Review: The Time Traveler's Wife

As some of you may or may not know, depending on how often you bother to read this blog, I've been in the process of reading The Time Traveler's Wife. Initially I planned on writing chapter by chapter reviews to bolster my resolve to finish the book, but I quickly outpaced the speed and determination I had to keep up with myself. Either way, this is my comprehensive review that will be a blanket assessment of the book, but feel free to check out the first two parts of my "review".

Now, on the surface this book definitely telegraphs itself as pure chick-lit. Thankfully, for me at least, the science fiction twist of time travel makes this novel accessible to people like me. To be honest, it's more of a front for a guy to read a romance novel written by a woman that more often than not dwells on the complexity of feelings, love, and what it all means than it does on how cool it is that one half of the couple is quantum leaping through time. It's all good though; we're all adults here... for the most part. As I just mentioned, the author of this book is a woman (with the entirely rad name of Audry Niffenegger) so it's safe to say that she captures the female voice of Clare much more accurately than she does Henry. This is not to say that Henry's characterization as a male is off, simply when it comes to the complexity of each of their innermost monologues I imagine Clare's is more akin to that of the fairer sex. Henry reads well, but admittedly I found his thoughts and observations to be a tad more 'matter-of-fact' than I would think of my own and when he does choose to go deeper, it's only ever so much too melodramatic. These are such minor discrepancies that while reading, most people will take little notice of their existence.

I've outlined the premise of the novel in painstaking detail over the last two posts concerning this book, but for consistency's sake I will go over it one more time. Henry is a person with a genetic affliction that causes him to randomly jump through time; most often to impactful moments in his own timeline both past and future. While offering a unique view of his life and those around him, he finds himself naked and exposed everytime he travels and this lands him in all kinds of trouble as one would imagine. Time traveling also gives him a very fractured life, often living moments in his past that won't occur until his future (if this sounds puzzling, jump back to my last two posts and just skim some of the chapter summaries). Clare is the woman of his dreams, his true love, and the woman he's destined to be with. Clare first meets Henry as a six year old and he is in the later years of his troublesome life. These initial moments essentially entwine their lives forever, but I found it interesting later on that these moments that made Clare Henry's do not occur in Henry's life until he has already lived a long life with her. It's an interesting game of chicken/egg, but it makes for an interesting mental quandary. The two eventually meet in what can be considered their mutual present where Henry is only eight years older than Clare and from here the book layers and loops itself catching up with Clare's past while becoming Henry's future and all the while binding these two people together in a very passionate if not disruptive love for the ages.

The phrase 'love for the ages' sounds as corny to me as it probably does to you reading it, but it definitely applies. In some cases its hard to accept how strong and unshakable this attraction is, so much so that I found myself once or twice looking for a more concrete foundation to go on. It dawned on me later that Niffenegger has gone to great lengths to be as symbolic with this story as she is literal. What I mean here is that the whole lynch pin of this relationship is based on waiting. Be it Clare literally waiting weeks as a child for Henry's next appearance, to Clare waiting to meet Henry in her present so they can begin their lives together, finally to Henry waiting to start traveling back in time and having all the momentous meetings with his child-version wife she always holds in such high regard. As all of these wonderful things are already fated to happen, waiting is all either person has to do to realize the rewards of such a love. So while they may not always be perfectly happy, Henry and Clare have the rare promise that everything will work out. 'Good things come to those who wait' has never been more true than this novel. Of course this raises the question of whether these two would ever have worked out without the predetermined nature of their love, or if indeed everything happens the way it ought to and even knowing the turns of events does not change what they mean. It's a real hell of a brain churn, but it makes for a magnetic story that deals with heavy and epic themes of love, destiny, fate, and the strength of each on simple people's lives.

Clare and Henry share a scene about halfway through the book on a swingset and Clare narratively makes reference to how as they swing in opposite directions they meet in the middle. This is obviously a thinly veiled metaphor in this context for the entire book. Like on the swing, spatially the two are together but apart meeting briefly in the middle and appreciating each other fully. Fortunately for the author, this metaphor worked wonderfully for me and lent a tragic sense of give and take and even inevitability to the entire proceedings. Indeed fate and destiny are important facets of this novel. Often Clare and Henry postulate that if Henry is coming from the future and telling her how her life will transpire (albeit vague for details), does she truly have free will or is she mechanically dancing to steps she never had a hand in crafting? It's a wonderful question explored many ways throughout the story. The simplest explanation given for the conundrum comes from Henry as he states that things will just happen the way they're meant to happen. This is not to be mistaken with being slave to fate, but rather the decisions you will make will always be the decisions you will make because you are uniquely you. It's a heady statement to comprehend to be sure, but a meaningful one. Essentially the author states that the things we do and experience are not important for the reasons we do them but for the experience of doing them. Does this rightly remove them from fate or is it simply a method of ignoring it? That's left up to the reader. In the end, even having knowledge of the future it is suggested that this factors into one's decision making and the results remain the same.

