Shes been an Olympian, a dog-walker, and a glassblower. However, as this moment reveals, she comes to find that this life too has its shortcomings. Nora has a life, one that she has nearly turned her back on, and this life roots her, grounds her, in reality. Like Nora, our regrets encourage us to make different decisions in our future, and redirect our time and energy towards activities, people and ways of living that make us feel happy. Yet, with every flip of a page, they come closer and closer to burning their own book of regrets. Welcome back. But it is boring. Endorse it. 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. This seems initially surprising, especially given the fact that she seemed to find many seemingly good versions of her life, but the reason for this becomes quite clear in the last chapter. The talented aspiring Olympic swimmer turned aspiring rock star now aspires only to stop living. She takes a bottle, hoping to die, but wakes up at midnight in a massive library. Where she is in her life now, she finally realizes, is the result of having done the best she could with the emotional resources she had available. Melendez, John. To be the world, witnessing itself. WebThe Midnight Library Themes The Point of Life Is Life Itself One of the biggest issues with Noras root life is that Nora felt like she wasnt doing anything noteworthy. Already a member? Look at how ordered and safe and peaceful it looks now, before a game starts. The library functions as a symbol of Nora's parallel lives. Whats more, you dont have to come face to face with a polar bear to feel them theyre in you right now, in this life, just waiting to be felt. And yes, it is about that the plot isnt surprising in that sense but its about something else too, which Im not sure I had expected or appreciated quite as much. When she finds herself in the Midnight Library, Nora is offered the opportunity to reckon with her regrets by finding out what would have happened if she had made other choices in her life. Would your expectations have changed, and as a result, would your reaction have changed? One cement-grey book, however, is different from the rest. Nora had always had a problem accepting herself. date the date you are citing the material. How does Nora change and grow over the course of The Midnight Library? In the speech she gives in her champion-swimmer existence, Nora says that the outward appearance of her life does not really convey the struggles she has endured and that the very idea of a "successful" life is misleading. But amid pure naturesolitude took on a different character. D) It indicates that the book will end when Nora dies. All you need to do is find a way to keep moving forward. As the main character, Nora Seed, traverses through her different life possibilities, the library becomes the main place where she returns to reflect upon the paths she could have chosen. An exquisite If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Noras numerous and diverse experiences in the novel underscore the centrality of relationships in human life. "And Nora smiled as she stared at all the pieces she still had left in play, thinking about her next move.". The Midnight Library is out now in the UK and America. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely., You see, doing one thing differently is very often the same as doing everything differently., And even if you were a pawn - maybe we all are - then you should remember that a pawn is the most magical piece of all. This quote describes the continual strangeness that Nora experiences as she moves through these different lives. When there is a severe disruption in that power source the library is in jeopardy. The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. The last date is today's This was not the life she imagined it to be. You couldn't let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole. The Question and Answer section for The Midnight Library is a great As a consequence of her self-critical thoughts, Nora overdoses and is surprised to find herself in the library, where the time on her watch is stuck at midnight. The basic premise is that a woman called Nora decides to kill herself, and before she dies she finds herself in the Midnight Library. Then she stumbles on a library with books that enable her to test out the lives she could have led, including as aglaciologist, Olympic swimmer, rock star, and more. She later reappears as a younger version of herself in the Midnight Library, where she assists Nora in traveling to her various unlived lives. You are the power source. You just have to live it., Youre overthinking it. I have anxiety. "The Midnight Library Characters". from Franciscan University of Steubenville M.A. This is the best life for me. In the first life Nora travels to, she owns a pub with her husband Dan. We dont know how Nora will spend her life. She ruminates on the failures she has made, believing, Every move had been a mistake, every decision a disaster, every day a retreat from who shed imagined shed be.. I was both intrigued and uneasy about the use of a fantastical library to explore something as real and horrific as suicidal depression. "This is the best life," she told herself, a little desperately now. This whole place exists because of you. This description lays out the mechanics of this otherworldly setting, framing Nora's subsequent adventures in the rest of the novel. . The lessons than Nora learns from her other lives feel less about letting go of regrets, and more about embracing the whole wide range of emotions of which human beings are capable. Though Noras perspective shifts incrementally with each new life she enters, this experience particularly contributes significantly to her reframing of what it means to lead a good life. Nineteen years later, after a series of painful events, including the loss of her job and the death of her cat, Nora feels that the world would simply be better off without her. Mrs. Elm, p. 32 This quote is taken from early in the novel, as Mrs. Elm explains to Nora how lives are shaped by seemingly minor choices. We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like. The Midnight Library study guide contains a biography of Matt Haig, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday! Dan is Nora's ex-fianc. eNotes.com, Inc. