“Somewhere out beyond the edge
of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books,
each one the story of another reality. 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. While we all wonder how our
lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see
for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? Nora Seed finds
herself faced with this decision. 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.”
The Midnight Library is a book that seemed everywhere at one time. What I
saw, everyone seemed to love it and recommend reading. The book is sort-of self
help novel about a woman who seems to be at her wits end in life and decides to
not see the next day. But between the moment of passing in the real world and
whatever exists beyond, she wakes up in some mysterious elsewhere –a library of
her life, apparently, where a helpful librarian (who resembles the erudite and
wise librarian when Nora was a child) gives her options on how to live her
current life or go into the undiscovered country. So Nora, for lack of better
word, quantum leaps not into different people, but into various versions of
herself that exist within the multiverse. And while it takes a few moments for
her to sync up in whatever new universe there is –always awkward- she then gets
to decide if this road –yes, the road less traveled- is one she really wants to
spend her life in.
The gist of the book is life is messy and we all should try to make the
most of it, because even if given a choice to visit the universe where you went
left instead of right, there are always unintended changes (such as universe
where her dad or brother is dead, but mom is alive, or where she is a
successful athlete and motivational speaker, but has a shitty personal life).
And Nora was just an uninteresting character, which affected my reading, because
I knew how the book was going to end – it’s predictable,
really, from the start. So while The Midnight Library is a quick read, with
short chapters and all, eventually I could care less where she settled –in some
parallel universe or whatever exists beyond this mortal coil.
The problem for me, I guess, is I’m just too cynical of person to get
anything out of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment