The Time Traveler's Wife

The past, present, and future exist simultaneously in Henry’s world and a rare genetic disorder transports him away from stressful moments in his present, depositing him in random locations and times from his past and future. On one of these hegiras, Henry meets Clare, his bride to be. The trouble is that Henry’s 36 year old self meets Clare, who is 6 years old, while his present self, who is 13 years old at the time, isn’t destined to meet Clare for the first time until 15 years later. I know it sounds confusing, and it might be if you dwell constantly on the space/time continuum while you read. But, if you relax and follow Niffenegger’s convenient signposts at the beginning of each passage, the time travel takes care of show more itself, fading into the background, allowing Henry and Clare’s complicated love story to take the spotlight.

Infused with Homerian tragedy, the story exhibits a rare heart, describing Clare’s constant loving and patient vigil. Henry’s frail existence, lived on the edges of destiny, present ever increasing dangers to their life together. If Henry informs his past self with future knowledge, will he change the determined path of life? Or is Henry only free to exert his will in his present life? It is a human story principally because the characters fail as often as they succeed in following the rules Henry’s unusual life requires. Whether Clare or Henry possess a foreknowledge of the events in their lives or not, their relentless future carries on, softening and re-shaping their hearts to better understand and accept the consequences of those events. And so, the book sums up the plight of human existence, constantly facing the ebb and tide of life’s events with no power but to control our own reaction to what fate has in store for us; beyond all else, we must simply live.

Niffenegger has written an effortlessly readable book. It pricks the heart almost as quickly as it tickles the reader’s fancy. There may be some obsessed with the time construct to the point of distraction but that kind of attention misses the point of the story.

5 bones!!!!!

This one makes the best of the year list. show less

I can remember exactly when I heard about The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger's 2003 mega-hit: it was summer 2004, in one of the dorms at BC. I was there for a summer course on the philosophy of Tolkien (see: nerd credentials, my), and my roommate told me it was her favorite book.

I don't think I can tell you the favorite books of any of my other roommates, sadly, but this particular roommate went on to become one of my very best friends, so her recommendation has stuck with me for the last nine years and five months. Of course, now she's gone and moved to Colorado, and she works nights, so I can't call her up on any old afternoon to chat about the book.

Here's the premise, for those of you who missed the big hullabaloo ten years show more ago: Clare and Henry are in love, but Henry suffers from a rare genetic disorder that causes him to time travel, involuntarily and without warning. He travels to the future and to the past, always landing naked (like the Terminator) and afraid, and not sure how long he'll be gone from his present time. As you might suspect, Henry and Clare face some pretty weird challenges as they navigate their relationship.

What I liked best about the novel is its mix of genres: sci-fi, romance, domestic drama. Ms. Niffenegger's writing is lively (though occasionally veering into cliche) and she has a knack for choosing quotations (Derek Walcott and A.S. Byatt both make appearances) that enhance the story. Thanks to her background in art, the scenes of Clare in her studio are some of the best in the book; I found myself wanting to learn more about contemporary paper-making and paper art.

The structure of the novel makes for a compulsive reading experience (also, it turns out that something Very Bad happens on my exact birthdate, so that was sort of weird and intriguing at the same time). It loosely follows Claire's timeline, with tangents forward and backward as necessary. At one point, time is compared to a Möbius strip, an apt analogy; the future Henry is always part of Clare's past, for example, and the present Henry and Clare cannot escape either the past or the future. Henry often feels helpless, not only because he cannot control his time traveling, but also because he cannot alter events. He might know about a terrible accident in the future, but he has no power, in his past, to change it. (On the other hand, he's pretty handy with the stock market.)

Despite the genre-bending premise, The Time Traveler's Wife is primarily a love story; the science part of the sci-fi doesn't really hold water. Sure, genetics could explain the physical symptoms associated with Henry's time displacement, but the actual time traveling as a genetic quirk? I'm not buying. (And that comes from a lady who can quote you Next Gen, chapter and verse.)

Ok, so here are the topics I want to talk to somebody (you?) about:

Henry's the lit-nerd's perfect guy, right? He's a librarian, he speaks multiple languages, he's tall dark and mysterious, he's wicked sexy, he's a bad-boy-turned-good-guy . . . I mean, really. Is he too perfect?

Wait, let me answer my first question with another question: Is Henry too damn paternalistic? All this withholding information from Clare (for her own good, of course) seems awfully condescending, and the implication that it's ok because Clare has her own secrets doesn't sit too well with me.

