The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I bought this book after seeing the recommendations on Goodreads. This book was selected as the best book on Fiction Category in 2020. The book starts off with negativity and despair. Nora Reed is a champion swimmer and a philosophy major. Due to various choices she made in life, at the age of 35 she finds herself in despair and depression. As her cat (named Voltaire, after the French Philosopher) dies, she goes into deep depression and takes sleeping pills to commit suicide.
In the interim stage between life and death, Nora finds herself in the midnight library. There she meets her librarian and mentor Mrs.Elm who tells her that this is her 'personal library'. Each book is a story of a different life that Nora could have lived in the 'multi-verse'. She is given an offer that she can experience her different lives. Every time she gets disenchanted with one life, she will come back to the library. As long as she is living her life the clock will remain at 00:00:00 hours. The moment she finds that she doesn't have any more life to live, the clock will start moving and she will die when the clock strikes 00:01:00.
Nora explores different lives In one, she is an Olympic Swimming Champion who became a world leading motivational speaker. In another she is a scientist doing Climate Change Research in the Arctics. While she is a musician in another, she is a philosophy professor in Cambridge or a Brewer in Latin America in others.
In some of her lives, her parents and her brother are alive.They are dead in others.
The book uses concepts from the quantum physics like quantum superposition and multiverse to tell Nora's story. These advanced concepts are explained in very simple language in this book. The book also uses advanced philosophy of Thoreau and Aristotle to describe Nora's life. Despite the liberal usage of these advanced ideas, the reader never feels overwhelmed or bored.
As an Engineering Student who has studied physics during the graduation, I found the relationship between advanced physics and human experiences very fascinating. In quantum physics there is a concept of 'Quantum Superposition', explained lucidly in the idea of 'Shrodinger's Cat'. In simple terms, it states that tiny particles like atoms and it components remain in multiple states at the same time. They take a specific state when they are measured.
The story says that when a person is in a state of confusion, it is equivalent to an atom existing in multiple states. Every time the person makes a decision (activity is measured), he goes into a specific state. Human life consists of many possibilities. The story of life is written at every minute. Since the story is ever changing and evolving, the only thing you can do well is to use the current moment to the best of your ability and try to take decisions that could take you to your ultimate destination.
It is important to remember that each decision we take has an opportunity cost of choosing one life and leaving many potential lives on the sides.
In the penultimate chapter, Nora pens her learning from this experience. She realizes that the only thing she has in her control is the present moment. It is important to use it well.
I was also fascinated by how quantum physics closely allies with the Indian philosophy of Maya which states that there is no absolute truth. Everything is perspective. At the start of this book, Nora feels that there is no meaning to her life and she is depressed. After spending her time in the library, she comes back to the same life all happy, positive and charged up.
Life is the same, only change is her perspective.
Great book. Learned a lot about my life as well.
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