The road not taken
Aug. 4th, 2025 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
I'm well aware my reading isn't particularly mainstream, but every now and then I pick something up that just goes off the scale in Goodreads for "most shelved", and this is an example. My local library has changed its online service from Libby to BorrowBox, and I was poking around for the intersection between its offerings and my to-read list.
Should there be a trigger warning here? Possibly. I found the description of Nora Seed's state of mind disturbing in the initial chapters. Everything has gone wrong with her life and she doesn't want any more of it. It's all very matter-of-fact - and then, Nora is in the library.
I've noticed that so many books are about, or feature prominently, books and libraries. Here, the conceit is fantastical melded with a little quantum physics: in a many-worlds interpretation, what alternative versions of Nora Seed might there be, what are they doing now and how will they fare in their futures? So each book in the library (and there are infinitely many of them) represents a possible path and another world. This aspect I quite liked, although the asymmetry between the life Nora has led up to this point (her "root life") and the other possibilities is a bit awkward: shouldn't they all be equally interchangeable? But I suppose it's necessary artistic licence to make the novel work, that Nora can perceive a difference. I also enjoyed the appearance of fellow-traveller Hugo in a quasi fourth-wall breaking way. The conclusion was predictable, but perhaps appropriately for quantum physics, never certain.
I'm well aware my reading isn't particularly mainstream, but every now and then I pick something up that just goes off the scale in Goodreads for "most shelved", and this is an example. My local library has changed its online service from Libby to BorrowBox, and I was poking around for the intersection between its offerings and my to-read list.
Should there be a trigger warning here? Possibly. I found the description of Nora Seed's state of mind disturbing in the initial chapters. Everything has gone wrong with her life and she doesn't want any more of it. It's all very matter-of-fact - and then, Nora is in the library.
I've noticed that so many books are about, or feature prominently, books and libraries. Here, the conceit is fantastical melded with a little quantum physics: in a many-worlds interpretation, what alternative versions of Nora Seed might there be, what are they doing now and how will they fare in their futures? So each book in the library (and there are infinitely many of them) represents a possible path and another world. This aspect I quite liked, although the asymmetry between the life Nora has led up to this point (her "root life") and the other possibilities is a bit awkward: shouldn't they all be equally interchangeable? But I suppose it's necessary artistic licence to make the novel work, that Nora can perceive a difference. I also enjoyed the appearance of fellow-traveller Hugo in a quasi fourth-wall breaking way. The conclusion was predictable, but perhaps appropriately for quantum physics, never certain.
