For me, it's a bit like Monty Python's Holy Grail. I saw it alone as a young teenager and I just didn't really get what the fuss was about. But there were a few things that struck me as brilliant, like the glimpse of the guards just about to throw a cocunut attached to a pigeon just to settle once and for all the movie immersion-breaking issue of how that coconut got there (we don't see if it works). On further watchings the Holy Grail seems more brilliant than I expected, and I've gotten more out of it, but it's... well, hype is hype.
The HGttG style is also a bit unique, often inverting and twisting ideas in a way uncommonly stated. Needlessly so, often. And it just absolutely revels in it.
A word of caution about the series: it starts off with a silly apocalypse and really eventually gets dark. Like you, I may also be placed in the Total Perspective Vortex for this, but I really recommend slogging it through to the sixth book. It's only half Adams or so, but it's certainly a necessary palate clenser after the fifth book and I think it revives the spirit of the first. (By the way, I am absolutely certain both the Question and Answer show up in context with each other, but you've really got to get to the end of Mostly Harmless, and that story is anything but.)
Keep in mind too that nothing about the Hitchhiker's Guide is canonical. It always changes when adapted to TV or radio or movie, and it has a damn hard time being consistent with itself. Which is also part of the fun.
This seems to be a rule with absurd humour. The good bits are golden, the average is quite mediocre, and then in popular culture old the good bits are remembered so that the thing end up being overall overrated. Same with Monty Python
I imagine Adams would be thrilled to hear you think his work is absurd. He makes fun of things that are overrated
It's satire.. The idea is to make fun of logic. Especially, logical logic
If you're reading for content and not stopping to appreciate the words, you might be missing the point. Reading Adams is a bit like reading poetry in this respect. Consider slowing down or, if this doesn't work, listening to the radio play. HHGTTG was originally written for radio after all. You might also consider watching the BBC TV series from the 80's. Unlike the movie, it's actually pretty funny.
Hopefully, you'll come to appreciate that Douglas Adams was a man who really knew where his towel was.
I read it when I was maybe 12 or 13 and could still really enjoy Monty Python. I read it a year or two ago and liked it a lot, but probably at least partially out of a sense of nostalgia.
But it's treatment of abstract ideas was, to me at the time, both entertaining and interesting. The book (among many others) setup a young "me" to appreciate some of the more serious philosophy that I read later in my early teens and 20s.
Thinking back on it, I was introduced to the radio show first (I had a 2nd generation bootleg, on cassette). Maybe that made me ready for the characters?
"Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (read by Douglas Adams)"
Try to track it down. I found it very enjoyable to listen to.
I first read it entirely on accident. I was maybe 12ish, and technically "on vacation" visiting my father and his mother (neither of whom I was close with), and got dragged along very early one morning to go garage shopping. One of the sales had this HUGE purple hardbound book for only $1. It was the version that had all 4 novels and the Zaphod Plays it Safe short story (this was long before Mostly Harmless was released). I figured for $1, any chance of mental escape from being forced to awkwardly hang out with relatives I didn't have anything in common with was worth a chance. Plus the book was huge. I went in with zero expectations and fell in love with it pretty much instantly.
Thing is, the Guide (the local translation of the radio play and then the book) was about my 4th or 5th science fiction thing ever (after some Star Wars and Star Trek I had seen in TV, and some occasional book, probably Heinlein), and for a ~12 year old, it was a formative experience. Not a single Monty Python or Dr Who contact prior to that.
The author had been reading and writing sci-fi for decades, and he was asked what he considered to be the "golden-age" of science fiction, whether it was the material he first read in the 30s or 40s, or later.
I can't remember the exact reply, but it was along the lines of: "The golden age of science fiction is ... 13. At 13 you are just becoming aware of the world around you enough to really comprehend the ideas in the story, but your personal experience is limited enough that it is all still new, and your mind is blown.
Therefore the golden age of sci-fi is whatever sci-fi you were reading at 13."
Possibly Peter Graham, looks like that's to whom Hartwell attributes it too.: https://books.google.com/books?id=uYs2NbD-d4oC&pg=PA81&lpg=P...
I mostly had the same reaction when reading the books some 15 years ago. I won't go as far as saying that I didn't find it enjoyable, but it wasn't the "laugh out loud" experience I was expecting given its fame and popularity, especially in my/our (as in nerdy/techy) circle.
Eventually that kind of humor (also later discovering Monthy Python and Terry Pratchett) grew on me, and more than anything I is meant to provoke is a smile, more than a laugh (although it certainly can) and now I remember the characters and situations fondly.
Also, I find it has a sort of meme-like quality, making it "funnier" as people (and you) keep referencing to it and you understand the reference.
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas-Adams-ebook/d...
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Hitchhikers-Guide-Galaxy-Primary-Drama...
You might have missed your window.
I would be curious to know how you feel about Fear and Loathing, and anything by Hemingway.
Are you in book 4? I had to crawl my way through book 4 a bit, but once you get to book 5 it is well worth it.
What do you usually associate the quotation with? :)
To each their own and whatnot.
It's how I got into it.