Niffenegger, Audrey - The Time Traveler's Wife

[oyceter]

Henry DeTamble is born with some sort of genetic defect that causes him to travel involuntarily through time, but he is in love with (and loved by) Clare, whose life proceeds one way through time like most people's. It's a very interesting love story in which we get to see not only the falling-in-love period so often focused on by romance novels, but also what comes later through the years.

While the dialogue at first felt a little clunky, I settled into the book easily and was extremely caught up in the narrative. The narrative is, given the topic, fairly linear -- I liked how we mostly start through Clare's experiences, chronologically, with small bits of the future interspersed as Future!Henry returns from a rendevouz with Past!Clare. It also makes for very interesting dramatic reveals. Mostly I am in awe of how the author managed to juggle the timelines, as Clare meets Future!Henry when she's just a child, while Henry meets Clare in real time, without any past knowledge of her. The structure of the book itself makes it fascinating.

The problem I had with the book was that I never quite understood why Henry and Clare were in love. Clare as a child was obviously enamoured of older Henry (it skirted around my squick buttons, but it was a little close there), and when she finally meets Henry in real life, Henry speaks of her sort of molding him into her memory of future!Henry. While Henry, on the other hand, seems to be in love with Clare at first simply because they are fated to be in love. Later on in his life, when he starts traveling back to visit child!Clare, he sort of molds her into his memory of future!Clare. So there is a sense of fate in the relationship that I'm not sure if I buy. Maybe it's the point of the love story? Not sure, but the little dropped lines about molding people felt too Pygmalion-ish for me to really read as romantic.

Also, in the back of my head, there was a constant little voice wondering why it was Henry who got to be all adventurous and dash around through time, while Clare was the one who waited and worried and stayed behind.

But I did like the book; it's just much more difficult to say why I like something than to pick at the problems, sadly. I might not reread it often, however, given some rather depressing bits.

ETA: Spoilers in comments

Links:
- rilina's review
- minnow1212's review
- tenemet's review
- shewhohashope's review

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I also generally enjoyed this, and shared your feelings on the near squick factor. It was genuinely moving despite it flaws--it made me cry (rather against my will) at the end. My main complaint, though, was the pretty half-hearted explanation for the time travel. It just made me snicker about bad genetics.

[oyceter]

Some spoilers:

I was pretty moved until I got to the point in which Clare is trying desperately to get pregnant. And for some reason, the description of it, or of her desire, must have clashed with something in me, because I rapidly lost sympathy for her after that. It was just so typically feminine that I started taking more note of Clare's overall passivity in the narrative.

I think you can argue that Henry is also a very passive agent as well, given that he involuntarily time jumps. Also, I sort of rolled my eyes a little at the ending(s) -- I felt horribly bad about it, and it depressed me, but I could see it coming from a mile away after all the talk of pregnancy.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I mostly bought the romance, but yes - you could see the ending a mile away. That's why I said I cried rather against my will; I hate the feeling that a book has successfully manipulated me into tears. ("Manipulated" being the operative word there.)

A better, if very different, book with involuntary time travel is Octavia Butler's Kindred.

[oyceter]

Yeah -- I got sniffly but felt manipulated.

Thanks for the Butler rec!

[riemannia.livejournal.com]

Just thinking out loud here: is being manipulated the same thing as seeing the ending a mile away?

Because he never visited Clare beyond a certain age you had to know that something happened but I'm not sure how one would change that.

Will disclose that I am a big fan of this book! I thought it was very well-written, too.

I loved Butler's Kindred, but it's about something else entirely.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Just thinking out loud here: is being manipulated the same thing as seeing the ending a mile away?
As I was using the word, not exactly. I've always felt that it's not hard for a book or movie to make a reader cry or feel something strongly; all you've got to do is get the reader relatively well invested in the character and then do something (good or bad) to that character to evoke an emotion. But the ability to evoke strong emotiond doesn't necessarily indicate the quality of a book; sometimes the emotional plot twist is one that's no good artistically. And at that point, the choice to go for cheap emotion in place of something subtler and more complicated seems manipulative.

The most emotionally manipulative things in the world for me, probably, are romantic comedies.

possible spoiler

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Maybe spoiler! Don't look!

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....OMG, he isn't her child or something dreadfully squicky like that, is he?

Re: possible spoiler

[oyceter]

No! Thankfully, no!

Ew, squicky.

thank goodness

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Definitely squicky. ecccch.