Clearly, I grabbed this one for the title and the fact that it seems everyone is reading it. Seriously, I saw at least three or four copies while on vacation and it’s been popping up sporadically on book blogs since its initial release last year.
I didn’t really have an idea of what it was about so was a little taken aback by the opening line but then was totally on-board when I re-read the back blurb. In essence the book follows Nora as she tries to find the life she wants to live by visiting all her potential selves after attempting suicide.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. The writing was fantastic and the moralizing was kept to a minimum. I’m not sure what religion Haig is, but he kept it pretty philosophical rather than religious and that made a huge difference for me.
From the philosophical to metaphysical and even the quantum physics, Haig really does a great job of explaining in layperson’s speak what they all mean as Nora visits and journeys through her various lives.
Every universe exists over every other universe. Like a million pictures on tracing paper, all with slight variations within the same frame. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics suggests there are an infinite number of divergent parallel universes. Every moment of your life you enter a new universe. With every decision you make. And traditionally it was thought that there could be no communication or transference between those worlds, even though they happen in the same space, even though they happen literally millimetres away from us. (146)
We find out roughly halfway through the book that the titular library is just happenstance, another character sees their version as a video rental store with VHSs instead of books. The reason Nora sees the library is her connection to libraries and her middle school (maybe high school) librarian, Mrs. Elm.
Nora’s growth from depressed and suicidal to something else is subtle and you’re on the journey with her as she has many of the revelations either during a visit to another life or in conversations with Mrs. Elm who was wonderful using chess to describe the many possibilities in Nora’s life,
‘You need to realise something if you are ever to succeed at chess,’ she said, as if Nora had nothing bigger to think about. ‘And the thing you need to realise is this: the game is never over until it is over. It isn’t over if there is a single pawn still on the board. If one side is down to a pawn and a king, and the other side has every player, there is still a game. And even if you were a pawn—maybe we all are—then you should remember that a pawn is the most magical piece of all. It might look small and ordinary but it isn’t. Because a pawn is never just a pawn. A pawn is a queen-in-waiting. All you need to do is find a way to keep moving forward. One square after another. And you can get to the other side and unlock all kinds of power.’ (187)
There are more possible ways to play a game of chess than the amount of atoms in the observable universe. So it gets very messy. And there is no right way to play; there are many ways. In chess, as in life, possibility is the basis of everything. Every hope, every dream, every regret, every moment of living. (195)
Nora’s various relationships, or lack thereof, with family and friends are key to the book and are where Haig shines. The brother/sister dynamic and how that plays out across various life’s was so well written and the final scene when Joe shows up in the hospital room and is talking about the guy that Nora knows (from other lives) is the one Joe should end up with was just so adorably perfect.
And the ending for Nora isn’t wrapped in a bow, it’s a little muddied, but you really feel from Haig’s writing that Nora is going to try her best to really live the life she almost lost. She’s going to pursue teaching music and she reconnects with Mrs. Elm and volunteers, and it was just a feel-good book great for a summer read.
Recommendation: A thoroughly enjoyable book. It was easy to read and had an ending that worked for me. The way the book starts and the first few chapters progress with X years/days/hours before Nora decided to die gave me a bit of anxiety, but once you past that point you realize what has the potential to happen and that made me excited to see where the book could go!
Opening Line: “Nineteen years before she decided to die, Nora Seed sat in the warmth of the small library at Hazeldene School in the town of Bedford.”
Closing Line: “And Nora smiled as she stared at all the pieces she still had left in play, thinking about her next move.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)
Additional Quotes from The Midnight Library
“. . . the only lives available here are, well, lives. I mean, you could die in that life, but you won’t have died before you enter the life because this Midnight Library is not one of ghosts. It is not a library of corpses. It is a library of possibility. And death is the opposite of possibility.” (69)
“She saw a sign. Bronte Beach Swimming Pool. She vaguely remembered Dan, who had been to Australia in his gap year, talking about this place and the name had stuck – Bronte Beach – because it was easy to remember. Jane Eyre on a surfboard.” (73)
“Nora’s dad, Geoff, had certainly lived a life that seemed to miss its target.” (137)
“To be a human was to continually dumb the world down into an understandable story that keeps things simple.” (146)
“We don’t have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility.” (278)
That is a great title.