Yuffie's Book Reviews

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - by Douglas Adams

After reading the gem that was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I had to pick up it's sequel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

It was good and I really enjoyed it, but I feel it's predecessor was a tad stronger, and I'll explain why.

THE CHARACTERS

The major thing lacking from this book was the lack of focus and character. There was no main protagonist and no goal. With book 1, we followed Arthur as he was spirited away and watched his planet die. There was a clear plot structure, villain, goals, etc. But Book 2 didn't have that.

Arthur was the perfect protagonist for Book 1 because it kept us grounded amidst all the improbable wackiness. But since we had to follow Zaphod for half the book in Book 2, we lost that grounding. There was nothing interesting or likable about Zaphod. He was just the super cocky 2-headed alien that you just wanted to punch in the face a few dozen times. I wasn't compelled to know what happened to him, which is why my interest waned during his scenes.

When we finally get to Arthur's pov, it's so short-lived, and the pov felt pretty distant, as though we weren't even in his pov, so there was no point. There was no change in him, no character arc. Same goes for Zaphod, Trillian, and Ford. And that was my biggest criticism of the book. Of course, a changing character isn't 100% necessary, as we saw with The Martian, but while Mark Watney had a clear-cut goal to achieve, none from The Restaurant had any kind of direction or anything to work toward. They were just going along for the ride when the wacky improbable things were happening.

Also Trillain wasn't even more than an extra who occasionally piped in with generic lines. She added nothing to the story, which was sad to see. She had a role in the first book, but there was genuinely no point to her here, so I'm not sure why she was even included in this book at all. If there really was no way to assimilate her into the story, I wish the author just got rid of her and focused on Zaphod, Arthur, and Ford, so the scenes wouldn't be cluttered by her presence.

THE PLOT

There wasn't one. Truly, I didn't see it. It was a haphazard conglomeration of events that had absolutely nothing to do with each other. It felt like Adams was really stretching to come up with something so out-there and wacky for the sake of wackiness, that he lost sight of what purpose it serves to the overarching story and characters.

We start right where the first left off, but in Zaphod's (the villain in the last book) pov and follow him for half the book, then randomly switch to Ford, then Arthur for a bit. It was disorganized and had no clear progression, no character arcs, and no goal. There were some micro-goals at a scene level, but for the overarching story, they weren't trying to accomplish anything, no big revelations like the first book.

Each subplot felt randomly thrown together. And I don't mean the wacky Improbably Drive-driven random that I loved from the first book. Here, they're on the Heart of Gold ship, which freezes, while the Vogons are trying to shoot them, then they go ahead in time to the Restaurant, where there's a dude with a black ship, which they steal, which time travels to the past... There wasn't any coherency between the events like there was with Book 1. In Hitchhiker's everything was tied together and I could see the reason this story was being told (42?! yes, 42.). But The Restaurant had no reason other than a series of random events.

However, despite these shortcomings on a macro-plot level, it had its micro moments. There were some hilarious lines that got a few smiles out of me, especially in the second half. Douglas's satirical writing style reminds me a great deal of Terry Pratchett. These funny scenes won a few points back for me.

While I wish there were more characterization and a more cohesive plot, Douglas's witty writing style and memorable one-liners made me leave this book with a smile on my face. Goes to show you that a good sense of humor can make up for (or mask) less-than-stellar plot arc and characters.

4/5 stars