The Midnight Library study guide contains a biography of Matt Haig, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Nora considers that her lives have largely been about other peoples dreams her brothers dream about The Labyrinths, her fathers dream about swimming, Izzys dream about Australia, Dans dream about the bar, and even Mrs. Elms suggestion about glaciology. Matt Haig's magical novel The Midnight Library is a tonic to anyone who tumbles down this rabbit hole of what-if thinking. Nora is then transported into a life essentially exactly the same as her original life. Each book represents a different version of Nora's life, a life of joys and sorrows, people and places, events and tragedies that spawned from a single choice, a decision, or in the case of this girl so full of regrets, something that didn't happen because she didn't make that choice. Noras dad did not have a heart attack in this life because he ended up on a health kick as Nora was training for the Olympics. But Nora longs to find a life to settle down in. Nora is transported into a life that seems perfect. If you really want to live a life hard enough, you dont have to worry, Mrs. Elm tells her. Transported back to the library, Nora tries on a few different lives. Nora thinks of their dashed hopes and considers that it was their unfulfilled expectation to achieve in the first place as opposed to the lack of achievement that caused their unhappiness. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig ended up being a preachy, fictionalized self-help book that I didn't ask for and that wouldn't have helped anyway. In the book "Games at Twilight", what details do you notice that show this story is not taking place in the United States? 7. She goes looking for Voltaire, but she finds that he is under the bed, but dead. Next, Nora is transported into a life where she moved to Australia with Izzy, but finds out Izzy would have died in a car accident. Or maybe she does, but the arc of the plot hinges on her trying to figure out what exactly it is. And yes, it really is presented that plainly. While talking with Raj, Lydia reminisces about her relationship with Gas 'n Donuts: "but her nostalgia for the place had never been strong enough to outweigh her dread of dredging up the past" (138). 1. And there we have it: Noras root life, the one she so despised, had a purpose after all. She meets and talks to Hugo Lefvre. While shes in the Midnight Library, Mrs. Elm tells her, shes preserved from death; this is an opportunity to decide how and if she wants to live. Afterwards, feeling impulsive knowing that any decision is just one iteration of her life, she kisses Hugo and they sleep together. Infinite options, yes, but maybe not an infinite amount of time in which to choose. For a non-spoiler version of the plot synopsis, see The Bibliofile's review of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. The music store she used to work at as a salesperson has closed down. When Nora tests out becoming an Artic researcher, she meets a man Hugo Lefvre, who is also jumping between his alternate realities and has been doing so for a long time. The library is immense. Joe shows up due to the voicemail Nora had left him before overdosing. 2. Kirkus. The two were close: Nora would often play chess with Mrs. Elm during breaks, and Mrs. Elm was the one who informed Nora of her fathers unexpected death in the middle of one school day. Haig's novel is divided into 68 chapters. Mrs. Elm tells Nora that almost all of the books on the library's seemingly infinite shelves represent lives that Nora could have lived if she had made different choices. After the show, Nora gets a call from Ryan Bailey, a famous A-list actor that shed once fantasized about in her original life. The last date is today's Hugo tells her that his version of her Midnight Library is a video store filled with VHS movies. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Mrs. Elm (or something that resembles her) is here and serves as Nora's guide, explaining that the Library exists between life and death. Inside the library, Nora is met by a familiar face: Mrs. Elm, her school librarian from childhood. Ask Amy: I wanted flowers after my miscarriage. At home, Nora sees Voltaires empty bowl and takes two anti-depressants. Kevin (Igby Rigney) finally decided to end his serial killer story. Matt Haigs magical novel The Midnight Library is a tonic to anyone who tumbles down this rabbit hole of what-if thinking. But while it's uncharted. Nora is upset and late for work, and she gets fired by her boss, Neil. Bestselling author Matt Haig's new book The Midnight Library explores themes of sadness and regret; Therapist Catherine Sweeney reviews; Perhaps it takes a clever author with their own mental health issues to write such a heartfelt yet entertaining novel about depression.In Matt Haig's wonderful new book The Midnight Library we follow the predicament of Nora Seed who, coming to the end of her . Once thinks about how her family here (Molly, Ash, Plato, etc.) Banerjee!) She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime. He also says hes met others like them, each with their own venues (somewhere with emotional significance) and guides (someone who has helped them at an important time) to help them navigate their infinite lives. In her mind, Nora marvels that Dan would be bored of her and cheating in one life, but practically