January 2022 BOTM: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

[Jade]

This months Group Read is: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

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 dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.

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?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, 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.

I look forward to seeing what everyone thinks of this one. If you want to comment on something that may be a story spoiler, you can hide it by surrounding the text with spoiler tags. Anything between those tags will be hidden in a "(view spoiler)" link.

[Kathryn]

None of this review is overly spoilery as it doesn't really discuss the plot of the book (so i haven't marked it as a spoiler) but it does touch on events and quotes of the book, So read if you wish.

I gave this book a 5 stars and then thinking on it a bit I lowered it to a 4. So I liked this book. The writing was really solid and the story was compelling and fast paced (helped by the short chapters).

Looking through the negative reviews of the book the most common criticism focuses on the way this book deals with depression and portrays that it can be easily fixed. While I can see how that would be problematic for some, because I have been fortunate enough to never have experienced anything of the sort it didn't stand out to me as a issue.

The beginning of this novel framed why Nora chose to suicide really highlighted the need for us to feel we have a purpose in life Whole hours past she wanted to have a purpose, something to give her a reason to exist. But she had nothing not even the small purpose of picking up Mr Banerjees medication as she had done that two days ago. she tried to give a homeless man some money But realized she had none
and that how the choices that we make can dramatically affect others because we never know what is going on on their lives I've had a really crap day I'm so sorry.
We waited at you're flat for an hour.
I can still do Leos lesson, I'll be five minutes.
Too late.

Regrets was also a large theme of the book. I don't really have much to add on that but here are some quote that sum it up.

It's hard to predict the things that will make us happy

Want is an interesting word it means lack sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely maybe you have a lack problem rather than a want problem

Nothing has changed
except you
what do you mean?
well you don't see yourself as bad cat owner anymore you looked after him as well as he could have been looked after.

Sometimes regrets aren't based on facts that all sometimes regrets are just fabricated

It just shows you doesn't it
shows me what?
well that you can choose choices but not outcomes. but I stand by what I said it was a good choice it just wasn't the desired outcome

For books like this, I tend to try and pick holes in the lore of the book - it does work in opening discussion ;-) Soo...
It was obviously a choice that the author made to have Nora not be able to have any of the memories of the version of herself she was inhabiting.
*It seems to be a bit unfair because (unlike the characters in this book) people would get suspicious REAL fast if suddenly you couldn't remember friends or how to do your job etc. they do try to explain it by having the line She realized that you could be as honest as possible in life but people only see the truth if it is close enough to be a reality. it's not what you look at that matters it's what you see Which is true however people would just think you had serious brain damage or something.
*Secondly (and this is fundamental to the books narrative) how could you know if you like a life, if you don't have any emotional connection to it - except from the outside perspective? Like how could Nora know if she liked Glaciology if she didn't KNOW Glaciology, and only could see the life that studying it led too.
*Then because the novel is about coming to terms with regrets, surely in each life there would've been things that that Nora regretted how could the Nora we follow know to change them if she didn't know the regrets?
(For Example: Nora is on boat X and doesn't like the life she sees, how could she know that she wouldn't enjoy the life on boat Y better still being a glaciologist?
Or how about a life where she did marry Dan but refused to let him have the dream of the pub?
There are infinite regrets that she could change that should come from the lives that she experiences)
Discuss, Discuss.....

Throughout the whole novel there was the motif that the black hole in the National Geographic, which was explained for us in this quote The paradox of volcanoes was that they were symbols of destruction but also life. Once the lava slows and calls it solidifies and then breaks down over time to become soil rich fertile soil. She wasn't a black hole, she decided. She was a volcano, and like a volcano she couldn't run away from herself she have to stay there and tend to that wasteland I just liked the quote, very poetic sounding