New Hitchhiker’s? It’s just a bit wrong, isn’t it?
Posted on | September 17, 2008 | 78 Comments
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I remember hearing it on the radio many years ago and being somewhat dumbfounded as I don’t think I’d ever heard anything like it before. It made the top of my head feel funny. There are still parts of the top of my head which haven’t quite regained all feeling.
The books followed the radio series and they were an absolute delight. The timing of them was perhaps a bit fortuitous, what with the whole Star Wars thing and the plethora of space based movies at that time, but they were absolutely brilliant. They stand up to repeated reading nowadays, the sheer madness of the characters and situations was a joy and the surreal comedy was just about perfect.
Douglas Adams died in 2001 after five books in the Hitchhiker’s series. He had planned to do six, apparently, but it never happened. This morning I read that Eoin Colfer, the bloke who writes the Artemis Fowl books (which I have only ever heard ads for on the radio and have never read) is set to continue the series with the blessing of Adams’ widow.
Now, this is nothing against Eoin Colfer, who may be a very fine writer for all I know, but isn’t it just wrong for somebody else to write a book with these characters? Perhaps it’s a little bit precious to say only Douglas Adams knew his characters but it wouldn’t be wrong to say he knew them better than anybody else. I know we see adaptations of books all the time, Hollywood screenwriters taking fictional heroes and heroines from books and bringing them to life on the big screen. Most of the time though those adaptations are pretty fucking shit. Sure, that has a lot to do with Hollywood’s ‘happy ending’ culture but part of it is because they’re taking something somebody else has created and then bastardising it.
James Bond books have continued to be written after the death of Ian Fleming but they’re not Ian Fleming’s Bond, are they? I listened to Sebastian Faulks on the radio one day talking about the Bond novel he wrote and he was insistent that the first draft of a book like this could be written in about 6 weeks. That doesn’t strike me as somebody who cared about the character, more somebody who wanted to get the cheque for his submitted manuscript.
Can you imagine somebody else taking Wilt or Skullion or the despicable yet hilarious Konstabel Els from Tom Sharpe’s books and trying to write a book in the same style? It just would not work. It’s an impossibility. Even to take those characters and try and do it in your own way would be wrong.
So if you’re a successful author in your own right, like Eoin Colfer seems to be, why would you even try to do something like this? Why not say ‘I’m sorry, those books and characters belong to Douglas Adams. Nobody can possibly write them in the same way he did. Nobody can make them funnier, more engaging, more slapstick, deadpan or interesting than he did. Thanks for the offer but this is a bit like asking Rolf Harris to touch up the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel’.
I suppose lots of people will go out and buy it simply because it’s another Hitchhiker book and people can’t get enough of a good thing. This explains why we had 7 Police Academy movies which completely ruined the fact that the first five were comedic genius (haha, the black guy can make funny sounds!).
I won’t buy it though. It’s wrong.
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78 Responses to “New Hitchhiker’s? It’s just a bit wrong, isn’t it?”
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September 17th, 2008 @ 8:52 am
It seems to be about money not the books. I watched the movie with friends whom I had been telling for years how funny the books, radio and BBc TV show were. What a fucking let down.
Funny you mentioning Konstabel Els, I was only talking to a cab driver about that last week, If you think about it it will never really be understood by future generations because of the change in political climate
September 17th, 2008 @ 8:57 am
I never watched the movie. You just knew.
And I think Konstabel Els is a bit too rapey for people to laugh at these days.
Not me though.
September 17th, 2008 @ 9:07 am
it’s a fucking liberty.
September 17th, 2008 @ 9:33 am
…so I take it there’s no hope of taking over you blog when you snuff it Twenty, is there? Aw, come on, leave the door of possibility open a LITTLE bit for us…
September 17th, 2008 @ 9:34 am
I can remember cycling home from school through sleet and snow excited that HHG2G was on BBC Radio 4 that night. Then listening to it on awful LW reception where the Radio 4 frequency faded in and out with some Czech station so you only heard about half the program. That was in 1978.
September 17th, 2008 @ 9:38 am
Was in a pub for lunch lately with a bunch of people. When we were leaving I said “So long, and thanks for all the fish” to the waitress.
Nobody got it.
Ah well.
September 17th, 2008 @ 9:40 am
No JL. I’m taking them all with me.
September 17th, 2008 @ 9:44 am
You have a point there but i would say that Sebastian Faulks was writing as Ian Fleming ,who wrote many of the Bond books within 6 weeks,so maybe he was trying to make the circumstances similar..although writing in the styly of someone else is like Miming along to a Bowie Classic on stage but also throwing in the odd line you made up yourself.