obsessed with her in another. Over a game of chess, the two muse about what it means to live a good life. Each life has its own advantages and disadvantages, and some feel better than others, but Nora inevitably finds herself returning to the library after each one. Nora had offered inexpensive lessons and as Leos confidence in music grew, he improved in other areas as well and never get mixed up with worse stuff. After attempting to end her life, Nora wakes up in the Midnight Library: an immense space filled with shelves of books that stretch endlessly. Living has become nothing but a chore. Somewhere between life and death, Nora Seed finds herself wandering the marble hallways of a never-ending library; "The Midnight Library.". As Nora continues her Arctic adventure, Hugo approaches her. However, she remembers that Mrs. Elm had told her that once she settled into a life she wanted that shed eventually forget the library, but that doesnt seem to be happening. Next, Nora asks to experience fame, and she is transported to a life where her band Labyrinth had made it big. Finally, Nora recalls how Ash had once asked her out and tries a life where she'd accepted that date. . This recap of the Netflix series The Midnight Club season 1, episode 10, "Midnight," the ending explained, contains spoilers. Even as a rock star, Joe had stuck with her because she was making him money, not because theyd sorted out their issues. When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. After all, she loves to read, speaks fluent English, and has memorized the Dewey Decimal system for cataloguing library books. As she passes by her elderly neighbor, Mr. Banerjee, he informs her of the good news that he no longer needs her to pick up his medicine, but it makes Nora feel superfluous as a person. It felt right. Mrs. Elm responds that sometimes the only way to learn is to live. When Nora gives her talk, instead of speaking about the pursuit of success, she talks about what shes learned from the Midnight Library she says that success is a delusion, and she talks philosophically about the different paths life can take. She drags herself to her neighbors door, and he calls an ambulance as she collapses before him. Instead, Nora decides she wants to try a gentle life next, one about working with animals. Just for joining youll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members. Start earning points for buying books! Dehydrated, delirious, trembling and in pain, she stumbles outside and asks Mr. Banerjee to call an ambulance before collapsing. Mrs. Elm points out that time has started progressing forward once again on Noras watch. Instead, Nora asks to see a life where shed pursued glaciology, which her parents had discouraged. In the depths of her wallowing, she comes across the Midnight Library. Nora has forgotten about the music lesson she was supposed to give Doreens son, Leo. It resembles one he used to go to. Hed be dead of an overdose. And it is filled with nothing but books, shelves and, curiously, Nora's school librarian, Mrs. Elm. He has a bunch of dogs. 'The Midnight Library' is unusual in that it follows a plot with no twists, no turns that don't feel like a gentle glide. And a character who doesn't actively want something even when it is something so basic as to keep on living is a hard character to identify with. Joe is no longer in the band. Nora finds a blank book, and begins to write. If this summary was useful to you, please consider supporting this site by leaving a tip ($2, $3, or $5) or joining the Patreon! I like how it works with the concept of alternatives lives. The system has broken down entirely, Mrs. Elm reveals, which means that Nora must be dying in her root life. When she is released from the hospital, Nora visits the real Mrs. Elm in a care facility. . Shed still be there, but her friend would have died in a car accident. She finds herself in the cabin of a boat. Required fields are marked *. Note: this article may contain spoilers for The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Where, for an hour, a day or a month, she gets to dip into and sample lives where she made different choices, with the ultimate goal. As Nora muses: It is quite a revelation to discover that the place you wanted to escape to is the exact same place you escaped from. Toward the end of the novel, Nora visits what is clearly the best alternative life: the one in which she says yes to the coffee date with Ash, the cute surgeon who pops up in her root life and then again in others. While The Midnight Club already tells a beautiful story of self-acceptance and mortality, the show has plenty of loose threads to explore in an eventual Season 2 and the ending of the series . Do you think its understandable that she would have given these things up? She is playing chess with the school librarian, Mrs. Elm, when she gets the news about her father's death. Again, yes. Shes dissatisfied with her life. Nora explores a series of these other possible realities, returning to the library each time she feels dissatisfied. Remembering what Dylan had told her in another life, Nora goes to the Oak Leaf Residential Care Home to find Mrs. Elm, but instead she runs into Mr. Banerjee there. Mrs. Elm tells Nora how to exit, by finding the book representing her original life, and the Midnight Library dissolves. When the connection appears to be weakening, the librarian cautions Nora to get serious about her choice. Haigs response: Of course we would. Word Count: 1083. Soon, the Library sparks and books start to catch on fire. The library is her brains way of making sense of the theory of alternate universes, Hugo posits, and she is seeing Mrs. Elm as a guide because the librarian represents a comforting authority figure from her past. A beautiful messy struggle.". Certain that she now wants to live, Nora begs Mrs. Elm to help her get out. Nora immediately gets up out of the interview and heads downstairs, in shock and sadness, and soon she finds herself back at the Midnight Library. 