Is giving Clare a rich family lazy? My mother pointed out to me years ago that it's easier for writers when characters are rich; you don't have to write in what it's like to have to forgo dinner out to pay the phone bill, or write about shopping clearance sales instead of waltzing into a boutique, or explain why someone is able to buy a house or fly to Orlando. She was commenting on movies (see: Nancy Meyers's post-1990 oeuvre), but the point holds for novels, too, I think. Unless wealth and its effects are important to the plot or theme of the novel, making characters rich just seems lazy. Sure, Clare's family's property is so big that nobody notices her childhood chats with future-Henry, but why not put her on a ranch, or a farm, or a city apartment with parents who work long hours (or a single parent, for that matter)?

On a related note: What's up with many of the non-white characters being household help? I grant that Kimy is a three-dimensional character, but she still deserves more prominent placement. Could have done without Celia's characterization as a predatory lesbian, too. I think Ms. Niffenegger consciously tries to include non-white characters, but too often the attempt reads as tokenism.

And here's a question with some spoiler material, so stop reading now if you want to be kept in the dark. I'll let you know when it's safe to come back.

Why don't Clare and Henry just adopt? Six miscarriages, at least one involving a massive transfusion? Adoption seems to be the sensible solution here. I HATE with a fiery passion Clare's rationale for not adopting:

Clare says, "But that would be fake. It would be pretending." She sits up, faces me, and I do the same.

"It would be a real baby, and it would be ours. What's pretend about that?"

"I'm sick of pretending. We pretend all the time. I want to really do this."

"We don't pretend all the time. What are you talking about?"

"We pretend to be normal people, having normal lives! [. . . ]" (349-350)

It would be one thing if Clare apologized for this outburst (and for not really answering Henry's question) and explained herself. Instead, her implication that adoption is somehow "pretend" is left hanging (Henry gets angry, leaves the house, and time travels), and in a feat of magical realism, a past Henry pops up and impregnates her. Pregnancy number seven is lucky, and she delivers a healthy baby, which reads to me as if the novel endorses Clare's f'ed up analysis of the ontological status of adoption.

Safe to return, dear readers!

Despite these shortcomings, I found the novel fascinating, and, as you can tell, it gave me lots to think about. show less

I stayed up ten minutes late last night to finish this, not because I loved it so much that I couldn't put it down but because I really, really wanted to be done with it. I then inadvertently stayed up another hour after that, trying to stop myself from rehashing all the things I didn't like about the Time Traveler and his wife.

First and possibly most importantly this book is WAY TOO LONG. 531 pages in my paperback copy, with no plot aside from "two people love each other and one of them jumps around in time, which makes things a bit tricky on occasion." Most of these 531 pages consist of filler scenes that serve no purpose whatsoever. One well-drawn scene of Henry time-traveling and desperately seeking clothing/shelter would have show more covered it. Instead we see it what feels like a thousand times, with nothing changed except the incidental details. One scene involving the couple making coffee or eating foods I've never heard of would have been enough, but we are treated to an endless stream of such. And so on.

Equally important: I did not care about these characters in the least. Not even enough to dislike them. We are told a great deal, often quite repetitively, about What They Are Like (though mostly about What Henry Is Like). We rarely ever see it for real. For example he supposedly abused alcohol, drugs, and women. Never do we actually see this, just hear about it, and often secondhand. We are told that Clare is an artist but really, she could have been anything. The fact of her artist-ness has very little impact on the story.

For that matter, very little in this book has any impact on the story. So many pointless scenes -(Henry beating up the guy who nearly raped Clare, Clare sleeping with Gomez, the entirety of the element of Clare's mother's death, just to name a few) - that end up going nowhere. Even worse, the pointless details! Restaurant orders, games of pool, bands Henry likes, a literal grocery list of 32 items as Henry unpacks after shopping. Descriptions of things that could easily have been cut in half. SO MANY DESCRIPTIONS OF DREAMS. Surely no one on Earth enjoys hearing about another person's dreams, even less so when they are bogging down the plot of the book we are reading...

Oh, but, there is no plot! Henry and Clare love each other! We know this because they have sex with each other more than any other couple alive, and often in graphic detail! I did not buy their love for a minute. Aside from the endless and often cringey sex, we are given absolutely no reason to believe that these two had a love for the ages. I guess we are meant to accept that it was destiny, and let that be that. Or something.

Lastly - finally - I love a dual POV, when I can tell the narrators apart. Here I could not. Sometimes I'd get to a sentence that made it clear Henry was speaking, and realize I'd thought all along it was Clare. Character development lacking = I do not care about them at all = I don't believe their love = this book was not for me. show less

This book really got to me—in the best way. The Time Traveler’s Wife is such a unique and emotional story, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I finished. The writing is beautiful without being too much, and the way time travel is handled actually makes sense (which is rare!).

Clare and Henry’s relationship is wild, complicated, and so full of heart. The story jumps around in time a lot, but it never feels confusing. Instead, it just makes you even more invested in their love story. It’s messy and painful and sweet all at once.

This isn’t just a romance—it’s about fate, love, loss, and trying to hold onto each other when everything’s falling apart. I even got a little emotional with this one.