The shame of it,haranged in the street…
“Cant write your own characters Faulks you Caaaant!!”
September 17th, 2008 @ 9:48 am
The other big problem is that everything and everybody got destroyed at the end of the fifth book, which I think he wrote while suffering from depression. So it’s gonna be kind-of like the idea they had once for Thelma and Louise 2.
September 17th, 2008 @ 9:52 am
Its a bad idea for the characters and the original impact of the books. But as Twenty says its Mrs Douglas giving permission and I think its because she doesn’t want to turn down the money.
I think the law should be changed around this kind of thing- ‘permission’ over characters should die with the author but of course royalties to continue to the writer’s estate.
Eoin Colfer is a very inventive writer and is adaptable as he has shown recently with a departure from the Artemis Fowl series to his latest book which was very well reviewed.
But there was something intrinsically English about Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect etc and I’m not sure an Irish writer can replicate the dialogue or gentle English pessimistic humour.
Still- all the buzz will sell more Douglas Adams books and Mrs Adams will have achieved her aim.
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:01 am
When copyright lapses, can anyone take on the ideas? with ‘in the style of ….’ in tiny letters & CHARLES DICKENS in bold maybe
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:05 am
i suppose though its nothing new,didnt loads of fellas write as William Shakespeare when he was alive?..
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:19 am
Anyway I heard that if Twenty dies, his ghostwriter Brian McFadden will continue the books.
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:20 am
That was fucking harsh, I take it back
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:22 am
Sister maggot: When copyright lapses, can anyone take on the ideas? with ‘in the style of ….’ in tiny letters & CHARLES DICKENS in bold maybe
‘Far as I know copyright now extends as far as 75 years after author writes ‘The End’ for the last time.
But I’ve seen people out of courtesy say things like ‘after’ whoever and ‘with a nod to’ etc and there’s a general convention towards acknowledgment whic is right and proper.
There’s nothing new under the sun- I only discovered recently that TS Eliots The Wasteland was heavily influenced by Malory.
Tolkien was a beggar for Old English where he got the word ‘ent’ from for the walking trees etc.
Sorry- I’m being boring (with apologies to Brian Cowen).
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:33 am
Thanks BOS, can file away my ‘New Twist on Oliver’ for future work when I am made redundant.
Maggot where are you? surely nothing interesting on day-time Tv yet. I’ve been phoning for sympathy for this sodding back pain I swear it is easier to buy heroin for pain relief even in the ass end of nowhere (here) than to get an appointment with a GP
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:37 am
As an aside Holemaster’s going under the knife today – http://eskerriada.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/operation-holemaster-post-9/#comment-196
Good luck, dude.
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Publishing’s going the hollywood route – ‘properties’ like successful books and characters have enormous ‘residual’ value. Revamping / updating / new episodes etc are all a way of keeping the product on the market for new generations of readers. It also is a way of maintaining copyright control and ancillary rights into an indefinite future.
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:50 am
Indeed good luck for Holemaster.
I’ll ring you sister.
September 17th, 2008 @ 11:07 am
I heard that if Twenty dies, his ghostwriter Brian McFadden will continue the books.
ghostwriter/lover
September 17th, 2008 @ 11:13 am
You despicable cunts
September 17th, 2008 @ 11:22 am
Good Luck Holemaster,,may you be LungMaster in no time!!
September 17th, 2008 @ 11:31 am
morgor the civilised says: I heard that if Twenty dies, his ghostwriter Brian McFadden will continue the books.
ghostwriter/lover
and Sugar Daddy.
September 17th, 2008 @ 11:48 am
Fucking Hell Morgor, even I acknowledged that the McFadden quip was well over the top, Twenty would never be seen at the Howth yacht club with that fat twat, I think his ghost writer is in fact none other than Ronan Keating
September 17th, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
20, you’re wasting my time. every day i settle down to do some work but end up looking at your blog reading all the comments, it leaves me little time for a youporn-assisted toss-off before I definitely definitely have to go have a coffee, just to be socialable. Can you take a rest for a while? LEt me get some work done for a change. I wouldn’t mind, but my job is as a tour coach driver.
September 17th, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
After quite a few pints and several glasses of whiskey a few years ago I retired to the local Turkish Kebab Shop – I was half wway through Police Academy 4 when I realised it was funnier than before – it had been dubbed into Turkish, a vast improvement.
As for the Keating/McFadden thing, let’s not be silly – Twenty is asexual. Wouldn’t dream of that sort of nonsense – that’s why he donated his prostate to science.
