Allison

Annotated Bibliography

Part One:

I went into reading Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, hoping to get out of it what I usually get out of fiction novels. The book itself had been on my reading list for a while and I wanted to give it a chance. Much like other books I have read, my “reading for” for this novel was the ability to fully submerge myself into the narrative. Specifically, in the case of The Midnight Library, I wanted to be able to feel like I was in Nora’s place and I was the one making decisions on which lives and regrets I wanted to redo. My “reading for” is the thing that I seek out when I begin a book. Personally, I feel like when I am reading I focus on the mimetic and thematic aspects of the novel. For the mimetic, I try to submerge myself into the plot as if it were real as a way to escape from the real world and ‘live’ as one of the characters in another. For the thematic, I try to find interesting emotions and themes within a story that prompt me to think of what it would be like if they applied to my real life. 

In The Midnight Library, the novel itself begins by showing the reader a countdown to Nora’s death. Each portion of the text counted down the days, hours, and minutes until Nora decides to kill herself via drug overdose. This choice was brought on by what Nora felt were many unfixable disasters and tragedies in her life. Yet, once she is dead, or at least that’s what she believes she is, Nora finds herself inside a library with her old school librarian Mrs. Elm. Mrs. Elm explains to Nora that she is inside the Midnight Library, a place in between life and death where a person can discover what life would have been like for them if they acted or chose differently during scenarios they regretted. This instant is where the reader is hit with the premise of the story or, as McKee defines it, “the idea that inspires the writer’s desire to create a story” (McKee 112). The premise of The Midnight Library is: What would happen if you got a second chance at life and were able to see what could have been? Like Nora, the reader may be overwhelmed by this question. Mrs. Elm says that, in order to give Nora an idea of what types of regrets she may have, she must confront the Book of Regrets. Facing the many pages of regrets and poor choices causes Nora an immense amount of pain but, in the end, it opens her eyes to how life could have gone differently. She goes from not wanting to live at all, to slowly realizing that she does want to stay alive and make amends with the things she took for granted. Each life has some downfall and deviation that makes her like her real-life version better. Whether it be her best friend still being alive, having her mother live her life happily, or having a strong relationship with the things she loves like music and philosophy, Nora realizes that her true life is full of things she would never be able to get out of the libraries other options.

Nora goes through many variations of her life and finds that even in what she thinks is the most perfect version, there is always something that isn’t quite right. She feels like an imposter when she tries on a different life and quickly is transported back to the library when she feels truly disappointed in the alternate version. Even when she begins to feel like she is finally settling in on one of the final lives she tries where she has a loving husband and daughter, Nora knows that she will never truly feel like she belongs as that version of herself. Eventually, Nora is brought back from her “perfect life” to the Midnight Library and finds it falling apart and the books are on fire. Mrs. Elm explains that Nora’s body is barely holding on in the real world and the Library wants her to die even though she has finally realized that she wants to live. Mrs. Elm explains that there may be a way to fix this: by finding the book of her real-life and rewriting the narrative. Nora goes to the book in the library that is her current life and frantically writes different things on the remaining blank pages in an attempt to get herself to wake up. She finally writes, “I AM ALIVE” and is transported back. In the end, Nora survives, makes amends with everyone, and even goes to visit the real-life Mrs. Elm to thank her.

Looking at The Midnight Library, it can be seen that there is a very prominent controlling idea. In his work, McKee explains that “a controlling idea may be expressed in a single sentence describing how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end” (115). For this novel, that idea is: By keeping hope and thinking of the possibilities of the future rather than the negativity of the past, you allow yourself to see what options and opportunities lie ahead. McKee also writes about there being a “counter-idea” to all works of writing. He explains that this counter-idea is the opposite, negative counterpart to the controlling idea (118-119). For The Midnight Library, the counter-idea is: By giving in to the negativity of life and becoming hopeless, you allow yourself to believe that there is nothing left to live for and that it is too late to change.

