Learn English – What does the initial fragment of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy mean

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I begun reading Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This is one of the initial fragments, emphasis mine:

This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of
the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many
solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were
largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper,
which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of
paper that were unhappy
.

I don't quite grasp what he intended to say with this last line.

So, sad people were concerned about money: "which is odd because money wasn't the unhappy one". This doesn't make much sense to me.

What is the meaning of this last line?

Best Answer

No, the line didn't say that 'people were concerned about (for) money'. It said that the solutions advanced to solve people's unhappiness concerned money. In other words, the author is making the comment that the suggestions did not address people directly, but were centred on money, as though money, if properly manipulated, would make people happy.

So, it's the people who're unhappy, but it's money that's receiving the attention, even though money isn't the unhappy party.

So, perhaps the suggestions the author is talking about run along the lines of buying stuff, or becoming more financially secure, etc. Financial gain is being addressed, but not the roots of people's unhappiness.