September 17th, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
Did science contest the will?
September 17th, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Tom Sharpe = absolute genius. Funniest writing I’ve ever come across, barring maybe some of Flann O’Brien’s better moments and some yoke about a folk gig in the Phoenix Park. And Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat. Douglas Adams would be lower down the list but still inimitable. If Mr Colfer wants to finish other writers’ work, perhaps someone should point him in the direction of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast series. Plenty of scope there, though the last one was crap.
September 17th, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
Did science contest the will?
He’s still alive – it was a donation, the queue for the sperm bank was too long. Of course he regrets it now – think of what it would be worth if he had done a deal with Damien Hirst.
September 17th, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
Pooka MacPhellimey says:
If Mr Colfer wants to finish other writers’ work, perhaps someone should point him in the direction of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast series. Plenty of scope there, though the last one was crap.
I loved the first two freakin amazing books and burnt Titus Alone so that it could never tarnish my ancient and endless library.
September 17th, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
maggot says: think of what it would be worth if he had done a deal with Damien Hirst.
I always thought Twenty WAS Damien Hirst. Judging by the size of the house, the swimming pool, the supermodel gardener, the gold kennel for bastardface …
September 17th, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
Mervyn Peake was a genius, and so was Flann O’Brien. There’s great interest in Flann over here in the UK and I think his books have been reissued in paperback and are selling well.
Nice one, Pooka.
September 17th, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
I always thought Twenty WAS Damien Hirst.
Jesus, you do like pushing your luck!
September 17th, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
Damien? Lend us a few bob? Damien?
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
Never read the Guide but appreciate that some things should be left the fuck alone.
I always felt for example that it should be illegal to re-mix certain songs unless sanctioned by a committee(comprising me of course) but the view seems to be if something is worth doing once it is worth kicking the bollix of.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
I dont know why this popped into my head but I got a letter published in “Look in ” when I was ten and they never sent me my £5 – the cunts.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
Pattherat down £5.00;
Whatever you don’t send anything to the Herald. You’ll be a negative millionaire before you know it.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
I had recently a long debate with an English teacher friend of mine. Basically I put it to her that HGG was a masterpiece of modern literature and the school curriculum could well do with its inclusion. She said bollox. But it is! The sheer imagination and scale. The dimensions of the narrative. Imagine laying that out on a white board.
But don’t you think little txt generation school persons everywhere would be captivated by this book, as opposed to say ‘Pride and Prejudice’. There would be no more “get upstairs and do your English homework” it would be more “I’m like reading this way cool space book and shit”
As for a new book in the series. The series stands up as a complete story. It does not need any additions. I know DA was quoted as saying he would consider another one but he might have been drunk/stoned or pissed off with doing the interview, and needed a piss. I don’t think Mrs. Adams could be short the few bob. So Why? Eoin Colfer I don’t know you, but am guessing you are a narcissist. You don’t need the money, and at the resulting book launch, the top of the queue will be dominated by DA devotees, and if you think about it, do ever remember hearing the phrase “The original was great, but this new addition takes it to a whole new level”. Don think so, immanent failure, memory of DA and his work, sullied. Shame on you.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
it should be illegal to re-mix certain songs unless sanctioned by a committee
Excuse me, but I think it should be compulsory. And by ‘remix’, I mean ‘replace’.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
Twenty and I are working on it, darling.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
Shit. Meant to sign that last ‘Brian McFadden. Shit, shit, shit.
Thats what happens when you mix work with playing on the net.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
I read those Douglas Adams books way back then. They were OK, but I wouldn’t put them up there with Flann O’Brien.
Whenever I can’t find a book about folk festivals in the Phoenix Park to read, I always go back to Flann o’Brien. And I’ll be re-reading them for the rest of my life too.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
Ever read the Myles Na Gopaleen Irish Times collected pieces? Ace.
Especially the ones with ‘the brother’.
September 17th, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
>Was in a pub for lunch lately with a bunch of >people. When we were leaving I said “So long, >and thanks for all the fish” to the waitress.
A friend claims he wrote that on his alien registration card when he surrendered it on permanently leaving Japan.
Cos of all the sushi he ate…
Tony
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
When we first moved in together, Mr. M and I would take turns reading a book aloud to each other before bed and “Hitchhiker’s” was the first one he chose for me.
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
Shit. Meant to sign that last ‘Brian McFadden. Shit, shit, shit.
hahaha
When we first moved in together, Mr. M and I would take turns reading a book aloud to each other before bed and “Hitchhiker’s” was the first one he chose for me.
heh, and what did you read him?
