The Midnight Library

Nora goes to the cafeteria while attempting to keep a low profile. She watches the eerily beautiful landscape from the windows and makes mental notes about her fellow scientists. One of them, a man who would fit in better on a sunny beach somewhere, sits next to her and introduces himself as Hugo Lefèvre. He mentions they’ve never spoken before and that he admires her work on pulsating glaciers. Nora tries not to engage Hugo too much, but the eager scientist continues asking questions. Of Hugo’s demeanor, Nora notes, “His eyes were inquisitive, and made [her] feel automatically guilty” (123). At one point, Nora apologizes for her absentmindedness and suggests it’s from vodka, but Hugo jokingly asks if her forgetfulness might be from something else, thus adding to Nora’s guilty feeling. Hugo finally jokes about Nora being the spotter for the day, though he doesn’t explain what this means. Nora is too afraid to ask what a spotter is because the question will give her away.

Nora is now on a small patch of ice-covered land with a rifle. She knows now that her job as a spotter is to watch out for polar bears and then warn the other scientists—all of whom are also on the island but conducting fieldwork—so that no one dies. She must shoot a flare into the sky to warn everyone and then make as much noise as possible. Most of the time, if the spotter bangs a saucepan loud enough and makes noise by shouting, the polar bear will flee. If not, Nora must try and kill the bear with the Winchester rifle (with the loss of habitat and food sources, polar bears have become far more aggressive and hungrier, and humans are a tempting protein snack for them).

Nora walks around in circles for over an hour while wondering why she hasn’t returned yet to the Midnight Library. She’d much rather be in a sunny place or somewhere beautiful like Paris. Nora’s mind wanders, and she thinks of Thoreau’s concept of solitude. Thoreau advocated for confidently pursuing one’s dreams. Part of this confidence and success stemmed from embracing solitude. Now that Nora is in such an extreme version of solitude, she’s beginning to feel a deep connection to the world and to herself.

Nora remembers a warm conversation with Ash, the doctor who wanted to buy her coffee. When her mother was sick with cancer, Nora took her to the hospital and there saw Ash, who recognized her from his visits to String Theory. As they chatted in the hospital canteen that day, he mentioned that he felt social media made society lonelier. Nora hears a splash in the water. Though fearing it might be a polar bear, she’s slightly relieved when a walrus surfaces. The walrus watches her quizzically, then leaves. When Nora begins eating, she hears another splash and sees something larger than a walrus or a human moving toward her.

Nora curses while realizing she’s in deep trouble.

A large polar bear moves toward Nora. She freezes from fear but then finally shoots the flare. Nora shouts for Mrs. Elm to return her to the library but nothing happens. She then bangs the saucepan loudly, but the bear ignores the noise. Nora knows that she won’t have time to reach the rifle, figure out how to use it, and kill a large bear. As her terror builds, Nora suddenly confirms a vital truth: “She didn’t want to die” (132). Her newfound love of life forces Nora to redouble her efforts. She bangs loudly and rhythmically on the saucepan while affirming repeatedly to herself that she’s not scared. She opens her eyes as the polar bear slips back into the water and her coworkers arrive.

Nora and her fellow scientists return to the ship. Though Nora is in shock and the others realize this, her shock stems more from the fact that she has such a strong desire to live now than from her near-death encounter with the polar bear. Nora now believes that being one with nature means wanting to live. Like the vast landscape surrounding her, people themselves have a vastness inside, and Nora now relishes her own vastness.

Back aboard the main vessel, Nora continues receiving sympathy over the bear encounter from her fellow scientists. Nora admires everyone working on this expedition; they are actively attempting to help the world by studying why climate change is happening so rapidly in the Arctic Circle. She truly respects their spartan-like life in the cold with little to no thanks for their efforts. Nora then compares their calling in life to her past feelings of mediocrity, feelings that she believed were part of her DNA.

Nora’s maternal grandfather, Lorenzo Conte, immigrated to London with dreams of making it rich. He married Patricia Brown, an Englishwoman who’d wanted to be an actress but settled for domestic life, and the couple had a daughter, Donna. Lorenzo and Patricia argued constantly, and Donna grew up believing that, marriage was not only inevitable but depressing. On Nora’s paternal side, her father, Geoff, once dreamed of being a professional athlete until a devastating ligament injury left him with a modest job as a physical education teacher in Bedford. He regretted life, and like his father, he eventually died of a heart attack. Nora believes she has inherited her lot in life from her blood relatives: “There was an invisible baton of failure […] passed down […]” (137), a baton she herself picked up and with which she has been running.

