The Humans

“[…] any knowledge I gained was not going to alter the simple fact that I had to halt progress. That is what I was there for. To destroy evidence of the breakthrough Professor Andrew Martin had made. Evidence that lived not only in computers but in living human beings.”

This quote directly states the purpose of the mission and the central instigating plot of the novel. It also foreshadows the conflict the narrator will experience throughout the book. The narrator is there “to destroy” but ends up gaining insights that change his life in ways he could not have expected. This juxtaposition between destruction and knowledge is key to understanding the complexity of human nature.

“I was repulsed, terrified. I had never seen anything like this man. The face seemed so alien, full of unfathomable openings and protrusions.”

Here Matt Haig plays with the concept of the “alien.” To Haig’s reader, an alien would be this narrator, a creature from another planet. For the narrator, however, it is the human beings who are the aliens. This is an important word to highlight at the beginning of the novel because Haig wants to point out that, though we humans judge a great deal based on looks, we could be the ones to be afraid of, instead of the other way around.

“This was, I would later realize, a planet of things wrapped inside things. Food inside clothing. Bodies inside wrappers. Contempt inside smiles. Everything was hidden away.”

This quote foreshadows the disappointment Andrew will experience when he discovers the self-conscious nature of human beings and the way in which we try to veil our true feelings and hide our truths. This will be one of Haig’s most prominent criticisms of the world of people Andrew will meet.