Fate shows its hand much more prominently in the final acts of the book as the pieces of Henry we've read throughout the novel start to come together and we notice frightening gaps in information where once there was a bounty. For instance, the reader may notice that the oldest Henry from the future we ever encounter in the pages of the book is forty three. Already this leaves a looming and dark question mark on a book that has thrived on the fact that everything would be relatively okay because in a sense it's all already happened. This translates onto our main characters wonderfully as they too slowly come to the same conclusions and the book winds itself inevitably and heartwrenchingly towards a future the reader and the couple inside cannot avoid. Henry and Clare live a volume of life together and share experiences most will never have the opportunity, eventually capitalizing on all of the 'waiting' potential and realizing the true love they only banked on for so long. As everything comes full circle, a sinking sense very similar to Henry's view on the future naturally blossoms in the reader -- that what will happen will happen regardless, so that in the final moments of the book as the pieces come together we are at once accepting and saddened greatly by the fulfilling completion of a novel's worth of complexity.

In the end, The Time Traveler's Wife was at once an uplifting and devastating book for me. Equal parts hopeful and profound as it provides the basic human nutrition that love is a force beyond our comprehension (like time traveling, get it?) and that it does eventually conquer all obstacles in time. In it's own way it doesn't exactly say anything new in the pantheon of love stories, but through the use of a slightly extraordinary metaphor (time travel) it connects us organically to inherit notions inside most of us. I was left with comparisons to my own life, the inevitability of life, and the notion that the future will transpire as it will no matter how hard I try to change it. This is at once a liberating and devastating message that's as true to life as it gets. Regardless of your gender or your aversions to a such-titled novel, I would highly suggest The Time Traveler's Wife to anyone looking for a profound statement on love, life, and our places in each.

Book: The Time Traveler's Wife: Pages 109-230-something

Wow, I'm really ripping through this book, huh? I feel like the last part of this review was a little tedious and overlong, so I will attempt to be perhaps a little more about the summary in this outing. This will be helpful because I've also covered a lot of ground.

"Christmas Eve, One (Always Crashing in the Same Car)"

This is a brief chapter where a 40 year old Henry finds himself at Clare's home on Christmas Eve, and offers up a rare glimpse into his past for the ever vigilantly curious Clare. He regails her of the story of the death of his mother on Christmas Eve when he was six years old. A combination of nervous driving on his mother's part and unfortunate conditions cause a highway collision in which Henry's mother is decapitated and in which he avoids a similar fate thanks to a random time jump.

This is a rare and important detail for the book as it informs Henry's aversions to driving and Christmas Eve, which are dealt with in more detail further in the book as we are exposed to a younger and 'current' Henry before he starts meeting childhood Clare. We are also informed by Henry that he has traveled back to the moments around the crash numerous times and has viewed it from almost every conceivable angle; a Hell in every sense of the word. It also gives a glimpse into the psyche of the time traveler and the reasons behind his strained relationship with his father; not to mention his all around "fuckedupedness" (from the book, I swear to God). It is, chronologically, also the first Christmas Clare spends with Henry (as Henry is 40 and has presumably spent many with Clare). It's not an altogether happy occasion, but it offers an informative glimpse into the rhythm of their narratively confused relationship.

"Christmas Eve, Two"

This section is a logical progression of the last chapter where we are now shown through Henry's narration the reaction he has to Christmas Eve. He's 25 and much younger and presumably less equipped to handle the post traumatic survivor's stress associated with the death of his mother 19 years earlier. After aimlessly wandering the Chicago streets and taking a generally glass-half-empty approach, Henry finds a local bar and proceeds to drink his problems into oblivion. As with real life, the problem becomes alcohol poisoning and before long he's waking up in a hospital with a pumped stomach, a seedy bartender whom he occasionally has sex with, and the realization that he indeed has an actual death wish (most likely to escape from the traumas of his life as well as the complications of his condition).

