I have read a couple of Matt Haig's books and find myself looking forward to his every new release. I find that they are like the warm, cozy hug and an uplifting pep talk that you didn't know you needed as life has been getting a little too much. The Midnight Library was a wonderfully life-affirming piece of work and I was very much looking forward to his latest.
I loved the Midnight Library as within the magic realism tale were many truths about the human condition. This carries on that heady mix of aphorisms and truths that hit hard but with a more sci-fi and improbable premise.
A retired and lonely maths teacher, Grace, is emailed by an old student who is struggling with life. Seeing his plight, she responds with a life affirming tale aimed at giving him hope.
The tale she recounts is about the time she inherited a house in the Mediterranean, on the island of Ibiza to be precise, from an old and now deceased colleague. This unexpected act of kindness sees Grace say goodbye to rainy old England and hello Balearic sunshine but there is a deeper mystery as to what happened to her benefactor....
Over 300 or so pages Haig explores themes of life, death, destiny and the choices we have made along the way. Now, that's all noble and everything but that's a bloody long email, Grace! I kid as I enjoyed the concept of a benevolent alien life force and wormhole to a new planet-it's a soupçon of sci-fi in comfy chunky soup form. The whole story reads like a tale about empathy fatigue and the idea that ignorance or misanthropy is not an option.
Reading through this there were elements that reminded me of a myriad of media; The Abyss, Cocoon, The Matrix, Shirley Valentine, What Women Want, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, The OA, Mr. Nobody and Contact. It's an amalgamation of heady ideas but presented in a summer Richard and Judy Book Club kind of way.
Overall, I enjoyed Haig's incredibly humanist work which aims to show that people are inherently unique and special and that the most obscene thing that a person can do is to worship things that devalues human life. Irrespective of your religious beliefs, I like to think that the whole thing about god punishing people for idolatry is not just a silly story: it's about something deeply human and important that points at a fundamental truth- late state capitalism is bad and also hell is other people but hell is also no people at all.
With age I am getting more and more wary of misanthropy and isolationism because, in the end, the only thing we have is us. There's very little happiness that can be had without other people involved (I mean, some fun for sure but maybe not a lot of true happiness).
LINK- The Midnight Library and the Idea That You Can’t Go Home Again
LINK- Japan: My Journey to the East
LINK- The Future Starts Here: An Optimistic Guide to What Comes Next- Book Review
LINK- Nintendo: My One True Gaming Constant