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Carregando... The Midnight Library: A Novel (edição: 2020)de Matt Haig (Autor)
Informações da ObraThe Midnight Library de Matt Haig
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. Carey Mulligan was a great choice for the narrator of this book. For me, she will always be Sally Sparrow, the young woman at the centre of Blink, that most brilliant of Doctor Who episodes, which introduced us to the terrifying Weeping Angels. However, I digress. It took me a little while to get through The Midnight Library. Part of that was life, and part of it was identifying rather strongly with Nora Seed's existential despair at the beginning of the narrative. The way Matt Haig so clearly articulated what it feels like when you examine your own life and can't see anything but an endless litany of failure with no possible hope of redemption, let alone happiness... well. Like countless others, I've been there. So, clearly, has Haig. Happily, I'm in a much better place now, and based on his social media posts, so is Haig. Go Matt! Go me! And Go! all the other survivors. And for those who are mourning the ones who didn't make it, go you good things. Surviving is hard work. So, the start of the book packed a wallop for me. The middle and the end, a bit less so. There were some internal contradictions that really annoyed me. And here I'm going to add a SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER The conceit of the ability to step into other possible lives relies on Nora retaining a memory of her root life and the midnight library, but having no memory of her alternative pasts. Some memory of the alternative past might come to her, after being in the life for some time, if she's really chosen to stay, is what Mrs Elm tells her. Much of the dramatic tension and not a few critical points in the narrative hinge on this. However, after going through detailed descriptions of several trips into other possible lives, there's a sort of montage moment. It goes a little like this: "Nora continued to try other possible lives. In one she was a concert pianist, in another a rocket scientist, in another she was homeless. In some she was a this, or a that, or a something-or-other. She lived here, and there, and this other place. In some lives she was a really happy person, in others she was miserable. In some lives she had huge emotions and in others they were small" etc etc. So in these other possible lives we're being told that Nora is experiencing wildly different internal emotional landscapes, as well as a number of highly technical professions. How can that happen if she's carrying her memories, her self, from her root life into all the others?For me, it just doesn't work, unless she's staying in those lives long enough for alternative-past memories to start appearing. Anyway, it's possibly pedantry, but it prevented the full suspension of my disbelief would have made the book really sing. Also, you just know, from the outset, that this is a feel-good sort of book. So there's no dramatic tension around wondering whether Nora will survive her suicide attempt. There's also not much doubt about which particular possible life Nora will end up in. Because Haig is being a bit of an Aesop. This is, partly, a morality tale. Of course Nora chooses her root life. I pretty much knew this would be the outcome once the workings of the midnight library were explained. I, personally, reject the notion that we all have a moral imperative to stay alive for as long as we can, no matter how difficult, or indeed intolerable, our circumstances. I acknowledge that people left behind after someone chooses to end their life are forced to navigate incredibly challenging circumstances of their own as a result. But I would never say to someone, you have a moral obligation to stay for the sake of someone else. Because I'm not the one who has to live their life. They are. Telling someone they're somehow bad, or wrong, because they cannot navigate out of despair, is cruel. I'm not saying The Midnight Library does this overtly. I'm saying that, in the slightly blithe tone of the narrative, is an echo that sits on the same spectrum as judgement and lecturing. Which is why I can only give 3/5. This is a fantastically engaging book, and thought provoking to boot. What would happen if you changed one choice in your life? Nora feels her life is not worth living and decides to die. But she ends up in the Midnight Library at midnight and the point between life and death. She gets to try out all her alternate lives and find the one that fits her best. “It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living” (277). Yes! Absolutely, yes, it’s easy to live with regret and wallow in regret, especially during this midlife season where it seems like all of the big life decisions have been made and what’s left is wondering what could have been. I loved the idea of a midnight library—a magical place that holds millions of lives I could’ve lived. I loved the idea of Nora exploring all of her simultaneous realities, finding the perfect fit, made-to-order life. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could try them on like jeans in a dressing room? I wasn’t surprised that, of course, the only life that fit her was her original life. So while living the possibilities of all of these other lives seems thrilling, in the end, I really love what Nora learns: Live. Live for all the possibilities that your one life offers. It’s hard to predict the things that will make us happy, so that shouldn’t be the goal. Living the hell out of your one life is the goal. Don’t accept life’s disappointments. Don’t settle. Live. The Midnight Library is about being lost and then discovering possibilities, it’s about feeling like giving up and then finding some small hope, it’s about feeling isolated and alone and then encountering kindness. The Midnight Library is about living a life of taking care of yourself and other people; it’s about loving and being loved in this one life we live.
If you’ve never pondered life’s contingencies—like what might’ve happened if you’d skipped the party where you met your spouse—then Matt Haig’s novel The Midnight Library will be an eye-opening experience. This gentle but never cloying fable offers us a chance to weigh our regret over missed opportunities against our gratitude for the life we have.... [Haig's] allusions to multiverses, string theory and Erwin Schrödinger never detract from the emotional heart of this alluring novel.... Haig brings her story to a conclusion that’s both enlightening and deeply satisfying. Few fantasies are more enduring than the idea that there might be a second chance at a life already lived, some sort of magical reset in which mistakes can be erased, regrets addressed, choices altered.... The narrative throughout has a slightly old-fashioned feel, like a bedtime story. It’s an absorbing but comfortable read, imaginative in the details if familiar in its outline. The invention of the library as the machinery through which different lives can be accessed is sure to please readers and has the advantage of being both magical and factual. Every library is a liminal space; the Midnight Library is different in scale, but not kind. And a vision of limitless possibility, of new roads taken, of new lives lived, of a whole different world available to us somehow, somewhere, might be exactly what’s wanted in these troubled and troubling times. ...“between life and death there is a midnight library,” a library that contains multiple volumes of the lives she could have had if she had made different choices.... Haig’s latest (after the nonfiction collection Notes on a Nervous Planet, 2019) is a stunning contemporary story that explores the choices that make up a life, and the regrets that can stifle it. A compelling novel that will resonate with readers. An unhappy woman who tries to commit suicide finds herself in a mysterious library that allows her to explore new lives.... This book isn't heavy on hows; you won’t need an advanced degree in quantum physics or string theory to follow its simple yet fantastical logic. Predicting the path Nora will ultimately choose isn’t difficult, either. Haig treats the subject of suicide with a light touch, and the book’s playful tone will be welcome to readers who like their fantasies sweet if a little too forgettable. A whimsical fantasy about learning what’s important in life. Está contido emÉ resumida emPrêmiosDistinctionsNotable Lists
"'Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices... Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?' A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time. 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? In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting new novel, 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"-- Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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Feeling useless and unloved, Nora Seed attempts to end her life through an overdose. Instead she finds herself in a library managed by Mrs. Elm, a school librarian who was kind to Nora in her youth. Mrs. Elm explains that all the books are stories of Nora's life that diverge from different decisions she made during her life. Nora is allowed to experience her life in different universes until she finds one where she is content.
Nora enters a life where she actually married her ex-fiance Dan and they run a country pub, a life where she joined her friend Izzy in Australia, a life in which she remained committed to competitive swimming and became an Olympic medalist, and a life where she followed her dream of becoming a glaciologist, among several others. The rules of the library are a bit unfair as Nora is plopped into situations with no memory of the life that got her to this point or even the people she's supposed to know. Even in the most satisfying life, Nora notices negative changes in the lives of people she knows (shades of It's a Wonderful Life) and feels like an imposter.
The ending of this novel is quite predictable, but nevertheless it is an inspiring story of embracing the life one has, and a great take on the multiverse theory. ( )