“Nineteen years before she decided to die, Nora Seed was in Bedford, snug in the little library at Hazeldene School. These are the starting words of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, an English author who practices children’s and adult fiction, as well as non-fiction, with talent, success… and happiness (since it is one of his favorite subjects).
Nineteen years later, Nora Seed is elsewhere and nowhere, in a “library”. It is that at 35, she judged that her life was a complete failure and she decided to take it away. With, again, a relative success.
Stuck between life and death, she finds herself in this “midnight library” of which she is the sole user. And for good reason: all the books in it contain one of the lives she could have lived if… If she hadn’t stopped competing in swimming. If she hadn’t let go of the music group she had formed with her brother. If she had become a glaciologist. If she had agreed to marry Dan—that’s very recent and still very painful.
However, as fans of fantasy have long known and as everyone has now discovered thanks to recent Marvel productions and more sober works, such as the series Parallels or more exploded like the movie Everything, everywhere, all at once, there are a multitude of universes featuring each of the lives we would have lived if we had made one decision rather than another. Nora will have the opportunity to discover a multitude of them. Perhaps to correct past mistakes. Perhaps to set the record straight. Maybe for… for what, exactly? Because what is a happy life, exactly?
Whoops ! It smacks of uplifting morality and personal growth book. The Midnight Library is not that. Not at all. Matt Haig does not pontificate, attempt to uplift or enlighten. It entertains by way of a fantasy narrative that’s rather dark at first and carried by a not particularly likeable protagonist. Except that we let ourselves be tamed by it throughout the story. Because the mistakes she makes, the obstacles she encounters, the doubts that fill her are extremely familiar.
And we emerge from this library as it should after a stay among the books: with a smile.