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The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
CW: Suicide
CW: Suicide
Nora Seed has hit rock bottom. Her brother doesn't speak to her; her best friend is living the dream continents away; she has just lost her job; and now her beloved cat, Voltaire, is dead. Nora has been a letdown to everyone she loves. What is there left to live for?
Plenty, it turns out. After overdosing on her antidepressants, Nora finds herself in a vast library sprawling eternally in all directions. There, she meets a familiar face: Mrs. Elm, the school librarian who offered Nora a safe haven in the tumult of her younger years.
Mrs. Elm explains that Nora is in The Midnight Library, a liminal space between life and death. Nora isn't dead (yet) and now has an incredible opportunity before her. Each book in the library represents another version of Nora's life wherein her decisions have resulted in a different, potentially more satisfying, existence. With Mrs. Elm as her curator, Nora can try on as many lives as she needs in search of the one that will truly satisfy her.
Nora masquerades through myriad possible lives, to no avail. With each new book, she inevitably discovers some key detail that differs intolerably from her root life. She might've been an Olympic swimmer turned motivational speaker, at the cost of her mother's life. Perhaps she should've pursued her passion for science and become a glaciologist, as long as she didn't mind a bland marriage and lackluster sex with an emotionally detached Frenchman.
With each new life and ensuing disappointment, Nora respawns in the library again. There, Mrs. Elm councils her through valuable lessons, helps her release old regrets, and encourages her to make new selections.
When Nora finally finds "the one," she is inexplicably yanked back to the library anyway. The body she left behind is dying, severing her from limbo and slowly forcing her back to her root life, and death. Mrs. Elm directs Nora to the book containing her root life as the library crumbles around them.
"You don't have to understand life. You just have to live it."
-Mrs. Elm
Mrs. Elm's sage words echo in Nora's ears as she jolts back into her body. Although this might at first read as yet another disappointment for the pitiful protagonist, it isn't.
Every book Mrs. Elm plucks from the shelf, every life Nora could've lived, has its benefits and drawbacks. Nora's satisfaction in life has nothing to do with success, however she chooses to define and redefine it. Her fulfillment is intrinsically tied to her support system and the love that the people in it have to offer her.
In the days following her experiences in the library, Nora repairs relationships, rekindles communications, and accepts that life is a complex and dichotomous thing. It is both intentional and complete happenstance.
Every instant, there is infinite potential before us that constantly solidifies into possibility or dissolves into impossibility as we decide, act, and think. When we obsess over what isn't, we occlude what still could be.
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