These controlling and counter ideas are a very prominent trope in media and allow the reader to have a deeper understanding of the premise. Going back to the question at hand, if the main character is given the chance to change her fate even when she doesn’t want to live in the first place, how will she go about doing so? I think that the beginning of the novel is pushed along by the counter idea. The reader sees Nora go through mainly negative experiences that push her further and further into depression. Even when these negative values swing upward into a positive experience, something always brings her back down. For instance, as Nora is settling on the idea that her life is worthless, her neighbor (who she finds attractive and has a crush on) comes and knocks on her door. In her mind, this is an upward swing in life. Yet, unfortunately, he is only at her door to tell her that he found her cat dead in the street while he was out for a run. This same false positive can be seen when she tries out one of the lives in the library. Nora decides to see what life would have been like if she had agreed to go with her friend Izzy to Australia to work as whale-watching tour guides. When she gets there, Nora is discombobulated but feels like this life could be a fresh start. However, the more she discovers, the more she becomes disappointed in what this life has to offer her. In the end, Nora comes to find out that after she moved to Australia, Izzy had been killed in a car crash on her way to Nora’s birthday party. Once again, Nora is pulled down by negativity and keeps losing hope in the possibility of redemption.

However, I feel like the second portion of the book takes a turn and the plot is prompted by the controlling idea and positive values. Nora’s experiences in the different lives she chooses in the Library begin to open her eyes to the possibilities that her real life has to offer. Her regret over not pursuing swimming professionally or becoming a glaciologist is short-lived when she discovers that these careers are at the expense of other things she loves like philosophy, music, and being near her friends and family.

Part Two:

Due to the fact that the controlling idea of this novel is so familiar, it can be hard to stay engaged in the story. At times it even becomes predictable. Haig, however, adds small details that help to add depth and uniqueness to the novel. In her writing, Jane Gallop even states, “It is the main idea or the general shape which is most likely to correspond to our preconceptions about the book. But we cannot so easily predict the details. So by concentrating on the details, we disrupt our projection; we are forced to see what is really there” (Gallop 11). Some details that occur in Haig’s writing multiple times are his use of numbers and time. Though, by themselves, these elements are not necessarily pivotal to the plot, they allow the reader to have small details to hold on to and analyze.

As Gallop describes, “Close reading pays attention to elements in the text which, although marginal, are nonetheless emphatic, prominent—elements in the text which ought to be quietly subordinate to the main idea, but which textually call attention to themselves” (Gallop 8). In The Midnight Library, the first sentence of the first eight chapters contains a countdown of how much time Nora has before she kills herself, with the eighth chapter having the countdown as the first sentence of each paragraph until she finally overdoses. For example, “Twenty-seven hours before she decided to die, Nora Seed sat on her dilapidated sofa scrolling through other people’s happy lives, waiting for something to happen” (Haig 13). This element of the story is interesting because only the reader is aware of how much time Nora has left for the majority of the chapters. For us, Nora’s suicide is right in front of us from the beginning, but for her, it is a sudden and final life-changing decision. This device in relation to the entire plot of the novel is also interesting because it is reminiscent of how the books within the actual Midnight Library are set up as well. Once again, Haig sets up a parallel between the books within the Library and the book the reader is viewing. To us, Nora’s life is predetermined and already written out, yet she is still living it ‘page by page’ and moment by moment.

The element of time is seen again when Nora decides she wishes to die exactly at midnight. This occurs and she wakes up in the Midnight Library with her watch reading 00:00:00. Her watch stays at this exact time until the final moments she spends in the library. As previously mentioned, Nora’s body begins to truly die and the Library begins to fall apart and her watch starts again: “So Nora looked, and at first saw nothing untoward – but then it was happening. The watch was suddenly acting like a watch. The display was starting to move” (Haig 251). This is an important moment in the plot because it shows that Nora’s life is moving on whether she likes it or not. 

The movement of time sends Nora into a panic because she realizes that she cannot live under the illusion of the Library forever. When thinking of time in relation to books, a book is a stagnant being. The time and events in it will always be solid, concrete, and unchanging. This juxtaposes the idea of real-life because, in reality, time and events are always occurring and going on around us. Eventually, Nora is able to wake herself up from the Midnight Library: “At one minute and twenty-seven seconds after midnight, Nora Seed marked her emergence back into life by vomiting all over her duvet” (Haig 258).

