It certainly appeared that Adams had pretty much wrapped up the story in the previous three books:  Arthur and his friends had found the man, Prak, who knew the Question that went with the Answer they already knew.  Unfortunately, the Question and the Answer could not simultaneously exist…unless the universe got replaced. And maybe it was… Adams has a nasty habit of not explaining much…if ever. Although, there was this thing with the Hitchhiker’s Guide that happened early in the story; maybe it caused a cosmic thing… or event…or whatever.

This story starts with Arthur hitching a ride back to Earth with Wowbagger (see beginning of last book.)  How the Earth had come to be, or how Arthur knew it was, or how this Earth escaped being demolished…not answered. Not even hinted at.  Okay, maybe it was hinted at – see previous paragraph.  His only goal is to return home and figure out how to explain his eight-year absence, should anyone ask.

His goal is interrupted when he hitches a ride and meets a woman; well, sort of meets her, she’s comatose at the time.  But she steals his mind and heart instantly.  And we met her before; way back in the first book.  She had the idea to save the universe just before the Vogons destroyed the planet.  Her name is Fenchurch.  But in this here-and-now, she’s barking mad because she is, apparently, the only person who still remembers the Vogons and their destruction.  To everyone else, it was a mass-hallucination caused by the CIA.  The Vogons…who just disappeared.  Arthur has a bit of trouble with the concept but eventually abandons it in his pursuit of the mystery woman.

Interestingly, Arthur still remembers how to fly.  This becomes important later.

Also, he found a gift-wrapped fishbowl in his house with the words “So Long, and Thanks…”  Interestingly enough, Wonko also has one.  Leading this reader to wonder if every person on Earth got one as a going-away gift… Fenchurch had one.  I desperately want one.

Wonko the Sane is the foremost expert on all things dolphin and since all the dolphins disappeared the same day as the hallucinations, both Arthur and Fenchurch have a strong interest in meeting the man.  I couldn’t quite tell if Arthur and Fenchurch actually got anything out of the meeting.  But Prak had been much on Arthur’s mind and when he applied himself, he managed to remember the address that Prak recited just before he expired.  And to Arthur’s delight, Fenchurch wants to go with him.  After all, those thirty-foot-high letters on a mountain just might be the message she lost so many years ago.  So, she simply must go.  Now, they just have to wait for a chance to hitch a ride off Earth.

Which wasn’t very long in coming since Ford arrived in a giant spaceship.  And other than an off-hand comment from Ford, neither Zaphod nor Trillian make an appearance.  But what about Marvin, you ask?

The next section was absolutely hysterical as the creature driving the spaceship demands to be taken to our ‘lizard.’  Lizards are the government and authority where it comes from.  So much can be read into this chapter; especially in this political clime.

And the last of the book is Arthur’s and Fenchurch’s journey to find the Question which was actually God’s Final Message to his Creation.  And it appears to be an epiphanal moment for Marvin.  And I have spent several minutes (hours?) puzzling over the relationship to whole story arc.  And I think I have it!   ~ Catherine Book

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