Nora Seed is 35 years old, she lives in Bedford, an uninspiring town in central England. She has just lost her job as a saleswoman in a music store, her cat has just been run over by a car, she is overcome by remorse and decides to end it. The Midnight Library (“The midnight library,” Canongate, 304 pages, untranslated) starts off badly, but Nora’s life will not end short. She will find out that“Between life and death, there is a library”, with endless shelving and a multitude of other lives to try, each book representing an existence Nora could have lived if she had made other choices. She is going to test some of them and get a taste for life again.
This book, published in the United Kingdom in paperback in the summer of 2020 and in paperback last February (Canongate ed.), While the second pandemic wave was raging, has become a bestseller. By mid-June he was still on the bestseller list of the Sunday Times, a reference. BBC Radio 4 made a sound adaptation of it in ten episodes, a consecration.
Its author, Matt Haig, 45, a native of Yorkshire, is a prolific writer (Humans, How to Stop Time, – Helium, 2014 and 2019 -, etc.), accustomed to success and specialist in feel good books, those books that do good. Ideal readings for a health crisis that has killed 129,000 people in the UK, deprived children of long months of school, and destroyed the dreams of young adults.
Right to the fact
Readers say the same thing: devoured on a rainy weekend or started on a dull night, The Midnight Library balm their hearts. Random reactions, this poignant message, posted on Twitter on June 18 by Gareth Eve, husband of Lisa Shaw, a BBC journalist who recently died after receiving her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine: Lisa had the chance to interview you on BBC Newcastle about The Midnight Library. She loved your book and had us all read it! ” Or this Scottish primary school teacher, Azel M., who explains on Twitter: “ I’m reading the amazing book by Matt Haig, (…) it inspired me discussions [avec mes élèves] on the importance of our life choices… ”
Matt Haig describes his characters little, does not attempt any psychological analysis, gets straight to the point, to the multiple lives of Nora, says his happy or unhappy choices, tells a reconstruction. The identification process is in full swing. The book is full of recyclable quotes, like: “The only way to learn is to live. “
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