Book Review : The Midnight Library

 

In the realm of speculative fiction and novels on the human condition, few authors have used the concept of parallel universes to delve into the psychological effects of our existential crises quite like Matt Haig. “The Midnight Library” is an international bestseller and a charming segway into opening Pandora’s box of depression, anxiety, and uncertainty. The narrative is deliberately streamlined and simplistic, is it perhaps too linear to handle life’s big questions that it attempts to answer? Let’s explore.

The novel revolves around Nora Seed, our protagonist who is on the verge of committing suicide. She’s lost her job, her best friend, her brother, and her cat Volts just died. Her relationship is in shambles and she is lost within the midst of irrevocably severe depression, living has become nothing but a chore so she ends it with an overdose of antidepressants. However, instead of death, Nora finds herself in the midnight library — an in-between where people go when they are hanging precariously between life and death. The library is endless and filled with an infinite number of books, each one a portal into an alternative life that Nora could be living.

Although Matt Haig sets up the foundation of the many-worlds theory and reinforces the concept of parallel universes throughout the plot, this is not explained in any depth therefore there is no further exploration into parallel universe theory, philosophy, and quantum indeterminacy. Haig is almost a pseudo-therapist, his concern is on the psychological effects of the alternative lives on Nora and whether the delicate balance between regret and possibility is enough to reignite her willingness to live.

As someone with an avid interest in human psychology, Haig’s storytelling is enigmatic and a skillful exercise to encourage the reader to confront the bleakness and depression that may rear its ugly head in our own lives. Throughout Nora’s alternative lives where she is a rockstar, an Olympic swimming champion, Arctic researcher, a wife, a mother, famous and influential or mundane and insignificant, Haig reinforces the message of authenticity as the driver of self-acceptance:

If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail.

Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it.

And don’t give a second thought when people mock or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise.

Interestingly, as Nora lives through each of the alternative lives she comes to the realization that although each life takes on its unique forms, variations, and divergences — the illusion of success in the number of social media followers, medals, fame, and influence doesn’t equate to happiness. However, seemingly perfect lives (one where Nora has a beautiful daughter, loving husband, cute Labrador, and has taken a Sabbatical to write a book on her favourite philosopher Henry David Thoreau) also don’t guarantee true fulfillment if it makes her feel like a fraud. The reader is taken on a streamlined journey with Nora flitting in and out of alternate lives; experiencing a myriad of fear, confusion, love, and frustration.

Ultimately, Haig wants us to understand the beauty of a lifetime of possibility and the wonder of living:

We only need to be one person.

We only need to feel one existence.

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.

For those that like books filled with complex characters, multiple twists and turns, and difficult philosophical musings — the Midnight Library is not for you. Haig dumbs down the convoluted concept of parallel universes and the human condition into an understandable story that’s simple and easily digestible. The novel is a philosophical reminder to retain a sense of faith that you are not defined by the choices you did or did not make, but by who you are and who you have the power to be. We are asked the questions of what’s the best or worst that could happen in life? What can you change, and what can’t you?

The oversimplification of philosophical questions results in narration that sometimes falls into the trite and clichéd — “it’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” or “the paradox of volcanoes was that they were symbols of destruction but also life.” If you can look past the conventional language and straightforward storytelling, the novel is a celebration of the ordinary and teaches us to find the joy of living, no matter the pain or suffering. At the end of the day, you don’t have to understand life, you just have to live it.