While contemplating past failures, however, Nora considers something other than failure: that life might just be the act of living with ups and downs as opposed to some grand, intense wave of nonstop perfection. She forgives both her parents after realizing that she loved them far more than she ever knew.

Nora and the scientists return to Longyearbyen, and as they head to town in search of a nice meal, Nora recalls how desperately these scientists want to save the planet by studying melting glaciers and climate change. Nora admires their desire to do good in the life they have and determines to live as best she can. After dinner, Hugo approaches Nora and tells her matter-of-factly that she’s been acting different. Though Nora tries dodging him, Hugo admits that he lied to Nora about them never having met; he also knows that Nora doesn’t know anything about glaciers. Hugo then reveals that he is just like Nora—a person living different versions of their root life. Though Nora doesn’t like or trust Hugo, his confession intrigues her. She agrees to meet him in the kitchen to discuss things further.

Though Nora has always expected herself to fail, and though she has never really accepted herself, she determines to accept herself as readily as she accepts the natural world around her. This acceptance causes Nora to feel free for the first time in a long time.

Nora and Hugo discuss their different experiences with living various versions of themselves. While Nora’s in-between station is the Midnight Library, Hugo’s is a video store manned by his dead Uncle Philippe. He plays VHS tapes to bring up other lives. Hugo posits that Mrs. Elm and Uncle Philippe are interpretations. Most likely, the quantum realm they’re experiencing in this in-between state is too complex for their human minds to grasp and thus appears as the library and the video store and Mrs. Elm and Uncle Philippe, things they understand and trust.

Hugo calls them sliders, and he has met many other sliders before. The general template is always the same: The guide is someone once familiar to the person, and the guide helps them through infinite possibilities. Though Hugo is a scientist in his root life, it wasn’t until he met a quantum physicist who explained their dilemma in terms of the quantum wave function that it made sense to him. The physicist explained how, according to Schrödinger, every possibility exists simultaneously, a state exemplified by the famous cat-in-the-box thought experiment. Even when one opens the box and sees the cat alive, the cat is both alive and dead because in another existence, the cat died. Hugo further explains: “Every moment of your life you enter a new universe. With every decision you make” (146). There is normally no communication between these different worlds, but the sliders have somehow managed to communicate with their different selves.

Hugo and Nora also discuss what happens when one disappears from a life. Hugo has seen someone else disappear while speaking. He explains that, if Nora were to disappear right now, the real her would feel confused and, in time, her brain would cover up the missing information. Throughout the conversation, Nora and Hugo flirt with one another. At one point Hugo admits to having lived close to 300 lives. Unlike Nora, he prefers the in-between to the root life (he’s dying of an aneurysm in his root life). When Hugo quotes Camus by saying that Nora won’t experience life if she’s constantly looking for life’s meaning, they move closer to one another. As they discuss the possibility that they’re romantically involved in another life, Nora kisses Hugo.

Nora and Hugo have sex, but Nora doesn’t enjoy the experience. Despite Hugo’s intensity with life and conversation, he seemed detached from the act of sex. As Nora thinks about her disappointment, she disappears.

When Nora returns to the Midnight Library, she queries Mrs. Elm about her function in the library. Mrs. Elm affirms that she is a “mechanism,” just like everybody else. Nora then criticizes how the library works, contending that she almost died in the previous life and that it’s not fair she can die in a life that isn’t her root life. Mrs. Elm, ecstatic, tells Nora that Nora’s declaration means that she wants to live. To underscore this point, Mrs. Elm shows Nora that The Book of Regrets is getting lighter. The librarian again implores Nora to choose wisely, especially because she might not have the same timeframe with choosing lives as someone like Hugo has. When Nora next chooses, she thinks about playing in a band with Ravi and her brother.

