As part of my anniversary-themed 2009 book list, I re-read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (30th - 1979) and Sirens of Titan (50th - 1959) over the last couple of days and was noticing some similar themes and reminiscent imagery between them. Lo and behold, via Wikipedia:
In a 1979 interview released in 2007, Douglas Adams discussed Vonnegut as an influence on The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy[7]:
“Sirens of Titan is just one of those books – you read it through the first time and you think it’s very loosely, casually written. You think the fact that everything suddenly makes such good sense at the end is almost accidental. And then you read it a few more times, simultaneously finding out more about writing yourself, and you realize what an absolute tour de force it was, making something as beautifully honed as that appear so casual.”
As the saying goes in Sirens,
I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.
;) But Adams was right — Vonnegut’s book feels casually written, but as you approach the end you get that immediate sense of the masterful construction involved.
Update: Whoa, the accidents continue. I have three books left on the 2009 list, two by Ursula K. Le Guin* and finally From Hell (10th** - 1999), the Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell graphic novel about Jack the Ripper. In the Wikipedia article:
From Hell was partly inspired by the title of Douglas Adams’ novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency; to solve a crime holistically, one would need to solve the entire society in which it occurred.
I bet an interesting reading list could be constructed by following a chain of inspiration from author to author or even book to book.
* - The Left Hand of Darkness (40th - 1969) and The Dispossessed (35th - 1974)
** - While the original 10 volumes were published individually 1991-96, the collected edition was released in 1999.
