TW: mentions of suicide ideation and attempted suicide
Somewhere between life and death, Nora Seed finds herself wandering the marble hallways of a never-ending library; “The Midnight Library.”
English novelist and author of ”The Midnight Library,” Matt Haig, has written several fiction and non-fiction books. Regardless of their genre, his writing explores the many elements that impact a person’s satisfaction with life. Whether it’s through a fictional character’s narrative or summaries of his personal experiences, Haig encourages readers to let go of their past and make the most of their present, and “The Midnight Library” is no exception to this trend.
Readers first meet Nora almost two decades before she tries to end her life. Sitting in a gloomy high school library, she is playing chess with the school’s librarian, Mrs. Elm. Long after Nora has graduated and forgotten about those after-school chess sessions, she finds herself utterly disappointed with all aspects of her life. She explains how dissatisfied she is to the world in one final Facebook post before attempting suicide. Moments later, Nora wakes up in a personalized limbo replicating the library that once comforted her on her worst days, and with Mrs. Elm now appearing as her spirit guide.
Endless stacks of books tower over Nora as she walks up-and-down the isles of “The Midnight Library”. Each book is a different shade of green and can grant Nora access into a parallel or perpendicular universe where another version of herself is living a completely different or only slightly different life. One cement-grey book, however, is different from the rest. This is the book of regrets.
Containing every regret Nora has had in her 35 years of life, this book allows Nora to pinpoint choices in her life she wishes to undo and guide her towards a life in which she did the exact opposite.
Nora then begins to hop from universe to universe, testing out these alternative realities.
Haig bases “The Midnight Library” around one central theme and a common human curiosity: what is the purpose of life? He tells us what life isn’t through Nora’s journey, who demonstrates that life isn’t meant to be lived to please others, nor is it meant to be spent alone, completing mindless tasks you lack passion for, or beating yourself up over past decisions you wish you could change.
In one life, she is a rock-star. In another, she’s a glaciologist. She’s been an Olympian, a dog-walker, and a glassblower. In some lives she’s been a mother and in other’s she raises no one besides her tabby cat, Voltaire. She’s lived in Alaska, Australia and England. The only reason Nora didn’t end up living one of those lives instead of the life she recently chose to end is because of the choices she made leading up to the present moment.
Eventually, Nora finally slips into a life she’d like to stay in. It isn’t long, however, until disappointment slowly creeps back into Nora’s heart and transports her, unwillingly, back to “The Midnight Library”. This final life, however, gave Nora hope that there is a world in which she can be happy.
After visiting all these alternative lives for a temporary amount of time, Nora rediscovers life’s potential and her personal will-to-live.
Haig’s novel suggests that the purpose of life is to live. Plain and simple. It is to wake up every morning and do what makes you happy, whether that happiness is found in the most extravagant or modest lifestyles.
Yet, it also means enduring the most painful and heartbreaking moments of life. Like Nora, our regrets encourage us to make different decisions in our future, and redirect our time and energy towards activities, people and ways of living that make us feel happy.
Throughout the novel, readers can’t help but question their past decisions, both major and minor, along with Nora. Yet, with every flip of a page, they come closer and closer to burning their own book of regrets.
We don’t know how Nora will spend her life. We don’t know if she will live another five years or five minutes. We don’t know how she will spend it or who she will spend it with. All we know is she’s been given a second chance, one she fought desperately for towards the end of the novel.
And with all the knowledge she gained from jumping to and from the many lives she could have potentially lived, Nora is determined to make her current reality one she would check out from “The Midnight Library.”