Life, the universe, and everything!

With much fanfare and great anticipation, Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is hitting the big screen. Fans are excited; they have their towels, and what passes in these parts for an electronic thumb…bring in the flying saucers, and let’s get this show on the road!
I must confess, I’m not going to be among them. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the print work was clever, and it even had a few laugh-out-loud moments. The writing itself is brilliant; irony like a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. But when I turned the last page, I sat for a few moments to digest it all, and I shrugged. All that brilliance wasted…
You see, Hichhiker’s is, at the core, an ode to nihilism. The protagonist, Arthur Dent, is astonishingly bland, a cipher; his misadventures resonate with an epic feel of cosmic signifigance…and yet, you just can’t bring yourself to care. In his one moment of human glory, love gives him wings, and in the next he has lost it. By the end, when his world winks out of existence, it’s almost a relief, even though all of the planet Earth goes with him. And yet Arthur Dent knows the answer, to life, the universe, and everything…and the answer, according to Douglas Adams, is nothing matters, our very existence is just a figment of someone’s imagination.
So why would I want to see a movie rendition of that? I don’t, really. Life is hard, and often deals out more bitterness and pain than anyone wants to see. Yet living goes on, and people love, and they thrive, and they overcome. They take joy in the challenge, and the thrill of being alive. So what, pray tell, is the attraction in saying it all means nothing? To say that the pain, and the hardship is more real than the love and the joy?
No thanks, and you can keep your fish, too.