Interesting you should mention those two in the same breath. Adams swiped a
good deal of theme, tone and style from Lewis Carroll, after all.
Considering he also included a couple of direct quotes, I guess you could
call it an homage instead of a steal...
IMHO, he was never as funny when he tried to come up with original ideas.
Of course (trying to bring this back on some kind of topic), Candide and
Alice HQed for their own benefits, with little or no support, and thus had a
rough time of it. Arthur is in HQ terms even worse off in that he's an
experimental/accidental quester who's gotten lost in the Hero Plane. Witness
the fact that when he eventually does find his way home again, things are
subtly changed somehow and it's not really his home anymore. It's all
Arthur's fault, you know. That's what he gets for adopting these newfangled
ideas about the individual having some sort of value apart from society.
- Original Message -----
> And also seriously, though less seriously than the previous paragraph,
while
> my inclusion of 'Dent - Arthur Dent' was a bit of throwaway humour, I
would
> certainly argue for the Hitchhiker Trilogy as one of the finest twentieth
> century English language examples of a heroquest. (The best C19 example?
No
> contest - Alice in Wonderland.