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life youre in., Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. This is a must-read for those of us given to endlesswhat ifs. BookRiot, Haig is one of the most inspirational popular writers on mental health of our age and, in his latest novel, he has taken a clever, engaging concept and created a heart-warming story that offers wisdom in the same deceptively simple way as Mitch Alboms best tales. Independent (UK), Just beautiful . Note: When citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. Finally, there are plenty of allusions in this novel. Knowing now that her choices can have a dramatic and unforeseen impact, she feels more hopeful about how much she can change things. It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. I found the title of The Midnight Library to be particularly intriguing. This moment occurs late in the novel, after Nora has spent a great deal of time in her supposed "best" life. In another she is a swimmer and Olympic gold medalist. Yet, the library can only intrigue one so much. She discovers that he cheated on her in the past and that in this timeline their relationship is deeply fractured. because a pawn is never just a pawn. "The Midnight Library Essay Questions". A pawn is a queen-in-waiting. If you follow me on Instagram stories, youll know that I accidentally stayed in bed until lunchtime one day this week reading The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. When she loses momentum, she then finds herself stuck in situations that foster situational depression. The Question and Answer section for The Midnight Library is a great Work hard at it. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. "A Conversation About Rain" to "The Chessboard", "The Only Way to Learn Is to Live" to "System Error", Read the Study Guide for The Midnight Library. Have you read The Midnight Library? In this way, she experiences separation from her body, as it provides "clues" to cracking whatever "mystery" is part of the life she is exploring. There may be bits you don't like, a few dodgy side streets and suburbs, but the good stuff makes it worthwhile., As Thoreau wrote, Its not what you look at that matters, its what you see., You dont have to understand life. Matt Haig. Refresh and try again. Cooper, James ed. Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically. This is the best life.". That the prison wasn't the place, but the perspective., The thing that looks the most ordinary might end up being the thing that leads you to victory., Regrets dont leave. The main theme of the novel is possibility. WebThe midnight library is magical, for a start, the library has a limitless number of books, and these books are far from ordinary, Haig sprinkles gold dust in each book, offering Nora Matt Haig fills his novel The Midnight Library with many literary devices, especially symbolism, metaphor, and allusion. WebThe Midnight Library. These figures appear as both brief references and conspicuous plot points: her cat is named Voltaire; she contemplates Bertrand Russells perspective on life and his many infidelities; and in one life, a favorite line from Thoreau is tattooed on her forearm. Nora's regrets range from not marrying her ex-boyfriend Dan to failing to become an Olympic swimmer. This means that the novel can only rely on Nora Seed, and if she stagnates, then so does the reader. Its a beautiful thing. Aim to be you. Plain and simple. She is a woman in her thirties, who leads a life she finds lonely and disappointing. I particularly enjoyed the way the library was affected by the choices Nora made, culminating in a climactic ending when Nora Seed sealed her final decision. The novel opens with her playing chess with Nora and talking about the possibilities of life. In my head, Im thinking of libraries with grand architecture and hallways full of hidden secrets and rare books. This line indicates that Nora is beginning to learn that marrying Dan would have been a huge mistake and that some of the things she regrets not doing would have turned out poorly. And don't give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. Long after Nora has graduated and forgotten about those after-school chess sessions, she finds herself utterly disappointed with all aspects of her life. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Then, she is fired from her job of twelve years. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss thenovel. Love it. Between stacks of bookshelves again. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty. What do the chessboard, fire, swimming, space, and the library symbolize inThe Midnight Library? This means that by the time you reach the middle of the story, the plot starts getting repetitive, and the development of the character stalls. 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. You can't give up, Nora. When the story begins, Nora is figuratively buried under the weight of her regrets. In The Midnight Library, thirty-five-year-old Nora finds out from a handsome young surgeon, Ash, that her beloved cat has been killed. Want, she told her, in a measured tone, is an interesting word. A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author ofReasons to Stay AliveandHow To Stop Time. While the WebThe library is a symbol of possibilities and choices. In a few instances, Nora chooses lives that are radically different from her root life. Melendez, John. The library allows Nora to reverse her regrets and pursue different iterations of her existence. As Nora watches the lives of those around her change shape in accordance with the fluctuating circumstances of reality, she comes to realize that the motivations of those around her are as genuine and complex as her own. Maybe that was the only meaning that mattered. Melendez, John. She loves this life and finds herself feeling both content and fulfilled, working on a book about Thoreau and spending time with her daughter. 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?, Sometimes just to say your own truth out loud is enough to find others like you., Of course, we can't visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we'd feel in any life is still available. To be the world, witnessing itself., Sometimes regrets aren't based on fact at all, The lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks human-to-human connection is the point of everything. Regardless of their genre, his writing explores the many elements that impact a persons satisfaction with life. Just as, she supposed, it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person. Hugo references Schrdingers Cat, a well-known thought experiment that exists at the intersection of physics and philosophy. It is like stage fright only worse, for Nora can never really get off the stage of her own life. Ed. The Midnight Library is available from NLB Overdrive and copies can also be bought from retailers such as Amazon. She is a professor of philosophy and has a daughter. Throughout the novel, readers cant help but question their past decisions, both major and minor, along with Nora. Error rating book. The pivotal moments for Nora dont happen when shes just CONTENT. Im a voracious reader. I am staying here. Such a gorgeous, gorgeous book. Fearne Cotton, host of theBBC Radio 1 Chart Show, [The Midnight Library] will follow in the bestselling footsteps of Haigs earlier books .