The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy As the human race makes life-changing discoveries, it becomes apparent that there is always more to learn as the universe, instead of becoming familiar, is becoming absurd . The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, written by Douglas Adams, as well as the 2005 film adaptation, portrays nonsense as an all-encompassing system in the universe. Through the introduction and attempt to understand unreason, the narration of important elements and the human perception of the universe, the novel is as a whole more complete than the film. With these points it is irrefutable that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy develops the theme of absurdity more skillfully than the film, resulting in a deeper understanding of absurdity, with a perspective that the reader can connect to. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy introduces the absurdity in a more compelling way than the film. The drive of infinite improbability “passes through every point of the Universe” (Adams 80). After being thrown out of an airlock, Arthur and Ford are saved by the Drive with "the odds of rescue being 22079460347 to one against" (Adams 67). Being saved despite astronomical improbability allows the novel to enhance the theme of absurdity in a noteworthy way. The novel's prominent focus on absurdity is very different from the minimal effort made in the film to evidently develop a source of absurdity in the universe, harming The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Furthermore, the novel's depiction of the search for reason amidst the predominant lack of reason adds a very important human element to the understanding of absurdity. As he suffered the effects of the Drive “A million-gallon vat of custard tipped over… the center of the paper… of this ideology in a way the reader can connect to. Through the foundation and attempt to understand the lack of reason, the clear narration of important texts, and a human perception of absurdity, the novel greatly transcends the absurdity presented in the film. The absurdity is conveyed as a school of thought, in which humans attempt to answer and quantify the universe's greatest questions, but ultimately come to the conclusion that the greatest answers are beyond our means. As George Bernard Shaw said: “The more you learn, the more you know. The more you know, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why bother learning?" Works Cited Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. London: Pan Macmillan Adult, 2002. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Dir. Garth Jennings. With Martin Freeman, Mos Def. Touchstone Images, 2005.