The Humans by MATT HAIG
오랜만에 읽으면서 많이 웃었던 책이다. 지적인 책이기도 하고 유머러스한 책이기도 하다. 외계인의 시선으로 인간의 세상을 바라보는 책이다. 책표지에 등장하는 개는 수학자의 집에서 기르는 개인데 이름이 Newton 이다. 그 유명한 수학자이자 물리학자의 이름이 아닌가? 재밌다. 아래 첫번째 표지에서 유난히 코가 강조되는데 책을 읽어 보면 그 이유를 알수 있다. 이 부분도 재밌다. 책의 곳곳에 등장하는 작가의 표현들이 유머러스하다. 읽어볼만한 책이다. 핵심어로 말하자면 hilarious, alien, mathmatics, prime, human, Riemann hypothesis, dog, love 등이 아닐까 싶다. 사람에 따라서 다르겠지만 표현이나 단어가 무난해서 영어공부에 도움이 될 수 있을 듯.
어느 일본 독자의 다음과 같은 평이 있다 "驚くような展開はないが、エイリアンの滑稽(こっけい）な失敗に笑い、彼の視点を通じて再認識する人間性に心動かされる。「読んでよかった！」と思わせてくれる、暖かい作品である." 맞는 말이다.
- Humans, as a rule, don't like mad people unless they are good at painting, and only then once they are dead. But the definition of mad, on Earth, seems to be very unclear and inconsistent. What is perfectly sane in one era turns out to be insane in another.
- We must conclude that madness is sometimes a question of time, and sometimes of postcode.
- "Schopenhauer?" 'He wrote a book called THE WORLD as WILL and REPRESENTATION. I'm meant to be doing an essay on it. Basically it says that the world is what we recognise in our own will. Humans are ruled by their basic desires and this leads to suffering and pain, because our desires make us crave things from the world but the world is nothing but representation. Because those same cravings shape what we see we end up feeding from ourselves, until we go mad. And end up in here.'
- The meaning of Life. There is none. People search for external values and meaning in a world which not only can't provide it but is also indifferent to their quest. That's not really Schopenhauer. That's more Kierkegarrd via Camus. I' m with them. Trouble is, if you study philosophy and stop believing in a meaning you start to need medical help.
- There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
- Most mathematicians would trade their soul with Mephistopheles for a proof of the Reiman hypothesis
- You can't say A is made of B or vice verse. All mass is interaction ; Richard Feynman
- We're all lonely for something we don't know we're lonely. ; David Foster Wallace
- They like winning for ten seconds but if they keep on winning they end up actually having to think about other things, like life and death. The only thing humans like less than winning is losing, but at least something can be done about that .........
- Life, especially human life, was an act of defiance.
- If only I had more time. Perfectly valid until you realised they did have more time. Not eternity, granted, but they had tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow.......
- I realised that if getting drunk was how people forgot they were mortal, then hangovers were how they remembered.
- Love was a way to live forever in a single moment, and it was also a way to see yourself as you had never actually seen yourself, and made you realise ........
- The other thing about hope was that it took effort....
- Life, especially human life, was an act of defiance.
- I realized that if getting drunk was how people forgot they were mortal, then hangovers were how they remembered.
- Albert Einstein, explained relativity to dimmer members of his species by telling them ; 'put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.'
- Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly..
- Loneliness is a fact as universe as hydrogen.
- Don't think you know. Know you think.
- No one will understand you. It is not, ultimately, that important. What is important is that you understand you.
- Sometimes the hardest thing to do is just to stay human
- Albert Einstein ; Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological animal.
- To experience beauty on Earth you needed to experience pain and to know mortality.
