Book Review: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

On a walk in Plön with some friends, we came across a box full of books on the sidewalk - the owner was giving them away for free. My friend picked up a book called The Midnight Library, because it was the only one in English. Having never heard of it before, she read it without any expectations. A few weeks later she couldn’t stop raving about it, and gave me the book to read. For a long time, my taste in fiction was either classics or who-dunits. This book wasn’t my style at all. It was only recently that I began reading other genres of fiction. With this new attitude I decided to give the book a go - and man was I glad I did!

It starts out quite dreary, mostly because of how relatable the story of Nora, the protagonist is. When Nora was younger, her life had much promise - she could have become anything she put her mind to: a rock star, an olympic swimmer, a glaciologist and more. But as she grew older these passions drained out of her for various reasons. Now she lives with a grandiosely named cat, Voltaire, has a temp job, no friends, and desperately wants her brother to talk to her. In a matter of days she loses her job and her cat dies. Her brother is in town but avoids meeting her. She overdoses. And all this in the first one tenth of the book. Oh dear!

But, from here on the book takes an uplifting turn. Nora doesn’t die but ends up in a mysterious library with millions of books and a huge clock showing 00:00:00 - the midnight library. She meets her school librarian, Mrs Elm, who reveals that each book in the library is a life she could have lived if she had made a decision differently in her life. In Mrs Elm’s words: “Every life contains millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations. These books are portals to all the lives you could be living.” So Nora can choose decisions she regretted not making and live the lives that could have been.

She goes through various lives. In most, she finds that despite being successful and famous, she is not happy. Gradually, I felt that her reasons for deciding that that life wasn’t good enough were becoming thinner. In a couple of instances she decides that the lives weren’t good enough because the men she was in a relationship with were dull, despite the life being fulfilling in all other ways. I was irritated - no life is perfect, if she finds the men dull, she could solve the problem in many ways - after all this isn’t the 17th century! She couldn’t possibly hope to find a life where there are absolutely no problems! And then this realization gradually hits Nora too.

For me, the main moral of the story, as it were, was that rather than live our lives to fulfil others’ dreams, we should live to fulfil ours. The fear or guilt of letting others down can niggle away at us making our lives unnecessarily harder. This is something Nora also realizes. She wasn’t happy in her life as a swimming champion because that was her father’s dream, she wasn’t happy being a rockstar because it was her brother’s dream, she wasn’t happy being a glaciologist because it was her librarian’s dream. She has to find what she needs for a satisfying life.

At a literature course in grad school, our weekly assignments were to find a sentence in the book that we’d just read and relate it to the whole book. For me that sentence in this book is Mrs Elm’s advice to Nora “Want is an interesting word. It means lack.” This sentence could summarize the whole book - Nora believes she has failed in life because of all the things she thought she wanted to have achieved and didn’t - things that she slowly realizes she doesn’t need. Sure, she regrets not excelling at something, but in her words “It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy.” She has to find what she needs for her life, rather than what people around her want for her. She must work on making her life the best she can possibly have, rather than regret things that she didn’t do.

Despite the sad start, the book is full of hope. There is something for everyone, no matter what they are going through. Feeling regretful? Despair? Unsuccessful? Hopeless? Guilty? This book assures you in the most beautiful way, that you can have a happy life, nevertheless. It is full of positive messages about so many emotions, but doesn’t feel kitschy or corny. Such messages are naturally interwoven into the narrative, making it a heartwarming read. The writing itself is pithy. The chapters of uneven lengths - some as short as a single sentence, and meaningful lyrics to songs and poems keep the readers engaged. Sure, early on in the book we can guess how it ends, but the journey to get there is beautiful. In these stressful times, this book is a godsend, even if you are not worried about your mental health.