Haig’s incorporation of time into the novel gives the reader a point of reference to hold onto Nora’s real life. They are able to see exactly when she is about to die and exactly when she comes back to life. It is also an indicator of the unreal and false illusion that is the Midnight Library. The element of time then begs the question, does time move in the afterlife? Is life what creates time and is time what keeps track of life? These questions are what give Haig’s writing an advantage over the commonality of the controlling idea and tropes he uses when writing the plot of the story.

Part Three:

Haig’s use of a common cultural code is an instance of intertextuality. Porter states in their writing that, “Not infrequently, and perhaps ever and always, texts refer to other texts and in fact rely on them for their meaning. All texts are interdependent: We understand a text only insofar as we understand its precursors” (Porter 34). This is why, as a reader who has come in contact with similar cultural codes before, the novel feels like it had a predictable ending. However, if a reader is unfamiliar with these codes, then the book’s plot ends up being uncertain. Porter goes on to say, “By identifying and stressing the intertextual nature of discourse, however, we shift our attention away from the writer as individual and focus more on the sources and social contexts from which the writer’s discourse arises” (Porter 34-35). The society that we live in is one that consists of toxic positivity. Many times, people are told to think of the future and think of all the possibilities while also being told at the same time to be grateful for what they have and to live in the moment. This is a paradox. Haig’s novel does not challenge this paradox and rather plays into the already established cultural codes. He uses Nora as a vessel to show that she is hanging on to the past and is incapable of living in the present because of her regrets. The ending that Nora receives plays into the positive controlling idea that regrets will change nothing and it is important to think of how life can improve.

This idea is seen in various other texts. Friedrich Nietzsche develops this idea in his writing Thus Spoke Zarathustra: 

To redeem those who lived in the past and to recreate all ‘it was’ into a ‘thus I willed it’ — that alone should I call redemption. Will — that is the name of the liberator and joy-bringer; thus I taught you, my friends. But now learn this too: the will itself is still a prisoner. Willing liberates; but what is it that puts even the liberator himself in fetters?… Powerless against what has been done, he is angry spectator of all that is past. The will cannot will backwards; and that he cannot break time and time’s covetousness, that is the will’s loneliest melancholy. (139)

Nietzsche’s ideas directly relate to the plot of The Midnight Library. Nora’s main goal is to change her past and her suicide is the direct effect of her inability to do so. Even when she attempts to change her fate within the Library, she is still unable to feel like she belongs in the lives she is placed within. Even when she canonically gets what she wishes for Nora is not happy. Nietzsche continues by saying, “Thus the will, the liberator, took to hurting; and on all who can suffer he wreaks revenge for his inability to go backwards. This, indeed this alone, is what revenge is: the will’s ill will against time and its ‘it was’” (Nietzsche 140). No matter how many changes Nora makes and how many lives she tries on in the Library, she will always resent the other versions of herself because those were never her true actions. By living her true life and finding acceptance in her mistakes and regrets, Nora is able to play the role set by the cultural codes Haig is implementing and avoid what Nietzsche is calling “will’s revenge.”

Part Four:

Haig is catering to an audience that is capable of understanding a variety of concepts like quantum physics and multiverse, philosophy, and speculation of the afterlife. This is called the “authorial audience.” Rabinowitz explains in his writing that “Since the structure of a novel is designed for the author’s hypothetical audience (which I call the authorial audience), we must, as we read, come to share, in some measure, the characteristics of this audience if we are to understand the text” (Rabinowitz 126). The authorial audience for Haig would be someone that is interested in these topics and able to set aside the cultural codes that they already know in order to fully immerse themselves in the story and not jump ahead and predict the ending. 

The story itself is written in the third person and observes Nora and her consciousness. It is not necessarily sympathetic towards her but it is also not necessarily cold towards her situation. In many ways, the narrator and the reader are on the outside observing Nora and her decisions. In a way, it is pretty meta because Nora is reading books about herself and we are reading a book about her. Technically, the book The Midnight Library could be in the Midnight Library. The reader must take on a role similar to Nora’s and try on different subplots of different lives. This is called the “ideal narrative audience.” Rabinowitz also writes about this audience by stating, “This final audience believes the narrator, accepts his judgments, sympathizes with his plight, laughs at his jokes even when they are bad. I call this the ideal narrative audience — ideal, that is, from the narrator’s point of view” (Rabinowitz 134). When the lives that Nora tries don’t seem to be working, the reader must be willing to move on and get pulled back out into the library. The novel is created in a format that closely resembles a frame narrative. There is the grander storyline of Nora being in the process of dying and her being stuck in the library, but there are the smaller tales of her different lives. 

