THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig

 

A book for our times, when many many people are in intense despair at how covid has changed, damaged, ruined lives and traumatised so many of us. We all have a covid story of sorts - we should have after nearly two years of this - and we are allowed to feel crap about everything. But as a friend once said to me, after her recovery from a severe stroke at the age of 40. With the doctors wanting to switch off the life support, her husband said no, where there is life there is hope. And she lived. It may have been only another 10 years, but she lived to see her children grow up, her children had a mother while they grew up. That is what this book is about - hope. And we all need hope, even if it is for a sunny day tomorrow so that patch of garden can be attended to. 

Nora Seed has given up hope. Her life has turned into a great big fat nothing. Disappointed in love, her job under threat then gone, few if any friends, her beloved cat dying, none of her dreams or plans ever turning out and not being able to figure out why. She decides to end it all, leaving perhaps the most heart rending but extremely beautiful suicide note.

But it isn't curtains for Nora. She finds herself suspended in a different type of universe - the Midnight Library, manned by Mrs Elm, her old school librarian who took a special interest in Nora. In this magical place of endless moving rows of books of all shapes, sizes, colours, Mrs Elm offers Nora the chance to examine more closely the regrets she has had and how life may have turned out if she had taken that particular path or decision instead of the one she did. Now we all have done this in our lives - if I had taken that job instead of this one, or if I had learnt to play tennis instead of surfing, or gone home instead of walking into that bar one night. The list is endless, but of course we don't get a chance to see how our lives may have panned out if we had made one choice differently! We just wonder 'what if?' 

Nora's alternative life situations are fascinating - her childhood dream of being a geoscientist in Antartica could well have happened, and she was an excellent swimmer with Olympic potential. In another life did she become a famous Olympic swimmer? And wasn't she some sort of rock chick as well? So multi-talented, smart, sassy, spirited - what happened? And ultimately, what choice does she make? Does she realise she wants to live or does she still want to end it all? 

I loved this - beautifully written, it gets deep into the soul. Yes, it is of course completely unrealistic, and none of us can relive or change our pasts. But just given the chance to think about it, and place yourself in the Magic Library with a significant adult from your childhood, what book of regrets would you pick up, and how would you imagine things might have turned out if you took that path? It reminded me of Kate Atkinson's Life After Life with the life of Ursula Todd told in two ways - if she had died at birth or not, if she had died at each of the various pivotal moments in her life after that or lived. Again I adored this book. 5 stars for me as with this one. 

Author Matt Haig writes fiction and non fiction for adults and children. His books are quirky, magical, just a bit different and this one is all of those. He has suffered from depression in the past, so may well have called on some of his own experience in writing this. It does have a sense of the writer knowing what he is talking about!