The MIDNIGHT LIBRARY-A Read for the Beach of Sliding Story Scenarios

The MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig is a novel with a reprised premise that tries to be deeply philosophical and falls short.  Still, MIDNIGHT is a light fare that can be enjoyed with its fantastical plot in which its main character shifts through various lots in life.  Nora Seed is the protagonist who felt her life was going nowhere, with no one to share.  Her beloved cat just died leaving her bereaved and believing she was without any incentive to live. Haig is a British journalist and author of fiction, non-fiction and Y/A novels. Some of his writings reflect his personal experience with severe depression as in the MIDNIGHT LIBRARY. Nora Seed attempts to end her life taking an overdose of barbiturates and finds herself in a mystical library. "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...had you done anything different." Haig uses gimmicks that are over-wrought.  Naming his protagonist Seed is an example where the metaphor to branch out or be reborn is redundant. While Nora is in her purgatory state she is assisted by a woman whom Nora calls Mrs. Elm (another name play on limbs). Mrs. Elma is a doppelgänger for a Mrs. Elm who was the kindly librarian from her childhood with whom she played chess. Chess is another overly used simile for making various moves which lead to differing outcomes. Still, Nora makes some exhilarating choices as to lives in which to slide into with varying outcomes. Some of the more surprising choices involved becoming a glaciologist landing in the Arctic, pursuing music and becoming a world renown rock star and going through with the marriage to the fiancee she ended the relationship with.  Even more intriguing is how Nora copes in these new life scenarios she's thrust without the knowledge or skill sets that would've been garnered for the people and abilities she needs and would've learned had she lived this life all along. This makes for extremely awkward circumstances as in not having any connection to the husband and child she finds herself in bed with or being thrust on a world stage about to perform. Her adapting to new circumstances is often amusing especially when considering what life Nora might choose to experience next or chose to remain in. Nora discovers in her journeys,  "Life is strange. How we live it all at once. In a straight line. But really that's not the whole picture. Because life isn't simply made of the things we do, but the things we don't do too. And every moment of our life is a kind of turning." Nora gained solace realizing, "We spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad. Sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness." Haig includes numerous quotes from philosophers including Camus, Thoreau and David Hume although this doesn't elevate The MIDNIGHT LIBRARY to literary fiction. MIDNIGHT LIBRARY delivers an enjoyable fantasy having multiple sliding door plots but it's not quite as clever as it aspires. The take-away for me came from the faux Mrs. Elm who said, "Sometimes the only way to learn is to live."   

Louise Erdrich THE SENTENCE-Power of Words to Haunt/Harm/Heal

Louise Erdrich is a highly acclaimed novelist, poet and Y/A author and a major literary figure of the Native American Renaissance; focusing on Indigenous characters and political issues pertaining to Indigenous Americans. Her writings have earned her numerous prominent awards including the Nat'l Book Award (The ROUND HOUSE 2012), the Pulitzer Prize (The NIGHTWATCHMAN 2021) and the Pushcart Prize for Poetry 1983. Her writing in a broad spectrum of her writing styles is impressive for their scope, skill and social commentary. The brilliant novel THE SENTENCE combines multiple genres that include literary fiction, Native American Renaissance, social reform and philosophy. The story hovers around a ghost story which is haunting, harrowing, humorous and at times, somewhat cheeky. This being said, Erdrich is a master storyteller unraveling a myriad of captivating characters, serves as a zeitgeist for the pandemic and a clarion call for social reform. The issues amplified include racial injustice, climate change, mass incarceration and the erasure of Indigenous people.  "We've endured centuries of being erased and sentenced to live in replacement culture," bemoans Tookie. The epitome of police brutality and racial persecution was witnessed on live TV as George Floyd gasped for air calling for his mom. There's a panoply of paragraphs that are worth quoting. My favorite is "Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters." Erdrich is a true bibliophile and an owner of an independent bookstore in MN.  Her store's mission is to serve her community as well as advocate for Native American literature, artists and issues. We're introduced to the central heroine, Tookie  as she attempts a brazen body snatching for her lover who duped her into moving a corpse laden with dope in a stolen van. She's busted and given a lengthy sentence behind bars.  Books are Tookie's saviors while in prison. She tells us, "Native Americans are the most over-sentenced people currently imprisoned. The more I found out people's sentences, the more random I realized sentencing even is." Tookie, her family and the bookstore where she works are located near Floyd's murder and where mass protests began followed quickly by the immolation of local businesses. Tookie and her family watched the news via cell, TV and in person before getting tear gassed and forced to disperse. "There was a sentence people were chanting all over the world now. I can't breathe."  The bookstore Tookie worked at was miraculously shielded from destruction and flourished during the pandemic and protests. This absorbing novel is held together by gossamer threads of a ghost story that torments Tookie. She would've questioned her sanity except her co-workers corroborated sensing the same manifestations. Erdrich appropriate's Hitchcock's gimmick for including himself in his work even as she condemns the appropriation of Indigenous culture.  She ups the appropriation ante by placing a copy of THE SENTENCE on the pile of books by Tookie's bedside.  Erdrich's brilliant writing blazons with poignancy and poetry. Her novel valiantly argues words have infinitesimal potential. The book taken by Flora takes up residence posthumously to haunt Tookie who believes, "The book had its own volition and would force me to reckon with it, just like history." However,  we are reminded of words shortcomings. The omnipotence of written word fails at stopping a bullet, removing the knee strangling Mr. Floyd, or of making a fire. Nonetheless, word  possess the power to ignite one's heart and soul. I've yet to mention Tookie's arresting office, Pollux, the man whom Tookie marries after she serves her time. It's Pollux and Jarvis Pollux's grandson to whom Tookie surrenders her heart.  "I {Tookie} have a dinosaur heart, cold, massive, indestructible, a thick meaty red. And, I have a glass heart, tiny and pink, that can be shattered."  THE SENTENCE accomplishes so much and does so using only words.