3. What had she done? As Mrs. Elm reminds her: Never underestimate the big importance of small things., Now that youve read The Last Thing He Told Me, lets talk about the ending. Back at home, Nora thanks Mr. Banerjee for his help, and seeing his lovely garden Nora is able to appreciate the beauty of it. Mrs. Elm explains that her desire to live out her original life is causing the destruction. The Midnight Library Trigger Warning: suicide, attempted suicide, death, depression, cancer. Mrs. Elm recalls the games of chess that she used to play with Nora and how shed give up if she lost a few key pieces like her queen and whatnot, acting like the game was over and that her pawns and such were useless. Haig presents all of this as a straight line. If she had become a glaciologist? Every move had been a mistake, every decision a disaster, every day a retreat from who she'd imagined she'd be. I'd give it 0.5 stars for having a great cover, and really that's all thanks to Rafaela Romaya. Mrs. Elm reminds Nora of a time when shed done a dangerous swim across a river to try to impress Joe and other people at a party. Dylan mentions having happened to have seen Mrs. Elm not too long ago at the Oak Leaf Residential Care Home, a retirement home. Depression is a terrible illness, heaven knows; but I doubt whether any sufferer has ever experienced such an elaborate and fantastical treatment for it as the . What is the setting of "Games at Twilight" by Anita Desai? Matt Haig is the number one bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive, Notes on a Nervous Planet and six highly acclaimed novels for adults, including How to Stop Time, The Humans and The Radleys. Chapters 51 59 (Buena Vista Vineyard, The Many Lives of Nora Seed, Lost in the Library, A Pearl in the Shell, The Game, The Perfect Life, A Spiritual Quest for a Deeper Connection with the Universe, Hammersmith, Tricycle). Chapters 36 43 (God and Other Librarians, Fame, Milky Way, Wild and Free, Ryan Bailey, A Silver Tray of Honey Cakes, The Podcast of Revelations, Howl). Directed by George Clooney and starring Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone . Really, who doesnt need to hear that? Later, we learn that Huge experienced it as a video store, with a cherished uncle instead of a librarian. Yes, it really is that simple. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. The one that could be a messy struggle, but it was her messy struggle. To her surprise, she comes to understand and forgive herself better through this process, too. The Midnight Library, which is the place people go when they find themselves hanging precariously between life and death and not entirely sure about which way to go. Back at the Library, Nora wonders why she stayed in Australia after Izzys death, and Mrs. Elm says she was depressed and grieving and got stuck there. Hugo, she learns, sees a video store instead of a library and a beloved uncle instead of Mrs. Elm. It's the outlier of the " Flanagan-verse, " both youth-focused and semi-anthologized. Nora experiences a number of alternate lives in which she achieves a great deal of success in one area of her life at the expense of all the rest, be it in music, swimming, or polar exploration. He doesnt recognize her, though, because in this life they were never neighbors. The grand clock on the librarys front reads 12:00 a.m. Izzy has also responded back to her text and shes actually planning on moving back to the UK soon. A simplicity to the narrative that has to be taken as a choice on Haig's part, not an accident. Major spoilers for "The Midnight Library" are ahead. Nineteen years later, Nora is now a 35-year-old woman who is unhappy in her life. Your email address will not be published. 5. Another prominent theme that I loved in the Midnight Library was that of regrets. Matt Haig age rating / The Midnight Library age rating = 16+ is ideal. Her cabinmate is Ingrid Skirbekk, a Professor of Geoscience, who is part of the International Polar Research Institute. Death is ever-present at Brightcliffe Manor, and it is received as an enemy, a so-called "living shadow" that hunts its prey. Last Updated on July 8, 2021, by eNotes Editorial. It implies Augustine has died, at peace at last knowing an adult Iris is going to be safe. We tend to romanticize other variations of our lives we would have no cares in the world, if only we had done this and that differently. And who would be there? Shes greeted by her school librarian, Mrs. Elm, who was always kind to her. She is overwhelmed by her happiness but also plagued by the notion that this life is not hersit belongs to some other version of Nora, and she has taken it from her. Do you think its possible to reach fame and fortune in a single field and still maintain balance with other areas of your life? She knew