Sol Roth is a man who has watched society decay and collapse - and is cursed to be smart enough to know it and sensitive enough to care. He is a former professor who searches through the now-disordered remnants of written records and books to help his roommate Thorn's investigations for the police. Roth and his like are known as books . He tells Thorn about the time before the ecological disaster and population crisis, when real food was plentiful, although Thorn is generally not interested in the stories, finding most of them too hard to believe.When Thorn is called in to investigate the murder of William Simonson, Roth eagerly appreciated the loot Thorn brings back from the rich man's apartment, which includes real beef and the Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015 to 2019. The former he uses to prepare a meal comparable to those he remembers from the old days, the second tells him a secret about the supposedly hydroponically-produced foos the populace survives on: the oceans are dying and there is not enough algae left to support the populace.Unable to live with what he has uncovered, Roth opts for assisted suicide at a government clinic referred to as going home . As Roth is dying he watches Video clips of earth long ago when Animal (Sheep, Deer and Horses) & Plant life was thriving and there was no pollution while listening to classical music. Thorn forces the staff to allow him to see and talk to Roth. During Roth's final moments, he begs Thorn to divulge the horrible truth about the Soylent corporation. Thorn uses Roth's death to discover the final, even more horrible truth avout Soylent Green. Show less «