So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

Summary

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish is the second to last installment of the famous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series. The title is the message that the dolphins left to the humans before they teleported away from the planet before it got destroyed, and it highlights the absurd nature of this book that fits right into the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy universe.

In this book, Arthur is back on a version of Earth that had never been destroyed and he starts to doubt his sanity and own memories of his intergalactic adventures because everybody else doesn't seem to believe or know that the Earth got destroyed. They instead think that the Vogon fleet was a hallucination, brought on by drugs released into the air as part of an experiment by the C.I.A.

On this version of Earth, Arthur meets Fenchurch and falls in love with her through a series of coincidences meeting her more than once. She also thinks that something is off with everybody else and has memories of the destruction of Earth too. As their relationship develops, they bond over their shared experiences and a mutual curiosity about the universe's mysteries. Fenchurch becomes a grounding and hopeful presence in Arthur's life, representing a shift toward personal fulfillment.

Fenchurch later reveals that she had a revelation about the meaning of life shortly before Earth's destruction. But she lost the memory of it when the planet was restored. Together, she and Arthur set out to piece together what really happened and to understand their place in the cosmos. Their relationship blossoms, providing Arthur with a sense of stability and purpose that starkly contrasts with the chaos of his earlier adventures. Eventually they find out that the dolphins took an alternate version of Earth from a different reality and placed it at the exact place where the destructed Earth used to be. This again highlights how ignorant, insignificant and unknowing humans really are, compared to the rest of the cosmos.

Ford Prefect meanwhile finds out that his original entries of Earth in the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy re-appeared and therefore sets out to go back to Earth to maybe find Arthur there. Together they then go to God's final message to creation, and on the way there they encounter Marvin, who because of time travel is now older than the universe and still very depressed. The final message of God reads: "We apologise for the inconvenience", something that Marvin finds amusing and then dies. What this really means is left for the reader to guess, because Marvin never had a positive thought before.

The novel is like the other parts of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series, highly chaotic, absurd and funny. From one moment to the next, you can't expect what is about to happen and the amount of interesting and thought provoking ideas in this book is off the charts. The previous book in this series is Life, the Universe and Everything and the next, and last book of the series is Mostly Harmless.