that everything humans see is a simplification. The Midnight Library is a fantasy novel by Matt Haig, published on 13 August 2020 by Canongate Books. He has no idea who Nora is and has never taken music lessons. Chapters 64 65 (Nowhere to Land, Dont You Dare Give Up, Nora Seed!). The Midnight Library is different for each person who enters it. Joe also doesnt drink and Nora doesnt consume caffeine. In this new life, hes at the care home he had so passionately resisted. English novelist and author of "The . Nora can stay in these alternate realities as long as she desires, but if she loses her will to live in the process then she will die forever. Suicide, she decides, is the only way to escape the misery of a life full of regrets. When she inquires about Mrs. Elm, they inform her that Louise Elm died peacefully about three weeks ago. Its here that the fundamental problem with her root life dawns on her: She had loved no one, and no one had loved her back., Yet and this is one of my favorite parts there are problems with this seemingly perfect existence. These books are portals to all the lives you could be living. She sees that the lawn is overgrown. Advice for the relationships in your life and how to boost your own well-being. Enough of a theoretical portion of an infinity that she feels as though she has seen them all by the time we're closing on the final pages. This moment occurs at the end of Nora's first adventure in a parallel life. And her music student, Leo, ended up falling in with a bad crowd instead of discovering his aptitude for piano. Overwhelmed by regret, Mrs. Elm instructs Nora to close the book. Mrs. Elm explains to Nora that this is the Midnight Library, a space between life and death. Neil, her boss, is nice about it, but questions why shes still even working there since he thinks shes meant for bigger things. Everyones life could have gone an infinite number of ways, and each book in the library contains the story of that life. And the magnitude of that is staggering, given that a life can be determined or redirected by a single event. As time passes, she finds herself feeling grateful for this life. As in the book that inspired it the Midnight Club is a gathering of terminally ill teens telling each other scary stories in front of the fire. . They are here to study climate change. His father died when he was young, he was bullied and played rugby until an injury derailed his sporting future. Afterwards, Nora wanders around town and thinks about Dan, her ex-fianc who shed left two days before their aborted wedding. He takes what could've been (what has been in so many other books) a dark or sad or curvy or weird spin through the logical and philosophical possibilities of regret crossed with multiverse theory and straightens it out. The Library is falling apart, but Nora needs to find the book that represents her original life and write that story. This article was published more than1 year ago. -- Nora decides to die, and she overdoses on pills at midnight. When Nora tries to visit Mrs. Elm at a senior living center, she runs into the old man she lived next to in her root life, whom she helped with prescriptions and shopping. Nora plays chess with Mrs. Elm, the librarian. Nora tries out a life with her ex, Dan, who she nearly married, only to discover that he would have gotten bored and cheated on her. Hes slightly drunk, and Nora realizes that she has recently dumped him. Still, she wonders what would have happened if shed stuck with it. Nora learns that Ingrid took this research position after Per (presumably her husband) had died to get away from the memory of him. As she is transported to Sydney, she senses she is in the water. On a few occasions, the library experiences system issues that complicate Noras transfers in and out of lives. Shed be very cold and almost eaten for lunch by a giant, menacing polar bear. What if she had married her fiance, Dan, instead of calling off the wedding two days beforehand? Over the past year-and-a-half, as the coronavirus pandemic drop-kicked plans and routines somewhere far, far away, Ive had a recurring daydream about what would have been. This story is part of a series for people who have already read the book and want to think more deeply about the plot and ending. It's about Nora, a young woman who decides she isn't cut out for life. Eventually, however, Nora starts feeling like shes losing track of who she really is and she wants a life that she can settle down in. eNotes.com Overdose. 2. They have to be intense, with complex story lines and big words to truly be a great book. High quality The Midnight Library-inspired gifts and merchandise. Nora thinks that this may be the best version of her life. She just needed to realize that her own had potential, and that she could keep reinventing herself until she achieved happiness. Chapters 44 50 (Love and Pain, Equidistance, Someone Elses Dream, The Gentle Life, Why Want Another Universe If This One Has Dogs?, Dinner with Dylan, Last Chance Saloon). Our teacher made us read this, now writing an essay about the book and this is quite helpful for summarising all the key events of the book so thanks. When Nora next returns to the library, it is dark. The trillion big and little things I would have stressed over or been excited about. The Midnight Library is different for each person who enters it.
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