Author: Matt Haig
The Humans is a sci-fi novel by Matt Haig, the author of the Midnight Library and How To Stop Time, both sci-fi books I enjoyed immensely. The Humans starts a bit slow, and I was not immediately engaged because of the somewhat psychopathic character of the alien who narrates the story and has a grandiose sense of self and his planet’s importance. But the book quickly picked up, and I started to enjoy it, mainly because the psychopathic narration quickly dissolves and moves towards recognizing the positive aspects of humanity. Yes, humans are violent and mean, but they can also be caring and beautiful and look for a meaning in life that goes beyond rationality. In a sense, this book reminded me of the Quantum Curators book series by Eva St. John, which tackles two parallel Earths, alpha, which is a rational society based on reason and science but where people do not have the inclination to produce art. But, because they appreciate art, and because they see the beta Earth as violent and non-appreciative of arts, they go and save artefacts that were meant to be destroyed in conflicts or disasters anyway. Those books argued that humans are violent and mean but also prone to artistic expressions and looking and finding a meaning in life that those strictly committed to reason and scientific inquiry simply cannot do (see blog posts here, here, here, here, and here).
In the same way, The Humans by Matt Haig offers a narrative written from the perspective of an alien, Vonnadorian, who came to Earth to prevent a scientific breakthrough that would give humans immense power, which his home plant is afraid of due to humans being seen as violent and anthropocentric. So, because his home planet is mainly concerned with the advancement of math and preserving their planet and the universe, they sent an alien to inhabit the body of Andrew Morris, a Cambridge professor who solved the Riemann hypothesis. The alien destroys records of this scientific breakthrough as instructed but refuses to return to his home planet or murder Morris’ son and wife, arguing they do not know enough and would not present a threat of this discovery being revealed. However, he does kill one of Morris’ colleagues who knew about his discovery.
Throughout the book, we learn about humans from the perspective of an alien so that humans are seen as doing meaningless things to find meaning, whilst, on his home planet, everyone is pure and only concerned with math. Therefore, the alien learns about news being concerned about local, national and global events and creates a classification of care, saying humans care on a scale and about what is closest to them. He also finds the whole concept of human life meaningless and is concerned with too many social norms of appropriate behaviour, hates human food initially but later slowly discovers his favourites, and he finds human technology underdeveloped. But he ultimately discovers emotions and becomes like humans in a sense he starts caring about Morris’ wife and son, so soon he becomes a better father and husband than Morris ever was. He also forms a bond with Morris’ dog and heals his eyes with his superpowers, which he eventually has to give away if he is to stay on the planet and truly become human…
Haig tackles complicated human nature and emotions in this book and does so in a beautiful way. Throughout the book, the alien starts as a psychopathic character full of hatred, prejudice, misinterpretation, self-grandiose, and detachment only to become almost human once he discovers emotions and care and that life of science is beautiful but not enough, as we need other humans and animals, and whilst humans can hate and destroy, they can also love and care for one another, the planet and the other species. I was particularly captivated by the fact the book on humans and who they are was written from an outsider’s perspective and by the contrast between destruction and beauty. The narrator starts with prejudice but then peels off layers of humanity and ends up fascinated and wanting to be one of us and has to choose whether to stay and be human or leave and live a life of ‘purity’ and reason with no joy…
I have a similar view of humanity as what Haig describes. I also observe destruction and know that some humans are violent and horrible. But, I also equally know many of us see beauty everywhere and look for meaning in life (e.g., I watch leaves fall from trees in fall and find myself in awe of that process; I see it as a miracle of nature and something that is beyond beautiful), we care about animals and wildlife (I feed wildlife and look after my cats), and whilst we appreciate employment and work hard, we also appreciate time off, spending time with loved ones and having hobbies (e.g., this blog for me) 😊 But, the alien is right, there is too much consumerism and too many humans try to buy things to make them happy, which never works but yet, they keep trying.
As the alien says, ‘on Earth, there is pain and loss, but the rewards can be wonderful’. And indeed, ‘technology will not save humankind. Humans will.’ I could not agree more with this!
Beautiful. Inspiring. Read this book!
Thank you for reading!