Nora enters this life onstage. As she takes in her surroundings, she hears: “Vast, powerful human noise—a roar of life slowly finding rhythm and shape. Becoming a chant” (157). Nora knows that she’s in The Labyrinths just like she wanted, and they’re playing to a huge crowd of fans. She turns and, delighted, sees Ravi onstage with her. When she asks about her brother, Ravi says Joe is handling the press somewhere. This new experience overwhelms Nora, and although Ravi at one point asks her if she’s alright, she notices some distance in his voice. When it’s time for the encore, Nora suggests “Beautiful Sky” but learns they’ve done it already. Ravi tells her they’ll do the usual, a song called “Howl,” but since Nora has no clue how to sing the song, she improvises by saying they’ll play “Bridge Over Troubled Water” instead.

Despite the large crowd waiting for Nora to sing, Nora draws strength from the people around the venue moving in unison.

Nora mentions the song she’s about to play is special to her and Joe, and the crowd goes wild. She notices a Thoreau tattoo on her arm that says, “All good things are wild and free” (162), then closes her eyes and sings. Afterwards, Ravi says they need to play “Howl,” but Nora quickly finishes the concert.

As they return to their hotel, Ravi again asks Nora if she’s alright. She then receives a message from Izzy that contains pictures of whales and the same Thoreau quote about being wild and free. Nora also sees that, in this life, she has over 11 million Instagram followers. One of her posts is a poem called “Fire,” like the one in Australia, but more focused on her holding power and wielding it how she wants. A woman, whom Nora learns later is their manager Joanna, informs them of their success with the Simon & Garfunkel song (“Bridge Over Troubled Water”). Ravi then asks Joanna about a podcast, only to learn that the interview is now scheduled for that night and the interviewers only want to speak with Nora. There’s tension between Joanna and Ravi, but Nora says nothing.

When Nora’s phone rings again, it’s a video chat with someone named Ryan. She takes the chat and realizes that the Ryan who has just called her “babe” out loud is the famous American actor Ryan Bailey.

Nora tries remaining calm even though, in her root life, she has a huge crush on Ryan Bailey. Also, many of the people returning to the hotel with her are listening in on her video chat. Nora can only make small talk, and she’s shocked to learn that she and Ryan used to date. It turns out that Nora broke off their relationship because she didn’t see it going anywhere. Ryan is now seeing a therapist regarding his personality. As he begins spouting New Age spirituality at Nora, Nora takes comfort in knowing that this version of herself broke up with Ryan. Before she hangs up, Nora reminds him that he mentioned liking philosophy in an interview once. Ryan admits that he doesn’t read philosophy—it was all for show.

When their car arrives at the hotel, a large group of fans is waiting for Nora’s signature. The chapter ends with a social media post from Nora that says, “You can have everything and feel nothing” (171).

Nora greets fans, signs autographs, and poses for pictures, all while thinking about how different the lives she has lived thus far have been. Joanna then introduces her to the interviewer, for the most popular music podcast in Brazil, O Som. The man, Marcelo, and his assistant follow Joanna and Nora to Nora’s suite for the interview. The rest of the band sits in the bar, dejected. Nora tries getting them invited to the podcast, but Joanna and Marcelo only want her.

Though initially hesitant to engage with Marcelo (she wonders if she might fake a stomachache), Nora eventually begins answering the interviewer’s questions with ease. When Marcelo mentions that “Stay Out of My Life” is a song about Nora needing a restraining order after her former boyfriend Dan broke into her house, Nora warms up to just speaking her mind. When Marcelo then lists several setbacks in Nora’s life, he asks why she thinks the media dislikes her. Nora remembers all the things she has learned thus far from visiting other lives and answers by saying that there’s no one life in which a person can be happy all the time; in fact, she continues, “imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in” (179). Marcelo takes this affirmation to mean that Nora wants to project strength, especially with her “Bridge Over Troubled Water” rendition and what the song “Howl” means. Confused once more, Nora learns to her horror that her brother, Joe, died from drug and alcohol abuse. “Howl” is about her brother’s death. Shocked, Nora rushes back down to the bar and confronts Ravi. Nora realizes that there was confusion earlier when she asked about Joe at the concert. Ravi thought she meant Jo, which is short for Joanne, the manager. Overcome with sadness, Nora disappears from this life.

This chapter contains the song lyrics to “Howl,” which include: “They want your body / They want your soul / They want fake smiles / That’s rock and roll” (182) and “Silence the music to improve the tune / Stop the fake smiles and howl at the moon” (183).