The Humans

I don’t believe in “Love at first sight” with humans. But its all together a different story with books, for me. Some books, just sit glamorously in their display shelves with their vibrantly bound colors, those eloquently etched titles, those captivating fragrance of the papers and the short and cute previews at their back. And you take them in your arms for it becomes irresistible to walk past it with an indifference. Love at first sight might not be after all a myth with books.

“The Humans” by Matt Haig, the book I had been sleeping with for some days now, could be easily termed as a first sight thing. It had been in my shopping cart for a long time and after waiting a long time for the prices to fluctuate, the order was finally placed and so we gained acquaintance. 

The concept is simple but futuristic. It can be grouped under those science fiction types but that is definitely not the author’s strong fort and hence he brilliantly stays away from things where he is not a master at. So where exactly he is a master at? Understanding Humans. The answer might look simple but its profound. Do we understand our species? No. We fail at various levels. Because we are one among them. So he brings an alien from a far far far away galaxy to earth and pictures us through an alien’s eyes, without any prejudice and bigotry. 

Thats where the fun lies and also the truth hidden inside the fun factor and how much we had taken granted of our freedom and capabilities and how much we had downplayed our vulnerabilities and insecurities.

This could have been easily assorted in a non fiction book and shelved aside for an eternity. Because I believe most of the world read fiction and non-fictions are generally looked as an outcast.(I am quite the opposite here, as I prefer non-fiction more.) The mastery of the author again outshines here in incorporating a non fiction subject into a fiction book. The story telling isn't that great and can be easily guessed given the amount of alien movies, we have been exposed to from childhood. What stands out is the Revelations about our species, which we have turned a blind eye to, simply because of our mundane living. 

I have managed to share some eye-catching quotes from the book. I simply can’t resist sharing these. 

“Names are the symptom of a species which values the individual self above the collective good”

looking at a macbook keyboard “..a lot of arrows pointing in every possible direction. It seemed like a metaphor for human existence.”

“maybe that is what beauty was, for humans. Accidents, imperfections placed inside a pretty pattern.”

on tasting a sip of wine “In other words, I tasted life on earth. For everything that lives here ferments, ages, becomes diseased. But as things made their decline from ripeness they could taste wonderful, I realized.”

“I realized that if getting drunk was how people forgot they were mortal, then hangovers were how they remembered.”

“I realized why work was so important on Earth. it stopped you feeling lonely.”

“progress is a very dangerous thing for them…. The humans could not handle progress very well and they were not good at understanding their place in the world”

“ That was part of being human, I discovered. It was about knowing which lies to tell and when to tell them.”

"Love is what the humans are all about but they don't understand it. If they understood it, then it would disappear."

"I have seen the violence and hypocrisy that runs through this species..they can sit and watch dead human bodies on TV screens and feel nothing at all..They pretend to know that money can't buy them happiness, yet they would choose money every time."

"They have lived on this planet for over a hundred generations and yet they still have no idea about who they really are or how they should really live"

"New technology, on Earth, just means something you will laugh at in five years. Value the stuff you won't laugh at in five years.Like love. Or a good poem. Or a song. Or the sky."

This is a book to cherish and laugh out our lungs. But the irony is that we are the joke, we are laughing at!