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:19 pm
heh, and what did you read him?
my guess is The Ladybird book of cakes..
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
Vogues’ ‘Expensive Gifts Your Partner Can Buy For You?’
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:35 pm
‘Where’s Willy?”
sorry, I mean Wally.
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
” So your’re songs are shit.and no one recognises you in the street because your a Sandwich eatin’ cunt” By J R Hartley..
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
of course i meant You’re in that last sentance
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
And I bet you meant ‘sentence’ in that one too.
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
I like this idea of X’s Y’s Z, as in Sebastian Faulks’s Ian Fleming’s James Bond. A little known fact about Irish actor Gabriel Byrne is that he was approached to star in Francis Ford Copola’s Bram’s Stoker’s Dracula, but insisted on a credit in the film title, making it Gabriel Byrne’s Francis Ford Copola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Negotiations broke down when they found this made the film title to fit on a DVD box spine.
This box I’m currently typing in is Georgiasam’s Twenty Major’s Blog’s Comment Box Comment. Everything in life should come in this XYZ form.
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
Too long to fit, I meant.
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
Brilliant! I’m not the only one on drugs.
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
Which reminds me;
Mushrooms.
SuperG, talk to me!
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
Did you know that the writer of the Jason Bourne books, Robert Ludlum, has written another 87 books since his untimely death in 2001?
Matt Damon has optioned the movie rights to all the Bourne novels ending with a geriatric but still active Jason Bourne appearing in the final book in the series ‘The Bourne Colostomy’. Apparently.
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
And I bet you meant ’sentence’ in that one too.
..yes..”cough”
September 17th, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
Wouldnt that be “The Bourne Euthanasia”
September 17th, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
The Parkinsons Supremacy
September 17th, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
THe Alzheimers Indentity
“I don’t know who i am”
September 17th, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
The continuing tales of the renegade agent are all being ghost written by Cecelia Ahearne. She was given the job in 2002 when Maeve Binchy turned it down. Miss Ahearne uses the pen name Cecil A. Hernea to maintain her anonymity, the cunning minx.
September 17th, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
The Bournville Supremacy- by M.R. Harney.
September 17th, 2008 @ 4:38 pm
As for anybody taking over from the Godlike Douglas Adams, forget it! I don’t believe anybody could emulate his fantastic imagination. I wonder if Doug Naylor and Rob Grant might not have been a better choice to carry his towel?
September 17th, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
re. TOM SHARPE
CHECK OUT NICHOLAS SALAMAN
September 17th, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Fucking awful news, that.
Maybe he could complete the last Dirk Gently novel, but HHGTTG should be untouchable.
September 17th, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul are a couple of really funny books. I read the Salmon of doubt and thought it was just a load of uncompleted non-sense. Maybe that is the way to go for Colfer… tie up Dirk’s loose ends. The only problem being, the Gently books dont have half the profile of HHG2G which means less moolah….
September 17th, 2008 @ 7:06 pm
I say again, Nicholas Salaman is as close to Sharpe as you will get. Pay attwentysion.
September 17th, 2008 @ 7:11 pm
Will check that out.
September 17th, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
How long did it take you to write your own book, then?
September 17th, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
I dunno, but it only took nonny AN HOU-R to read.
When I read Wilt long ago, it left me gasping with laughter, but I reread it recently and it seemed dated and unfunny. I was disappointed.
Ha, the Ladybird Book of Cakes. That’s one for me!
September 17th, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
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September 17th, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
How long did it take you to write your own book, then?
Months. Although a lot of it was written in a short space of time.
September 17th, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
Jesus, Konstabel Els. I’d almost forgotten him; the chapter Els in the Blockhouse is possibly the funniest passage in literature.
September 18th, 2008 @ 2:52 am
Is it mushroom season now??
Read the hitchhikers when I was about twelve, and thought they were brilliant, but never re-read. Then I saw the film a copuple of years ago, and it was complete shite, so I thought the books were maybe just good at the time..
Colfer would be doing this project for altruistic reasons I’d say, cause he definitely doesnt need the money…
September 18th, 2008 @ 8:03 am
I’m not sure it’s altruistic.
September 18th, 2008 @ 10:08 am
Sure tolkien, H.G. wells & Frank Herbert have all had sequels of their work written by their sons. It’s ok to try and write it but doesn’t guarantee it won’t be a pile of shit.
September 18th, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
Konstabel Els
*wipes a misty tear from the cheek*