Socratica Reads Episode 20: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Kimberly Hatch Harrison (co-founder of Socratica) created this podcast to share her love of reading and to help others find their way back to reading, or to develop a new habit. In this episode, Kim gets around to reading something off her TBR list: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. She didn’t love it, but that’s okay. You don’t have to love every book to love reading. There’s still something interesting to be had when you figure out WHY you don’t love a book.
You can get your copy here (and decide for yourself):
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
https://amzn.to/45RBsiS
Kim’s book: How to Be a Great Student
ebook: https://amzn.to/2Lh3XSP
Paperback: https://amzn.to/3t5jeH3
Kindle Unlimited: https://amzn.to/3atr8TJ
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Transcript:
Welcome Everybody! To Socratica Reads. My name is Kimberly Hatch Harrison, and I’m the co-founder of Socratica. We make futuristic videos about math, science, and computer programming. This podcast is all about how reading inspires the work we do. But it’s also about how great books connect us with the ideas people have around the world, not just now, but in the past AND the future.
One topic that’s like CATNIP to any STEM kid is: The Multiverse. Parallel lives. Every time you make a choice: strawberry or chocolate—you split off another life. How different would our lives be if we had made different choices along the way?
So today’s book on this topic has been on my TBR (To Be Read) list for a while now—The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. It’s one of those books you see on the shelf of recommendations at your local bookstore, and your friends have all read it, and the LA Public Library keeps offering it to me on my ebook app (available now for a quick 7 day loan) so I finally gave in and read it.
Socratica Friends, I did not like it.
But just because you don’t like a book, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it. It’s fun to share your enthusiasm for a book that really works, but it’s also interesting to figure out WHY a book doesn’t work. So what happened here?
As soon as the premise became clear I was into it. There’s a library you might get a chance to visit at the moment when you straddle life and death. When you open a book from this library, you are allowed to see the roads not taken.
This is a story I want to read. I want to know if the main character already knows about the choices she made that changed her life, or were there small things she didn’t realize she could have done differently. But you know, we need to care about the protagonist. We need to understand them, and feel something for them. We don’t have to love them. We might be frustrated by them, or annoyed by them, or even hate them.
I feel nothing. The protagonist, Nora, doesn’t make any kind of sense to me. She’s not a real person.
A writer is a Creator, in the truest sense of the word. They have the power to Create living, breathing, thinking people who continue to live in our minds long after we close the book. Tell me Elizabeth Bennett isn’t a real person. I could tell you all about her, and predict how she would act in a given situation, and what she would say.
Can I tell you anything about Nora, the heroine of this book? No!
She’s talented. I’ll give you that. She’s SO TALENTED. Why, she could have been an Olympic Swimmer if she hadn’t quit swimming. She could have been a FAMOUS ROCK STAR. She could have been a GREAT SCIENTIST studying glaciers. This is such an insult to scientists, musicians, swimmers…It’s like that lie that people started telling their kids: you can be anything you want to be, you’re such a genius! Here’s a trophy. That nightmare of a parenting technique has come to life in this book. This author apparently thinks it’s actually true.
Alright. I’m about done here. But I have to send this message to writers everywhere. If you don’t understand your character, don’t write them. This is a man who wrote a caricature of a fantasy woman and has no idea what this woman thinks, feels, wants. Nothing. She doesn’t care about anything, so we don’t care about her. We don’t even care that she’s in this remarkable place, being given this remarkable chance.
I am still going to read you an excerpt that I do like. The librarian. I think she might actually be a real person. Maybe you’ll see what I mean.
Are you ready? Let’s begin.
{Kim reads excerpt}
This passage hints at the idea that Mrs Elm has an interior life, separate from Nora. She knows things. And she’s thinking about her chess game, and sometimes she doesn’t bother to listen to Nora. That’s interesting. There’s a kernel of an interesting character there. Well, maybe in another life, I’ll get to read THAT book.
If you’d like to discuss these ideas with other people who have ideas about books, our Discord Server is open to all of our Patrons from Patreon and our YouTube channel members. Thanks for listening.
Oh, but before you go—have you noticed this podcast is FREE from ads? That’s because it’s sponsored by The Socratica Foundation. And the Socratica Foundation is sponsored by—you. The Socratica Foundation is an educational nonprofit dedicated to the three timeless pillars: Literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking. Socratica Reads podcast is part of our Literacy campaign. You can learn more at https://www.socratica.org/
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