OddThinking

There’s a technical term in literature that I can’t remember. Foretelling? Foreboding? I can’t remember. Anyway, this term describes stories where the reader is expected to understand what the inevitable ending is before it happens. For example, we know the hero will survive, because the hero is alive to tell us the story.

There is no way of telling this story without that happening. Anyone who has seen or heard any of the multitude of variants of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will jump ahead far too quickly. I just can’t stop them.

The origin of the story is a bit hazy to me; it was in the early 1980s. My brother and I were working on our homework. My father, Joe, was helping.

My brother commented on the coincidence that the answers to his last two maths questions were the same: forty-three. He was still having some trouble with the lesson, so Joe whipped up a few more maths problems for him to practice on. Joe decided to have a little fun, and made sure that they all came out to have forty-three as the solution.

My brother was delighted. It became a family joke that the answer to every question was forty-three.

A few months later, we watched the TV series variant of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The show talked about a giant computer, Deep Thought, and its quest to find the answer to the great question, of life, the universe and everything.

My father retorted at the telly: “It’s forty-three, of course!” We laughed, and went back to watching.

Just try to imagine what we thought when they finally got to the great scene, where Deep Thought gives his answer to the two philosophers, Lunkwill and Majikthise:

Deep Thought: You’re really not going to like it.
Lunkwill: Tell us.
Deep Thought: The answer to the Great Question…
Lunkwill: Yes?
Deep Thought: …of life, the universe, and everything…
Lunkwill: Yes?
Deep Thought: …is…
Fook: Yes?
Deep Thought: …is…
Lunkwill, Fook: *Yes*?
Deep Thought: Forty-two.
[stunned silence]

That was definitely a freaky moment in our household. For the rest of his life, Joe always maintained that Deep Thought was very slightly wrong, and I agree.

If I was a funnier writer, I would finish off by jumping in here and say: “`Forewarning’! That’s the word I was looking for!”… but, sadly, that’s not it either. I still can’t remember the word. Damn. I bet Sherrill would know.