by: Anvesha Sharma
‘ The Midnight Library’ by ‘Matt Haig’ is a book that was published amid pandemic. The book largely discusses mental health by covering genres like science fiction, fantasy fiction and philosophical fiction. The book has touched millions of hearts and has been awarded as the ‘GoodReads Choice Award Best Fiction’.
Nora Seed, a sixteen-year-old girl, is sitting in the library with the librarian, Mrs. Elm and tries to figure out what she would be when she grows up. The conversation ends with a phone call which informs Nora’s father’s demise.
The story shifts to nineteen years later and tells the current life of Nora at the age of thirty-five. She is suffering with depression and twenty-seven hours before she decided to die, Ash, her acquaintance, informs her about the death of her cat, Volts. Further, she gets fired from her shop and later from her part time job. Her brother hardly spoke to her and his friend Ravi informed Nora that her brother, Joe might be suffering with depression. On that very day, her fiancée, Dan, texted her which made her realize that she shouldn’t have left him two-days before the wedding. She believed that if she was with him, she would have been much happier.
Nora overdosed her depression pills and drank too much of wine. She laid unconscious on the ground.
When Nora woke up, she found herself in the library. She saw books and the most bizarre thing about that library was that every book was of different shades of green colour and the clock didn’t tick after 00:00:00. As she walked, she saw lights turning on and then she saw Mrs. Elm, the librarian.
Mrs. Elm explained Nora that “Between life and death there is a library, where the shelves go on forever.” She even gestured her hands to explain that if she choses to go forward, she will reach death and behind her lie, life. She was standing at the threshold.
Mrs. Elm handed Nora the ‘Book of Regrets.’ The book of regrets was very painful for her to bear.
After seeing her regrets, she was given books after books from the millions of books (choices) by Mrs. Elm which allowed her to live the life in the other choices. She learned that if she would have been a swimmer, she could see her father alive. She could live in that life only till she doesn’t feel regret of that life.
In one of the lives, she met a boy named Hugo who was same as Nora and he said that it is not always a library or Mrs. Elm. For him, it was his uncle in a DVD store.
In these parallel lives, Nora learned that every choice she took was absolutely correct. This is because she came out of every one of them, and stood in the library again. She saw that if she hadn’t cancelled her wedding with Dan, she could never live her dreams.
Since she was having no more regrets, her mortal body started gaining conscience and soon she stood in front of her brother. She was very happy to see him. Later, she showed her gratitude for this beautiful life.