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| The Moon on New Year's Eve |
when the clock strikes twelve, how about this novel
concerning the quirks and tweaks and funny tricks of time:
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
At least 4 friends (Gene, Katy, Kerry, Laura), all on separate occasions, recommended this novel; plus, it was a clue on Jeopardy! so I knew it was going to be a good one. I admit that I was not consistently enamoured of Nora and the multiverse, but I was perpetually enthralled by the manner in which it brought to mind so many other things that I deeply love, such as
1. This poem by Ernest SandeenIn each of these narratives, the characters are able to visualize a world in which they make better choices, maximize their options, achieve better outcomes; and try, try, try again for a more palatable existence.
My Two Lives
The life I could have lived,
that other, better one,
is also mine. Who else
can claim it?
Each morning, stooping down,
I know that I am not worthy
to tie my own shoelaces.
Ernest Sandeen, 1908 - 1997
Notre Dame Professor and Poet
2. This poem by H. D.
Never More Will the Wind
Never more will the wind
cherish you again,
never more will the rain.
Never more
shall we find you bright
in the snow and the wind.
The snow is melted,
the snow is gone,
and you are flown:
Like a bird out of our hand,
like a light out of our heart,
you are gone.
by H.D. (aka Hilda Doolittle, 1886 – 1961)
3. The dreamy (also nightmarish) poetic novel:
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
4. The dreamy (also nightmarish) historical novel:
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
5. The Mirror of Erised -- Desire reversed -- in the Harry Potter novels -- where Harry glimpses a chance for the desire of his heart: communication beyond the grave.
6. A few movies come immediately to mind:
Coherence, Sliding Doors, It's a Wonderful Life
-- and doubtless there are many, many more.
7. Who couldn't use a do-over, right?
And that's what The Midnight Library is all about:
"Every life contains many 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 coud be living. . . . You have as many lives as you have possibilities. There are lives where you make different choices. And those choices lead to different outcomes. If you had done just one thing differently, you would have a different life story. And they all exist in the Midnight Library. They are all as real as this life.” (p. 31)One of my favorite features is "The Book of Regrets." Although Nora is only 35 years old, her "Book of Regrets" is already so heavy that she can barely pick it up (p. 34). However, it gets lighter and lighter as she realizes that no matter what alternative life she may have chosen, it would not have been perfect (pp. 155, 266). In fact, those other lives may not have worked out well at all, so she can relinquish her regret -- based only upon imagination and lack of knowledge -- for not having chosen them. Similar to the Parable of the Cross is her discovery "that the place you wanted to escape to is the exact place you escaped from. That the prison wasn't the place, but the perspective.” (284)
Nora also learns some hard realities:
2. " . . . you can choose choices but not outcomes." (p. 83)
3. " [her] father . . . had been a difficult man. . . .
Nora had felt that simply to be in his presence
was to commit some kind of invisible crime." (p. 87)
4. “'You’re overthinking it.’
‘I have anxiety.
I have no other type of thinking available.'” (p. 109)
5. "'You might need to stop worrying
about other people's approval . . .
you don't need a permission slip to be your--'" (p. 193)
6."Nora wanted to live in a world
where no cruelty existed, but the only worlds she had
available to her were worlds with humans in them." (p. 197)
7."'It seems impossible to live with hurting people.'
'Well, in fairness, dying hurts people too.'"
At the core of the novel (truly, the exact half - way point!), Matt Haig presents his core message, in a short chapter entitled "Expectation":
“Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. From as far back as she could remember, she'd had the sense that she wasn't enough. Her parents who both had their own insecurities, had encouraged that idea.
She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed.
She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale.
She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying her best.
And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free."
(p. 143)
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| The Full Moon After Yule |
Are the library and librarian for real, or just a whirlwind vision, a frantic exploration of the dusty shelves before the clock strikes midnight?
"There is a chance that just before you die you'll get a chance to live again. You can have things you didn't have before. You can choose the life you want. . . . this whole library is part of you. Do you understand? You don't exist because of the library; the library exists because of you." It turns out that all Nora needs is "the book of her future . . . in this one that future was unwritten." The book of regrets can be left behind: "That is the last book you need. That will be ash by now. That will have been the first book to burn." (pp. 225, 265, 270 266)The novel concludes optimistically:
She had to try harder. She had to want the life she always thought she didn’t. Because just as this library was a part of her, so too were all the other lives. She might not have felt everything she had felt in those lives, but she had the capability. She might have missed those particular opportunities that led her to become an Olympic swimmer, or a traveller, or a vineyard owner, or a rock star, or a planet-saving glaciologist, or a Cambridge graduate, or a mother, or the million other things, but she was still in some way all those people. They were all her. She could have been all those amazing things, and that wasn’t depressing, as she had once thought. Not at all. It was inspiring. Because now she saw the kinds of things she could do when she put herself to work. And that, actually, the life she had been living had its own logic to it. . . . What sometimes feels like a trap is actually just a trick of the mind. She didn’t need a vineyard or a Californian sunset to be happy. She didn’t even need a large house and the perfect family. She just needed potential. And she was nothing if not potential. She wondered why she had never seen it before.” (p 269)
The Personal Librarian (suggested by Igor)
by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.
Maybe after that, I'll look for something else
with the word Library or Librarian in the title!
or perhaps the word Book
as in The Last Bookaneer, recommended by Gene
See previous book blogs:
January 2025: bookstore = cathedral
"If you are in a cathedral,
you are quiet because you are in a cathedral,
not because other people are there.
It's the same with a library." (185)
Chernobyl:
"He seemed like he would be able
to sit in a field near Chernobyl and
marvel at the the beautiful scenery." (204)
April 2016 & May 2016
& The Quotidian Kit:
Children in the Leaves & Straw
Some other lives for me:
stick with childhood swimming and piano
end bad relationships sooner
stay single longer
major in accounting
go to art school
accept offer to model for art class
go to Hallmark or Ideals
