The Midnight Train by Matt Haig 4

 

"Oh dear, Old Bean. Listen. You are at the end of your life and the start of your death. Your life flashes before your eyes. You linger where you are meant to linger. On scenes that provide as a whole, a complete representation of your life. But then, when the time comes, you get on board the Midnight Train and keep on chugging along the track. You don't stick around. Because as I told you, you can't be there when your living self falls asleep. You get on the train and then you wait for eternity."

    -Agnes Bagdale explanation to Wilbur Budd

I wasn't sure what I thought of this book at first; I don't read fantasy often. This one is pretty fantastical with Wilbur Budd dying near the beginning and then essentially travelling the Midnight Train through his life. I loved Agnes, Wibur's ghostly guide on the trip. Her philosophy of life provided so many profound quotes, I had a hard time picking one. Mostly because of this, I have rated the book a 4.

This is not an easy journey for Wilbur since he has to revisit some troubling times and some major regrets, particularly a broken relationship. Agnes keeps warning him not to make changes to the past lest it keep him from eternity but in the end, he can't resist.

Here are only a few of the passages I found so meaningful:

Music had a way of threading through decades like nothing else. A song, after all, was a needle pulling the thread of time, stitching disparate moments into something whole.

There were days in life that rolled by and were never really thought of again. And then there were days that were so beloved or important that they contained inside them everything that came after. Russian doll days that were always inside the expanding future.

Nothing ever just happened, realized the Ghost. Even the most reckless action was a consequence of what had gone before, just as every loud mistake in the world was the product of some quiet and secret pain.

Does any person in their youth truly appreciate the time they live through? Doesn’t the mundane starch of reality always turn to sugar with memory.