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Professor Andrew Martin has just solved the Riemann hypothesis, one
of the most important, unsolved mathematical problems. A distant planet,
Vonnadoria, sends an assassin to kill him and destroy all evidence of his
discovery. This is how we meet our narrator, in Professor Martin’s body but
with none of his memories and only a theoretical knowledge of the human race.
He is naked, on the motorway, and doesn’t yet have a strong grip of the
language. His first attempt to learn about life on Earth involves reading a
copy of Cosmopolitan, injecting a
thread of humour that will be woven throughout. Armed with his new knowledge
and what he’s picked up about social interaction from the way in which passing
drivers have reacted to him he tries to find his way to Cambridge and work out
who knows about the discovery.
The alien’s motives are a point of ambiguity – are the Vonnadorians
trying to stop the technological advancement of humans for sinister reasons or
for their own good? A lot of mathematical geniuses are driven mad in their
pursuit of knowledge and he reasons that by deleting all evidence of the
discovery, which would have led to mathematical advancement exceeding their
psychological maturity, he’s saving more lives. This is a logical conclusion
for someone from a planet where individual desires are sacrificed for the
collective good. He doesn’t have a very high opinion of humans, however,
judging them to be vain, greedy, and violent, and he seems to have no qualms
about leaving the paramedics who came to look after him after he was hit by a
car writhing in pain. Later in the novel he experiences some kind of guilt
about the advancement he has prevented by deleting this breakthrough.
It is slightly ironic that he judges humans for their own sense of
superiority whilst treating them as vastly inferior to his own race. The moment
when his opinions of the species begin to change is when he experiences music
and poetry. He realizes that humans are aware of their flaws and that they use
art as a way to reconnect with their nature. Eventually, he seems to come to
respect humans for their ability to cope with their own mortality and for their
courage to love despite the inevitable pain it causes.
At no point is there a lengthy description of Vonnadora; we are
given snippets of information as the story progresses. We learn that it is a
kind of paradise where life is effortless and there is no pain or death. The
shift in our narrator’s opinions show us that the idea of perfection is flawed
and that a lot can be lost in creating such an existence. This seems to be the
main message – that pain is a necessary part of the human experience and that
to truly appreciate love and happiness you have to have known pain.
This is a book that deals with some big ideas, but don’t be fooled in
to thinking the author spends the entire time philosophising. The story is
interesting and you come to care for the characters as their histories are revealed.
There is a slow release of information about the real Andrew Martin which does
not paint him in the most positive light. You’re forced to think about how the
way you behave impacts on those around you (and hope that if your body was
taken over by an alien your loved ones wouldn’t think it an improvement!). The
ninety-seven point list of advice for humans may seem to some slightly
over-done but there’s some solid advice from an author who has clearly thought
deeply about the human condition. The pitch-perfect humour means that it never
becomes a dense read. It’s rare to find a book that is so easy to read but also
makes you question the way you see the world. For anyone who has ever felt the
depths of despair it is a reminder that the pain makes you appreciate the
beauty of life, and it is ultimately a hopeful story.
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