A bribe for living: The Humans, a novel by Matt Haig - and "There is only one genre: book"
Humans suffer a curious conceit that we must be the envy of angels,
immortals, gods and aliens. Never mind that people “have besmirched everything bestowed on them,” as the 1999 film “Dogma” reminds us. Instead of hanging our heads in shame, we tend to buy books written by humans to make us feel better about being human—and Matt Haig’s “The Humans” is just the tonic.
The Humans by Matt Haig
is one of the funniest, most endearing novels I ever reviewed for Perihelion Science Fiction. I love Haig's quirky insights and observations about humans, from the perspective of an alien sent here to dwell among us incognito.
There's a reason this tonic has sold so well and been embraced by so many readers: Haig wrote The Humans as a way of talking himself out of depression and suicidal ideation. It's an on-going battle, as his social media accounts share with us.
Matt Haig @matthaig1 · 15h
The fact is, depression isn't just pain it's also perception. Inside it you feel it will last for ever. That's what makes it lethal. Even if you have recovered before, depression’s voice is convincing. And so much harder if people amplify that voice by lowering your self-worth.
Fans and fellow novelists have reached out to him, just as his novels have reached out to us.
I didn't know any of this at the time I read The Humans,
but now that I do, I love this book more than ever.
But before I get to the book, let me say how many quotable quotes Haig packs into it. Original insights and sayings. One of the most popular: "There is only one genre: book."
His blog is a good place to start right now, for free, if you don't have time to snag copy of The Humans. e.g.
30 things to tell a book snob
People should read books. Books are good.
.... There is something innately snobby about the world of books. There is the snobbery of literary over genre, of adult books over children's, of seriousness over comedy, of reality over fantasy, of Martin Amis over Stephen King. And it is unhealthy.
If books ever die, snobbery would be standing over the corpse.
Snobbery leads to worse books.
Pretentious writing and pretentious reading.
Books as exclusive members clubs. Narrow genres. No inter-breeding.
All that fascist nonsense that leads commercial writers to think it is okay to be lazy with words and for literary writers to think it is okay to be lazy with story.
There's more - just visit his blog - e.g.
The only people who fear people understanding what they are saying are people who have nothing really to say.
Books are not better for being misunderstood, any more than a building is better for having no door.
Shakespeare didn't go to university, and spelt his name six different ways. He also told jokes. (Bad ones, true, but you can't knock him for trying.)
Avoiding plot doesn't automatically make you clever. (See: Greene, Tolstoy, Shakespeare.)
Freedom is a process of knocking down walls. Tyranny is a process of building them.
Ok, I'd better say something about the book I set out to review here.
Our alien protagonist is incarnated as a man and sent to Earth from a galaxy far, far away, not to save humanity, but to save the universe from us. Why? An English mathematician has solved a great math riddle, and if this knowledge isn’t swiftly erased, humans will spread into outer space faster than European invaders were driven by Manifest Destiny. The alien’s job is simple: kill a few humans, come home again. However, the alien is soon smitten with us. And if he doesn’t get the job done, another alien will.
The alien’s home planet is a Utopia of immortal beings whose only god is math. Their sketchy rulers, The Host, sound like earth’s heartless communist regimes. Their devotion to prime numbers has never been polluted by poetry, Australian wine, peanut butter and The Beach Boys, so the idea of their assassin abandoning his Earthly mission and giving up immortality for the aches and pains of a short human life is, well, so alien, they just didn’t anticipate it.
Our nameless hero assumes the identity of Professor Andrew Martin, who was already captured and killed before the story opens. The chosen alien has morphed into a body identical to Martin’s and traveled light-years to Earth. Like the comic Mr. Bean of British television, he arrives naked as a newborn on the busy streets of Cambridge. He’s equipped with surprisingly little information on how humans dress, communicate and behave. Luckily he’s a speed reader, so he does some catch-up research at a magazine rack. Unluckily, the latest issue of “Cosmopolitan” is his first source of information about humans. The expected scenes of chaos and confusion occur as Haig employs the ironic humor of “unreliable narrator” and various tropes of science fiction to introduce our displaced alien.
How did a society light-years away find out about a human’s mathematical discovery, and what makes them fear that humans will conquer the universe with it? Kill the man and the knowledge today, but those pesky humans are sure to figure it all out in another generation or century, so why not just kill all humans now? Never mind: the point of the novel is to show that humans have redeeming virtues; the setup is secondary.
