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

[graygirl.livejournal.com]

I read this in record time--so it definitely had a can't-put-it-down factor for me. The structure was great--I wonder, too, how she handed that and would love to see her notes. :p I loved most of the concept, but the end took a turn I didn't like.

Spoilers (if anyone is still looking out): I didn't care for Henry's injury (though liked the parallel dream chapter he had, as Clare had her dreams chapter). The book took a big turn here for me; I absolutely did not like the image of Henry traveling through time without his feet. I mean...gah. I liked that he got stuck in the cage, and wanted more of that. I wanted him to spend a good chunk of time there since he was so afraid of it.

I wonder how much of this book was inspired by Byatt's Possession since she quotes from it at least twice.

Henry travels, and while Clare isn't jumping through time, she does go on her own journey of sorts--and it's so typical that it involves wanting a child, isn't it? That irked me, too. I was somewhat appalled that she and Henry allowed themselves to get pregnant so many times--and was a wee bit horrifed that a traveling-Henry was the one to do the deed...that made my skin crawl a bit. Didn't feel entirely consensual.

I'm glad to have read it, though.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I was pretty irked by the end, starting with the entire pregnancy plotline. I think after a while (especially with the onset of the pregnancy plotline) I had figured out Niffenegger was going to do something really bad to Henry for maximum angst, so when the bad stuff started happening, I was sort of rolling my eyes.