If you want a book show more that’s different and seriously moving, definitely give this one a shot. show less

I began this not expecting to like it...love story with a supernatural twist...meh.
It's FABULOUS (and I'm not easily impressed.)
Henry is a librarian who- for some inexplicable (genetic?) reason finds himself travelling through time. He has no control over when and where...he finds himself naked in the past...or the future. Necessitating much theft and fleeing, it's a dangerous problem. He meets his future love...aged six. He revisits past tragedies...and can go on ahead to see the outcome of certain issues. He meets up with himself as a youth...
With existential moments ...and with a real relevance to ACTUAL stuff...death, memory, people who were here but are no longer....or who are now in a whole different place ("did my child really show more play with his toys in this room?...he's an adult now") ...it's just a stunning piece of writing. show less

I had a difficult time with completing this review. For some reason, I remain emotionally involved with the story. I know logically that this is only a story – it's fiction.

I must be mental. No. Really. What normal person would go through nearly an entire packet of Kleenex even before finishing the novel? Who would mope around the house afterwards, wandering from room to room, in a daze, grieving? Wow. This is new, and disturbing. But in a complimentary sort of way, as obviously the author has succeeded in creating a story, and a set of characters that can evoke such a response. I don't think I have ever been so moved that even days later, I find I cannot even discuss what I have read without becoming emotional. Why? I honestly don't show more know. I do admit, however, that I am someone who, at times, cannot prevent a narrative and its characters from connecting with some emotion hidden deep inside, which once touched, bursts forth and proceeds to turn me to Jell-O on the spot.

This is a good story. From the very beginning, I was intrigued by how the author uses a prologue to introduce her main characters and their story.

Henry, of course, is the time traveler:

"When I am out there, in time, I am inverted, changed into a desperate version of myself. I become a thief, a vagrant, an animal who runs and hides. I startle old women and amaze children. I am a trick, an illusion of the highest order, so incredible that I am actually true."

Clare, his wife, waits and longs for her husband's return:

"Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them…Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass."

The remainder of the book reveals how their love holds them together, throughout their lives and throughout time. No relationship is perfect, and this book never attempts to state otherwise. The passage where Henry spends Christmas with Clare and her family for the first time, is an excellent example how true to normal this book attempts to be, even though one of its main characters is a time traveler.

I also found that this book really is about longing as much as it is about love, and how it seems that you cannot have one without the other. It is also about time, well at least one's perception of time. The author, in an interview with Mark Flanagan, was asked, "Was there a central theme that you wanted readers to grasp?" She answers, "I wanted people to think about the intimacy of time, how ineffable it is, how it shapes us. I wanted to write about waiting, but since waiting is essentially a negative (time spent in the absence of something) I wrote about all the things that happen around the waiting."

As the story progresses, the reader is pulled and pushed along, just like Clare and Henry, who long for normalcy and control, and never completely achieve either. In the beginning, it is a little disconcerting, but necessary as it helps the reader connect in such a way that by the end of the novel, one cannot help but feel as if we too, are facing the inevitable, and are powerless against it.

The Time Traveler's Wife offers us another view; a different concept, of time and how it affects our lives. Yet when all is said and done – it all comes down to the same thing, for us and for Clare and Henry. Time is endless, but we are not.

I will not say more than that in fear of giving too much away. Also, I would like to state that the ending isn't as sad as I probably have led you to believe, however, I highly recommend having a plentiful supply of tissue at hand, just in case.

I am giving this book 5 Stars. It is that good. In fact so good, I am seriously considering coming up with a TBR-R (To Be Re-Read) List, or maybe a SDI (Stranded on a Desert Island) List. Either way, the first two books I will be adding are The Shadow of the Wind and this one. show less

Thea's Review: The more I think about this book, the less I like it. Simply put: it creeped me out (and NOT in a good way).

I am torn. On the one hand, I can appreciate what Ms. Niffenegger has tried to accomplish. She has attempted to write a sweeping epic love story with a peculiar quirk. Instead of infidelity or mistrust, the problem is completely out of the hands of the couple--Henry De Tamble is an unwilling time traveler that can flicker in and out of time at any second. While I can appreciate the pains Ms. Niffenegger took to make this time traveling love story accessible, I just couldn't really buy it. I really did not like Henry De Tamble at all. He struck me as a selfish, self-pitying clod for the entire story. Clare was only show more marginally better--but perhaps to best discuss my qualms with the book, I should explain a bit more.