The alien’s marvelous technology is an echo of ET’s, but what matters is the alien’s willingness to give up his powers in order to be fully human. Ancient Egyptians, the gods of Olympus, even Jesus set a precedent for that. Worse than the “cup” of dying on the cross, though, are the alien’s orders from above to murder his own family and anyone else who has knowledge of his Earth-shattering mathematical breakthrough. Better to suffer and die alone than to see our loved ones harmed, right? This is where Haig hooks the reader. However implausible the imposter’s presence may be, the way he becomes attached to his intended victims endears us to him. Everything about us is new, diverting, delightful. Our coffee is terrible, to him, but wine, hey, and Emily Dickinson, wow! Even the suspicious dog comes to love the alien, who is so much nicer than that awful Andrew Martin was. And, in spite of ourselves, we applaud the insights of our alien as he comes to love those simple, daily details that distinguish us as humans.
Hailed as science fiction with the “brilliance” and insight of Vonnegut, this novel is very readable, engaging and emotionally honest. Page after page of observations about humans ring true, even if we’ve heard it all before. Few readers will be shocked to hear that “The humans are an arrogant species, defined by violence and greed. They have taken their home planet, the only one they currently have access to, and placed it on the road to destruction. They have created a world of divisions and categories and have continually failed to see the similarities among themselves.” And so on. And oh, too true.
We know our flaws; what we want to know is how to love ourselves
in spite of them. The alien shows us. He even compiles a list of advice for humans, and it can be viewed on YouTube, with fans of the novel reciting lines from the novel: "If there is a sunset, stop and look at it. Knowledge is finite. Wonder is infinite," or “Men are not from Mars. Women are not from Venus. Do not fall for categories. Everyone is everything. Every ingredient inside a star is inside you, and every personality that ever existed competes in the theatre of your mind for the main role.” Such insights seem more the province of Facebook memes than a novel, but Haig does put a unique spin on the delivery of these warm fuzzies.
In 2013 Haig was writing a screenplay of “The Humans” for producers of the Harry Potter movies. I hope to see it come to fruition before another seven years should pass.
NOTE: I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher and reviewed it in the June 2013 issue of Perihelion Science Fiction ezine.
The back cover blurb:
When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry home to his own utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal.
He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, and is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this strange species than he had thought. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, develops an ear for rock music, and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family. He begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfection, and begins to question the very mission that brought him there.
Matt Haig is an author for children and adults.
His memoir Reasons to Stay Alive was a number one bestseller, staying in the British top ten for 46 weeks. His children’s book A Boy Called Christmas was a runaway hit and is translated in over 40 languages. It is being made into a film by Studio Canal and The Guardian called it an ‘instant classic’. His novels for adults include the award-winning How To Stop Time, The Radleys and The Humans.
He won the TV Book Club ‘book of the series’, and has been shortlisted for a Specsavers National Book Award. The Humans was chosen as a World Book Night title. His children’s novels have won the Smarties Gold Medal, the Blue Peter Book of the Year, been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and nominated for the Carnegie Medal three times.
Matt Haig Retweeted Adriana Ewart-Jones @EwartAdriana
This book helped save my life. 3 years ago I was in a toxic environment and Matt Haig’s words gave me hope when all hope was gone. This book made me stay alive for all the people I would meet and become. Please stay; life can get better, I promise. ❤️
@matthaig1
#SuicideAwareness
Thank you for reading!
Until next time,
Keangaroo
because Kean sounds like Kane (not keen, hint, hint)
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This sounds amazing.
I have a certain someone in mind
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What an interesting way to get to know a play, without being too enthusiastic, but getting excited. I love that kind of serious lightness in the presentation of writers and that one decides what is true about their good reviews. I haven't read The Humans, but I find it attractive. By the way, I was moved by that note about Matt Haig taking up Adriana Ewart-Jones @EwartAdriana. That tells me his message is getting through and he's looking forward to it. It's possible that he's doing it precisely because the message is coming out of him to himself and others may benefit along the way. Many times, depressives have the capacity to encourage and help others and not themselves. Let's hope that's not the case.
Well, anyway, I greet you with love and admiration, dear!