En fin, me podría pasar así la semana entera.
Bueno, por cambiar de tema, el domingo me terminé de leer la serie de La Guía del autoestopista galáctico, de Douglas Adams. La historia de cómo acabé dando con estos libros es un tanto freak:
Hace un tiempo, estaba yo jugando a uno de esos juegos de acertijos, tipo NotProN o God Tower, cuando me encontré con que la pregunta a uno de los niveles era "¿cuál es la respuesta definitiva a la Vida, el Universo y Todo lo demás?". Como ya sabía que ese tipo de preguntas tienen trampa, fui directamente al tío Google y puse la pregunta tal cual y la respuesta apareció directamente en el primer resultado. Era 42, naturalmente. Como la respuesta me pareció lo suficientemente extraña, indagué un poco en lo que contaba en la página y me decidí al instante: tenía que leerme La Guía.
Luego me informé de que la edición en español de la serie era bastante deficiente y no demasiado fácil de conseguir, así que me fui directamente a Amazon y descubrí esta maravilla de edición: las cinco novelas más un relato, encuadernado en piel, cantos dorados... lo único malo es que parecía que me iba leyendo la Biblia en el autobús. Mira que si me confunden con un militante del PP... juas juas
Bueno, resumiendo: los libros en general me han parecido bastante interesantes, pero sobre todo divertidos. El sentido del humor de Adams es muy británico, mucho juego de palabras, muchas situaciones embarazosas, tipo Monty Python, y, en general, me ha recordado mucho al maestro Terry Pratchett.
De las cinco noveles, creo que las que más me han gustado han sido las 3 primeras (La Guía del autoestopista galáctico, El restaurante al final del Universo y La Vida, el Universo y Todo lo demás), que son las que siguen más fielmente la filosofía original. Las dos últimas (Hasta la vista y gracias por todo el pescado y Fundamentalmente inofensiva) ya divagan demasiado con el tema de las dimensiones paralelas (un tópico de los años 90). Lo peor, sin duda alguna, el final: dos páginas muy apresuradas, que te dejan muy insatisfecho y con demasiados cabos sueltos. Además, ¿a quién le pueden dar miedo a estas alturas los Vogon, después de la que se lió con los habitantes de Krikkit?
Bueno, para terminar, os dejo unas frases extraídas de la serie que merecen la pena ser recordadas:
The Babel fish (...) is small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. (...) Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so min-bloggingly useful has evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God.
The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.
'Oh dear', says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
'Oh, that was easy', says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
'Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book, Well That about Wraps It Up for God.
Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.
[The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy]
"Concentrate," hissed Zaphod, "on his name."
"What is it?" asked Arthur.
"Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth."
"What?"
"Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth. Concentrate!"
"The Fourth?"
"Yeah. Listen, I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, my father was Zaphod Beeblebrox the Second, my grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox the Third..."
"What?"
"There was an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine. Now concentrate!"
[The restaurant at the end of the Universe]
"Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says, do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise, surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting 'Gotcha.' It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it."
"Why not?"
"Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end."
[The restaurant at the end of the Universe]
"It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane."
[So long, and thanks for all the fish]
St. Antwelm had been, during his lifetime, a great and popular king who had made a great and popular assumption. What King Antwelm had assumed was that what everybody wanted, all other things being equal, was to be happy and enjoy themselves and have the best possible time together. Onhis death he had willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival to remind everyone of this, with lots of good food and dancing and very silly games like Hunt the Wocket. His Assumption had ben such a brilliantly good one that he was made into a saint for it. Not only that, but all the people who had previously been made saints for doing things like being stoned to death in a thoroughly miserable way or living upside down in barrels of dung were instantly demoted and were now thought to be rather embarrassing.
[Mostly harmless]
Busy executives often didn't have time for a full-time wife and family and would just rent them for weekends.
[Mostly harmless]
Ford thought it needed a name and decided to call it Emily Saunders, after a girl he had very fond memories of. Then he thought that Emily Saunders was an absurd name for a security robot, and decided to call it Colin instead, after Emily's dog.
[Mostly harmless]
He could have transferred ownership of the entire organization into his own name, but he doubted if that would have gone unnoticed. He didn't want it anyway. It would have meant responsibility, working late nights at the office, not to mention massive and time-consuming fraud investigations and a fair amount of time in jail.
[Mostly harmless]
"O Sandwich Maker from Bob" he pronounced. He paused, furrowed his brow and sighed as he closed his eyes in pious contemplation. "Life," he said, "will be a very great deal less weird without you!"
Arthur was stunned.
"Do you know," he said, "I think that's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me?"
[Mostly harmless]
¿Y ahora qué? Pues tengo entre manos nada más y nada menos que El consejo de Hierro, la tercera novela de Miéville ambientada en Bas-Lag. Yum, qué ganas, ya os contaré!!!!