching the ultimate hopeless end of those who seek their salvation in this material cosmos.


I tell you, it gives you hope for the future of all life-kind.