The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the diegetic book that gives the series its name, is an attempt to catalogue and define everything so that people can experience “the marvels of the known Universe for less than thirty Altairian dollars a day” (32). As the characters discover, however, its information is usually inaccurate, and there’s no real order or purpose in the Universe, revealing the absurd nature of the search for cosmic meaning.

The Guide attempts to document cosmic meaning by functioning as a compendium of everything that can be observed or experienced. At the same time, however, this compendium of cosmic meaning is subject to capitalistic forces such as greed and bureaucracy. The corporation that produces the guide does so on a budget with the aim of making profit, rather than reaching an understanding of anything meaningful. As a result, the guide is not necessarily reliable or even true: The Guide “is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate [so that] in cases of major discrepancy it’s always reality that’s got it wrong” (37). The legal precedent created by the Guide becomes a kind of cosmic meaning that’s inherently meaningless. This tension between what is meaningful and what is meaningless is pursued throughout The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, as the characters seek to break through the institutional and structural barriers that hinder them from discovering the truth.

Key to the novel’s narrative is Zaphod Beeblebrox being at war with “that dark area of his mind that he had inexplicably locked off prior to becoming President of the Galaxy” (17). Zaphod is part of a conspiracy to find the true Ruler of the Universe, yet he doesn’t actively know that he’s part of this conspiracy, nor that this Ruler exists. The result is an absurdist situation in which Zaphod’s entire purpose derives from the occasional thoughts and ideas that emerge unexpectedly from a part of his brain that he’s purposefully disabled. To find actual cosmic meaning, he must abandon any pretense of knowledge or understanding and simply “go with the flow” (35). Through meetings with the ghost of his great-grandfather, the editor of the Guide, and with the Ruler of the Universe, Zaphod gradually comes to terms with the actual nature of the Universe. He learns that he must give up his desire for power and meaning to find contentment.

Arthur Dent is unknowingly returned to Earth, 2 million years before the Vogons destroy his home. He’s back where he started and back where he wanted to be, yet he’s still displaced. In a twist of absurdity, Arthur has returned to the correct geographic place but not the correct temporal place. At the same time, the revelation that the Golgafrinchans are his true ancestors is an uncomfortable truth that Arthur must confront. The meaning of his existence is not, as he recently was told, to produce the Question to the Ultimate Answer but a mere accident of cosmic absurdity, reinforcing the lack of a wider overarching purpose or meaning.

Nevertheless, together with Ford Prefect, Arthur finds peace on the proto-Earth. He finds peace in his relationship with a Golgafrinchan woman and, in an act of symbolic significance, throws his copy of the Guide away. Instead of seeking meaning, he instead chooses to embrace what he has and be content.