Book: The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Let me start by telling you I’m a huge fan of books and movies that involve time travel and /or immortality. The Time Traveler’s Wife steers away from pure sci-fi, instead telling the story of a romance between a girl and a time traveler.
Henry DeTamble is the time traveler - a librarian who inadvertently time travels whenever he’s stressed or excited. Rather than treat the time travel as an oddity, Niffenegger writes the time travel as an illness called ‘chrono displacement syndrome’.
His girlfriend/wife is Claire Abshire an art student from a well-heeled family. The course of Claire and Henry’s lives seem intertwined, as Henry unconsciously time travels into Claire’s life at various stages from his future. Henry also crosses his own time stream a number of times and revisits a traumatic event from his childhood.
The biggest challenge with time travel stories is avoiding confusion. Niffenegger achieves this semi-successfully by reminding us at the start of each chapter of the date and age of the two main characters. The narrative also alternates between Henry and Claire’s viewpoints, which helps to bring the characters to life and helps the reader to empathise more with their situation.
I won’t ruin the story by going into too much detail on the plot, but in short Niffenegger manages to craft a tale that is warm, witty, romantic and above all, human. As a matter of fact, one of my favourite characters in the book is Gomez, a tragic figure who marries Claire’s friend, but secretly loves Claire. Niffenegger deals with Gomez particularly well, letting us know early on about his feelings for Claire, but also showing how his relationship with Henry develops over the years.
In Summary
The Time Traveler’s Wife is a touching tale that uses time travel as a tool to tell the story of two people. So, despite time travel being a central theme in the book, the focus remains on the relationship between Henry and Claire. Initially, I was a little disappointed that the time travel wasn’t the central theme of the book, but the true value of the book is in the human interactions.
When you look at it, The Time Traveler’s Wife covers all the key events in life: teenage life, romance, marriage, family, children. There’s so much to relate to and that’s probably why I found the book so touching in the end. Sruthi has also written a good review of the book, although she walked away underwhelmed.
Perhaps that’s because there isn’t a ‘happy-ever-after’ ending. I don’t know, but I do recommend the book. If you’ve read it, tell me what you thought in the comments. If not, pick up a copy and then come back!
A copy of this review is posted at PopOpinions.com
I read The Time Traveller’s Wife Christmas 2005 and I thought it was wonderful. Literally couldn’t put it down. You’ve put me in the notion of reading it again.
You should Nelly, it’s a fantastic story.
While I was doing a bit of reasearch I discovered Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt had bought the movies rights to the book, so there may be a movie version someday.
I might pop this on Bookcrossing and share it out!
Actually mate. I loaned it to your wife and my girly wanted to read it. So, you’d better send it across the Atlantic, or I might have to consider time-traveling as an option for myself.
In terms of the book though, I would recommend it to anyone who has to sit in the background as a support, as the other leads the “interesting” life. Or even for anyone who has to suffer thier spouse/partner being away for periods at a time.
I agree with Mr Levee, it’s about the relationship, not the sci-fi.
Actually, I hated this book. With a passion. From the offset, I could tell the author was trying to use ‘clever’ to form her story, and the style of prose was tricksy and fey for the sake of it.
And because of her awful prose, the story was leaden and dull. You could see what she was trying to do, and it is an interesting premise, but by God did she labour it with her ‘hey-look-at-me-I-am-a-clever-literary-writer-type-and-can-do-lit-er-at-ure’. This did not endear me to the book. I love clever, literary authors, but she isn’t one. Not even an averagely bad book, a dull and awful book to read. I didn’t finish it, as I couldn’t stand the thought of wasting my time ploughing through it, when there are better things to read. Bah. (Next time, I will tell yo what I really think of it!)
Oh, my wife liked it. Having, I think, had this conversation with Nelly before, I thought it a chick book. Obviously I was wrong on that score if you liked it.
ps. The best time travel books ever are The Saga of Exiles/Intervention/Galactic Milieu run by Julian May. I think. I haven’t read them in years, they may well not have aged well.
@Stevie: Whoops, I thought you were finished with it. Let that be a lesson to me trying to dispose of your books when you read my blog!
@Stray Taoist: You’re right in that in places the story was clumsy, but I think that’s a common pitfall when you’re trying to write a timeslip novel.
I must pick up those Julian May books if I can remember. Thanks for the tip.