A particular theme in this book that prickles me is the concept of Fate vs. Free Will. In my opinion, this story was completely devoid of Free Will--which is something I have a really hard time with, and don't agree with. The love story, while touching and poignant when Clare and Henry are both consenting adults, really creeped me out initially. The hardest thing for me to come to grips with is how neither Clare nor Henry had a choice in falling in love. Clare's life has been so drastically skewed because ever since she was a child, Henry has always been there guiding her, being her friend, mentor, and lover. Similarly, Henry never had a choice because in his early 20s, Clare approaches Henry and lets him know that they are meant to be together and he will spend the rest of his life traveling back to her, and falling in love with her. Sure, it works because they actually 'love' each other, but the predicament is circular, and there is no real free will involved. It bugs me enormously. Especially in the case of Clare (who genuinely never had a chance--she literally spends her ENTIRE LIFE WAITING for Henry--even when she's an 80 year old woman, she's still WAITING for him, from beyond the grave!)

This thematic dislike aside, however, I appreciate the novelty of the story with one character moving both backwards and forwards in time, while his lover is bound to a linear path. I liked the idea that time travel is not something that can be controlled and is a genetic disorder, and Henry can't do anything about it (but again, isn't that just fate over free will?).

This book as a time travel story disappointed me on almost every level. Inherently, time travel stories have some kind of screwy paradoxical problem. Most of these stories involve some kind of impending paradox that comes about from f*ing with time (think Back to the Future and Biffland). The Time Traveler's Wife took a different approach to this scifi theme, and did away with any possibility for altering the future or the past. The universe in this book is closed, and static. Anyone in the vacuum CANNOT change the ultimate outcome. A time traveler has no ability to alter the future in any way because every outcome has already been determined and compensated for.

Well, where's the fun in that? Perhaps if Ms. Niffenegger attempted to show her characters actively trying to change what their ultimate fate is, doing something other than simply floating along the pulling tide of destiny like lumps on a log, it would have been entertaining. But, like I said before, these characters are completely passive and devoid of any fighting instinct or further dimension.

Also, the physics of Henry's time travel bugs. The discussions he has with Clare and his past/future self concerning causation and how it can only happen 'once' doesn't make any sense (because there is no 'first time' in this closed, cyclical environment). I was disappointed in the author's quick attempts to try and explain the mechanics and then dismissal as a genetic disorder that there is no cure for. For example, there is a scene where Clare draws a picture of 40 year old Henry and tries to "change" what Henry knows happens in the future by writing a date on the portrait. Henry says that there is no date on the picture, and Clare's writing one SHOULD cause some sort of time paradox--however, it doesn't happen because Clare later trims off the date--again implying there is no free will, because it has already happened, time is cyclical, and because of this, even if Clare and Henry try to change the future/past it doesn't matter. It will be negated in some way.

Another novelty Ms. Niffenegger integrates into her tale is breaking one of the cardinal rules of time travel--Henry actively seeks out and openly interacts with his "other self" while traveling. There is so much interaction, in fact, that some very questionable (and frankly disturbing) scenes ensue--at Clare and Henry's wedding another version of Henry shows up to say the actual vows; there's some sex involving another Henry (while present Henry is still in the room, sleeping)...it's just weird and off-putting. Could you cheat on your spouse with another version of your spouse? Would or should he be jealous? Just...no. For these reasons, and more that I won't fully divulge to avoid major spoilers, the scifi aspect fell completely flat.

But this novel isn't really about time travel. It's really a love story, and a story about loss and trials and the ability for that love to transcend time, right?

Unfortunately, I could care less about the romance. Perhaps this is because I did not like either character. Perhaps it is because there was no honeymoon period for our lovers--there was always impending danger or misunderstanding...either Clare is a big crying self-pitying mess over miscarriages, or something really nasty happens to Henry (I won't spoil it for you, but it comes completely out of nowhere), and so on and so forth. They could never be on the same page and just be HAPPY. Not a single respite. It was a bit much for me. The book focused on the negative aspects of their relationship, and the problems they faced without any of the positive payoff. You don't even get to see the two of them 'fall in love' because of the nature of the time travel love story. I'm not a fan of sadism, and there was so much unnecessary, exploitative pain in this story and it felt like it was written for shock value instead of being an intrinsic part of the story.

I won't even start to delve into the obvious objections about the sexually charged relationship that a 40 year old Henry has with a teenaged Clare.

Ultimately, this story just didn't work for me. As a romance, it felt contrived and mean-spirited, and as a time travel story it fell flat on its face.

Memorable Quotes/Parts: Oh, where to begin. How about the scene where Henry takes Clare's virginity (yeah, she's 18 and he's somewhere in the vicinty of 43). Touching. Or, the cringeworthy scene after Clare is beaten and date raped?

Additional Thoughts: Nothing comes to mind.

Verdict: Save your money. If you want to feel exploited and emotionally drained, wait for the movie version to come out. At least Eric Bana and the lovely Rachel McAdams are in that.

Full Review at:
http://thebooksmugglers.blogspot.com/2008/01/time-travelers-wife-theas-review.ht... show less