The issue with the way that Haig writes this narrative is that in order to be the “ideal reader” you have to separate yourself from a very common cultural code. Many forms of media rely on the “Look ahead and don’t be plagued by past decisions; there’s always hope!” controlling ideas to push their narrative. Gallop even writes, “Those things which conform to our expectations are things which resemble what we have read before, things where we have learned what to expect” (10). To be the ideal reader would mean to forget about how obvious this code is and find a surprise in the fact that Nora is given a second chance and the ability to take what she has learned and grow from it. The ideal audience could even be a new reader who has not come in contact with higher-level forms of literature that use this trope. Haig’s intent may have even been to create a novel that introduces the controlling idea in a way that is accessible to new readers or those who are new to the existentialist approach he delves into.

Reflection:

Over the course of the semester, my role as a reader has greatly changed and developed due to the different methods that we have covered in class. I feel like I am able to read different pieces of literature and see a completely different side of them than I previously had. For instance, one of the main things that have stuck with me from the methods that we read was the roles of the narrator, ideal reader, and ideal audience. I find it fascinating to wonder who the author was writing for and whether this intentional focus on a specific audience was realistic or not. Many times, it can be seen that a reader is not the perfect fit that the author was searching for. However, there is still the option for the reader to take on this role, though temporarily, and sit in the chair that the author is providing. Personally, I am a reader who will always at least try to take on the role that the author is writing for. Most of the time this works out for me and I am able to read the book and gain some new insights and perspectives that I may not have if I had abstained from the role. Yet, there have been times when a book is asking too much of me and I can’t sit in the role. I have found that many times, very abstract works and pieces of literature that focus on existentialism get too heavy for me and I want to stop. In fact, even while reading The Midnight Library, there were points where I wanted to put the book down because the content was a lot to take in. I enjoyed the experience of this class because it forced me to continue whether I liked it or not both with my reading and with my work. If I’m being honest, The Midnight Library would have been on my “did not finish” list if I had been reading it for personal enjoyment. But having this class as an enforcer that I did finish it allowed me to use the text as a vessel in which I could apply the different methods we discussed and, in the end, I think that the book itself, though I found it slow or predictable at times, was a great example of many of the different theories and ideas that we discussed this semester

Work Cited

Butler, Robert Olen., and Janet Burroway. “Cinema of the Mind.” From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. New York: Grove, 2005. 63-84.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 2nd ed. Princeton: University Press, 1972.

​”The Impact of Science on Myth.” Myths to Live By. New York: Penguin Press, 1972.

Culler, Jonathan. “Story and Discourse in the Analysis of Narrative.” The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction. Ithaca: Cornell U.P., 1981.

Gallop, Jane. “The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (Fall, 2000): 7-17. 

Haig, Matt. The Midnight Library. Wheeler Publishing, a Part of Gale, a Cengage Company, 2021. 

Hesse, Hermann. Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair. 1919. Translated by Damion Searls. New York: Penguin Books, 2013. 

Jensen, Michael. “Integrity: Without it, Nothing Works.” Rotman Magazine (Fall 2009): 16-20.

Mamet, David. “Countercultural Architecture and Dramatic Structure.” On Directing Film. New York: Viking, 1991. 57-66. ​

McKee, Robert. “Structure and Meaning.” Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York: Regan, 1997. 110-131. 

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Antiquarius, La Vergne, 2020, pp. 139–140. 

Phelan, James. “Introduction.” Living to Tell About It: A Rhetoric and Ethics of Character Narration. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Porter, James. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review​. 5.1 (1986): 34-47.

Rabinowitz, Peter. “Truth In Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences.” Critical Inquiry. 4.1 (1977): 121-141. 

Seitz, James E. “A Rhetoric of Reading.” Rebirth of Rhetoric: Essays in Language, Culture, and Education. By Richard Andrews. London: Routledge, 1992. 141-55. 

Silverman, Kaja. The Subject of Semiotics. New York: Oxford UP, 1983.