THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY

TW: depression, suicide, death, self-harm

Man, this book is a trip. Literally. It’s the story of Nora, whose life is not going well. In 24 hours her cat has died, she has lost her job, her piano student’s mother has fired her, her neighbour has told her he doesn’t need her to help him get his medication anymore, and she finds out her brother came to town and didn’t call her – from one of his friends who treats her with complete contempt. There’s not much else in her life, so when this day comes to a close, she decides she doesn’t really want another one, thank you very much.

But killing herself doesn’t even go to plan. She wakes up in a sort of a library, where she discovers that each of the books is actually an alternate version of her life if she had made a different decision. She can try any of them out just by requesting the life that would have happened following a different choice in her past. The rules state that as soon as she feels true disappointment and dissatisfaction in any of these alternate lives, she will be sucked back to the library to try again, but if she finds one that doesn’t leave her with this feeling, she can remain in that life until its natural end. The majority of the book is exactly this – she tries out many, many different lives, only to discover they aren’t what she expects.

I found this to be a fascinating premise – who amongst us hasn’t wondered idly what our lives would have been like if we’d taken that trip, stayed with that ex, taken that job offer, or gone to that university? I know I have. So it’s really interesting to see the things that are different in each version of her life (and herself) – and the things that are the same. So the idea of the book is one that is very much appealing. As is the premise that the story begins because of her attempted suicide, and the fact that she is hovering in an in-between state, neither alive nor dead.

*** Minor spoilers about what some of the alternate lives are, so skip to next red line if you don’t want to know! ***It’s a hard one, this book. I love the premise, obviously…. and yet I can’t say I loved this book. There were a few things I found difficult about it. I found the lives she experienced to be missing depth. It told us what happened, but not how it really felt to be in that life, and how it was different from her own, other than on the surface. This was partly because in each life she tries out, it’s as if she is waking up in that life as her current self. She has no recollection of what led her to that moment in the alternate reality, nor does she know the people who surround her, or even the skills that have gotten her there. Thus when she’s a glacierologist who wakes up in the far north, she doesn’t know how to be a glacierologist. She doesn’t know how to survive in that environment, nor who her colleagues are. When she’s a rock star she doesn’t know what happened to people in her life or even the songs that she’s apparently written and been performing – and that she’s supposed to now go out on stage and perform for an audience. I found this extremely frustrating, partly because it meant for most of the book we’re just steeped in confusion, but also because she never really gets to experience any of these lives. She’s an outsider in her own existence over and over, and it’s a really annoying thing to read repeatedly. It also meant that she never gets to really escape her past, nor does she know who she would really have been in these lives, because she’s still herself. She comments on this body feeling stronger or more healthy, this brain feeling sharper – but her emotional state is always the same, her sense of herself never changes.

*** End spoiler section. ***Aside from this repetitive and frustrating element, I also had a hard time connecting to the character. This constant jig between different lives meant we don’t really get to know her that well. There was an opportunity for these alternate lives to show us different parts of her personality brought to the fore and developed. We could have learned how she would have dealt with different experiences and lifestyles, but that opportunity is missed. This meant that no matter what happened in the book, we were still with this same character who was a figure of pathos, but not really a character I liked all that much.

That said, there were things I did like about this book. It underlines that at the end of the day, our choices would all have had their pros and cons. No life is without pain, without disappointment, and without loss. In each life she has to grapple with having lost different people who have passed away or ceased being in her life, in each life she has to face areas that are empty, and most of all, in nearly every life she still has a brain that is prone to depression. I think this was a valuable point – it’s so easy to think that we missed an opportunity and that our life detoured down a side road because of it, missing the main path we were supposed to take. I believe life is neither this defined nor this limited. I think that no one path would have solved all the problems – some may have been eased, but others would have taken their place.

Another important point it makes is that everything in life is, very definitely, temporary. The things that felt insurmountably bad in her first life – the one she left behind – always had the potential to be fixed, moved past or resolved. I believe that this is true of every human life. Depression is a beast. It lies to you by telling you that there is no hope. That nothing will ever get better. That we have no power to affect change. But this is never, in my experience, the case. I’ve known many people who have suffered from depression (myself included) and some who have attempted suicide, and the one thing I can tell you about each life is that it didn’t stay in that place. Some of the people I knew who wanted to give up on life have ended up in careers that make them happy, with a wonderful partner, and as parents who adore their kids. I’m sure there are hard days, but I’m also sure it was absolutely worth sticking around for. I think this is the message at the core of this book. Even if some of the narrative decisions didn’t work perfectly for me, it’s an important one.

I wouldn’t recommend this book for everyone. It might be triggering to some, boring for others. But I do think that it can offer a bit of hope to the right readers. It can help show that regrets really aren’t helpful – and those choices we wonder about could have led to a place that was different but just as hard – or, in fact, even harder. Either way, we are where we are, and there’s really no use in missing out on our present while mourning an imaginary road not taken in the past. This book left me with two important messages – that our lives are never set and can always change, no matter how hopeless we feel; and that while there’s no way to know where other choices could have taken us, it also doesn’t matter. We can never go back and take that road, a better use of our energy and imagination is to look for new roads not yet taken that could bring us somewhere new.

I’m glad I read this book, despite its flaws. It certainly gave me a lot to think about, and I think it would be a great one for facilitating discussions – because regardless of whether you loved it or not, it certainly does provide rich ground for discussion. I think I’ll explore Matt Haig’s work further in the future, because there was enough here that I liked that I want to see if his other work has similarly fascinating and impactful ideas, but is perhaps structured in a more satisfying way. Not for everyone, but if you’re not concerned about the topics and are interested in it, worth a go!

Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets? A novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place. – Goodreads

Book Title: The Midnight Library
Author: Matt Haig
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook
Published By: Viking
Released: August 13, 2020
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Depression, Alternate Lives
Pages: 304
Date Read: February 21, 2024
Rating: 6/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.00/5 (1,732,114 ratings)