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My son is ten years old and I'm considering giving him THHGTTG to read.
I have read the book in my late teens and was hooked but I have a difficult time putting myself in a 10 year old boys shoes even if he is my son. My primary concern is will he get the jokes, as for the content, I'm familiar with that and will make my own decisions.
While such questions are personal to the values of the parent, and the abilities and maturity level of the child, there is a "rating system" for books as well that at least helps to determine what a child is likely to be capable of understanding. Many books are registered with an "RL" on them that can be found near the bar-code or on the copyright page. If not there, you can often look it up online through the publisher.
In this case, the RL is 8.3 (Scholastic). You should be aware that an RL is an indication of what average grade level (in the US) will understand at least 80% of what is being read - in this case, an eighth grader about three tenths the way through his/her eighth grade year. It is not a maturity rating in terms of content. It also may not be helpful as grade level is different in other countries, but there is a more internationally minded answer to the question as well.
Lexile measures are another way to gauge the difficulty level of reading in a book and measure approximately the same thing - they just go about it a different way. This book is measured at 1000. For the sake of comparison, The Hobbit is also measured at 1000L by the Lexile framework.
In terms of determining specifically whether your son is ready or not - it will depend much on how his reading level compares with that of the book. If you look up the Lexiles for other books he has read and understood successfully, you can determine if his score would be above or below 1000L (my guess, is that it might still be a bit early, but if he is an advanced reader and is fairly politically minded, maybe not).
This will not help you in gauging his ability to grasp the background needed for some of the social commentary and jokes. But if his reading level is generally above an 8.3 he stands a much better chance of understanding than he would if he would score below it. This is where the gray area comes in and you, knowing your child best, are the best one to determine if he has the necessary background in politics, culture and Science Fiction to grasp the humor. As a suggestion, whenever I am unsure if my child is ready or not for a book (but I think she is close), we read it together. It is a fun way to bond, we can discuss what we are reading if she gets stuck or doesn't understand something, generally, they understand what they hear better than what they read, so you can read the passages that contain a lot of political jokes (or other things he might struggle with in terms of understanding, and it allows me to remember all the details of the book and enjoy it a second (or third, or fourth . . .) time around.
I, like others, interpreted the original question as about the maturity level of the content. The question as subsequently been edited to be concerned about the comprehension of the book and the jokes for someone of that age around 40 years after it was written.
This is really something that only a parent can answer. I personally think its probably not going to be that interesting or funny to someone of that age. A lot of the jokes assume you know a fair amount about science and science-fiction tropes, and things like government bureaucracy.
[In terms of maturity level, for other people with that question]. The main things most parents might object to in any book are violence, sexual content or alcohol/drug references. I'm trying to summarize what I remember about the book that would relate to these categories:
The book is not particularly violent - except in an abstract, destroying the entire human race kind of way.
In terms of sexual content, there is a passing reference to a Triple Breasted Whore (from Eroticon-6).
In terms of alcohol / drug abuse, the only things that spring to mind are that Arthur & Ford have Six Pints of Beer to prepare for being teleported off the planet, and the 'Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster' - a cocktail invented by Zaphod Beeeblebrox which is rather like 'having your brain smashed out with slice of lemon, wrapped around a large gold brick'.
Its also quite skeptical about religion (as was Adams himself) - not a problem for me, but may be for you.
For what it is worth ... commonsensemedia.org rate it as age 11. They find the same references I recalled from the book, and add a 'few four letter words'. Honestly they may be right, but the only one I can recall is 'hell' from where Arthur says 'what the hell is that' when the Vogons arrive.
EDIT: I did take this literally to mean the first book. As @KHW notes in comments, later books have very occasional stronger language, and Ford does have a tendency to drink quite a lot throughout the story. (I would also add, as a Brit living in the USA, the third book has a shockingly unfair portrayal of the sport of cricket.)
For what it's worth, I first read the books when I was about 10 or 11, enjoyed them very much and didn't find anything shocking. A lot of the jokes went completely over my head at the time, but that just added to the enjoyment of re-reading them later.
As one data point, I've been listening to the original radio series with my eight-year-old, and she's been loving it, although she has found some of the plot threads a bit hard to follow. I'd say an intelligent ten-year-old should have no trouble.
