Page 7 - Jupiter Spotlight - March '23

Jupiter Spotlight, Page 7
Book Review

The Midnight Library to die, Nora Seed.…” A glass-blower and a thousand other things … There had, in
knock on her door provides short, been a lot of lives … Sometimes she was in a life for
By Nils A. Shapiro for an already depressed less than a minute, while in others she was there for days
Have you ever wondered Nora yet another blow: A or weeks … It seemed the more lives she lived, the harder
what your life would be young man is sorry to tell it was to feel at home anywhere.”
like now if you had made her that her cat, Voltaire, Importantly, what Nora – and we – learn is that the
different decisions at various has been hit by a passing decisions we all make affect not only ourselves but others
critical moments in your car and is lying on the street, in our lives as well, sometimes profoundly, and must be
life? Taken a different job? dead. Nora writes a brief weighed in the consideration.
Decided to take that vacation suicide note, swallows a There is, very near the end of the book, a one-and-a-half
trip instead of canceling it? few antidepressant pills and page note ostensibly written by Nora, but which I assume
Asked a different girl out on a bottle of wine, then passes to reflect the views of the author. Under the title, “A Thing
a date? Married a different out. I Have Learned (Written By a Nobody Who Has Been
person? Not expecting to awaken, Everybody),” it is a wise and thoughtful reflection about
Each decision you make has the potential to change when her eyes open Nora is life that for me is the most memorable passage in these
everything about the rest of your life. surprised to find herself outside a strange building. Inside pages – one that deserves to be copied, printed and hung in
What if you were offered the opportunity to see what is a single giant room filled floor to ceiling with countless every home as an uplifting reminder about the present lives
your life would have been like if you had made different aisles of books covered in shades of green, on metal racks we have chosen for ourselves.
decisions at those critical moments? as far as she can see – all of the racks moving rapidly back This one belongs in your library, any time of day or night.
That is the intriguing premise of author Matt Haig’s and forth, stopping, then moving again.
newest bestselling book, the third of his novels that I Suddenly, she sees one person, a woman she
have thoroughly enjoyed and will have now reviewed in recognizes: Mrs. Elm, the kind, gentle librarian she knew Medicare
this column. The earlier two were: The Humans, about an from her high school, who explains to Nora that she is
alien sent to our planet by his kind to assassinate a college now in the Midnight Library, a place between life and
professor who has made a major scientific discovery they death … and that each of the many books on the shelves
feel is too dangerous to be left in the hands of “inferior” is the story of a life that would have been Nora’s if she
Earthlings, and How to Stop Time, an equally captivating had made a different decision from the one she did make open enrollMent
story about the life of a 400-year-old man, member of at so many important points in her life – each taking her
a small, secret global society of ageless humans who down a different path toward a different journey. And now
dare not let the rest of mankind know they exist. Their Nora was being offered an opportunity to select a different
one cardinal rule: Never fall in love! You can make no life, rather than the one from which she has decided to for 2023
personal attachments. escape. If she finds one that fulfills her, she can stay and
Instead, he must change identities and move often before complete it; if not, she will return to the Midnight Library
people realize that he ages so slowly as if not at all. In the and try another. But at some point her time will run out.
present, he is a college history teacher – the perfect role for Mrs. Elm reaches for a particular volume from a shelf
one who actually performed with Shakespeare and lived near her, The Book of Regrets, as a possible reference for cHecK For
through the centuries of events he discusses with students. Nora to consider.
A wonderful book! I will leave it for you to discover the life that Nora eXcItInG
The Midnight Library is another absorbing read, 288 believes will make her happy, among them:
pages that I finished in three sittings. • The life of a rich and famous rock star she became by
Nora Seed is a 35-year-old woman who has given staying with her brother’s band.
up on life. She lives alone, except for her cat, Voltaire. • The comfortable wife of the kind, gentle man whom neW PLanS
Volts, for short. Everything she had thought she wanted she had always regretted turning down years ago when they
never panned out. Among the top high school swimmers were young and he asked her out for a cup of coffee, and and
in America and certain to make the Olympic team, she now he is a successful surgeon and she the mother of their
decided to give up the sport. A talented piano player, adorable daughter.
songwriter and member of her brother, Joe’s, band, the Or, as the author puts it (with ellipses added here to take aLL neW
Labyrinths, she quit just as they were about to get their the place of text left out for lack of space): “She had been
big break. Inspired by her interest in the environment, she a rock star, an Olympian, a music teacher, a primary school
considered becoming a glaciologist, but gave up the idea. teacher, a CEO, a PA, a chef, a glaciologist, a climatologist, BeneFItS
That’s the way her life has been, for reasons she chalks an acrobat, a tree-planter, an audit manager, a hairdresser,
up to problems in her relationship with her parents. a professional dog walker, an office clerk, a software
The book’s brief opening section begins, “Nineteen years developer, a receptionist, a hotel cleaner, a politician, a YoU are
before she decided to die, Nora Seed….” Several pages lawyer, a shoplifter, the head of an ocean protection charity,
entItLed to
later we begin, “Twenty-seven hours before she decided a shop worker (again), a waitress, a first-line supervisor, a

neW!

maY cHanGe PLanS
JanUarY 1 tHrU marcH 31, 2023
caLL WItH QUeStIonS

friday, march 31, 2023 Peter Gratzon

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