The second half of this section deals with a 17 year old Clare growing ever more concious of the fact that she and future-Henry are approaching a two year gap in which the next time they meet he will be current-Henry and have no knowledge of their meetings. Clare is spending the day doing the crossword with her grandmother and after a brief walk to the meadow they end up chancing on a 40 year old Henry. He introduces himself to Clare's grandma and then he disappears after which grandma raises some pointed and pertinent questions for Clare. It seems that the dangers and pitfalls of dating someone who blinks in and out of your timeline are constantly presented to Clare, but she chooses to ignore them. This speaks largely to the passion a person like Clare must have, but also speaks more broadly to the irrationality of love and the things one will ignore to achieve it. Clare, and by extension, the reader are left to question whether her actions are foolish, impassioned love or genuine emotions.

"Eat or Be Eaten"

This section introduces us to two of the more prominent characters for the next half of the book; Gomez and Charisse. Right from the get-go Gomez is singled out as an intriguing character. One gets the impression that he's up to no good, or simply has an unrequitted if not unnoticed lust for Clare. Either way Henry seems to take no issue with it. The chapter sets up Henry as a stupendous chef, Gomez a borderline anarchist, and the group as a whole to be something of a eclectic Bohemian collection of humans. The chapter name itself sets up an almost primal feeling that plays out over the section between Henry and Gomez primarily (though other characters get swept up) to establish dominance and to size each other up. The relationship, even as it evens out throughout this portion of the book, never quite sits comfortably as if both are at once intrigued and keeping the other around to keep an eye out. Gomez is threatened and therefore dwarfed by Henry's unique existence, while Henry is threatened by Gomez' lack of effort and carefree nature. It reads at once both comfortable and tenuous which is an interesting dynamic to explore.

The rest of the section deals with Gomez meeting a future Henry who knows and imparts tidbits of wisdom about his future to him and disappears, thus proving that he does indeed time travel. Gomez shares a conversation with Clare at first apologizing, the agonizing over future-Henry's secretive nature, and finally warning Clare to distance herself from her future and inevitable counterpart. We also get an intersting insight from Clare that even if she wanted to, distancing herself from Henry would be impossible as their lives are inextricably entwined. Indeed, when one steps back and takes in the bigger picture it is clear that both Clare and Henry's pasts and, by extension, futures (which in some cases are their pasts) are so tangled that it is questionable if either can paradoxically exist without the other. This brings into play again the question of fate and that, even if she wanted, is it even possible to change the fact she will be with Henry one day?

We are next treated to an amusing scene in which current-Henry is woken early in the morning by his future self; the two of which seem to have become extremely comfortable or even blase in their reactions to one another. Current day Henry even seems to resent his more confident, together future self and is torn between that resentment and the fact that one day with time he will be everything he currently resents. It's moments like this that make The Time Traveler's Wife such a fun read. A Violent Femmes concert is attended and we are shown that present day Henry is not yet entirely the man Clare loves and that he indeed has a darker and less morally light past than we may have believed. Interestingly, it's a future Henry whom reassures Clare of his past self's dedication to her and the eventual corrections he'll make to be with her.

"Christmas Eve, Three"

This section details both the first time Clare and Henry spend a Christmas together (discounting the previous one where future-Henry traveled backwards to 17 year old Clare), and sets up all sorts of potential disasters. These dilemmas are present in any relationship, but the hook here is the amplification they enjoy thanks to the peculiar condition Henry has of evaporating into time at any given moment. This event also plays as an indicator of Henry's devotion to Clare as he has never spent the holidays with a girlfriend or as sober as he ends up being. Clare's family responds reasonably well to Henry, if not a little unfairly because Clare's older brother Mark has just brought home his recently engaged, pregnant girlfriend as well. Henry does a good job of dodging most of the awkward moments, and after a time the reader sees the cracks in the facade Clare's family tries so hard to conceal. Overall, the scene plays out more or less normally. Clare's family one by one warms up to Henry in unique ways, Clare's mom seems to be a slight alcoholic with anger issues, and Henry sneaks every night into his girlfriends bedroom. Pretty standard stuff.

Standout moments include the fact that even though none of Clare's family has ever met Henry, some of them seem vaguely familiar of him. There is even a tantilizing throwback to "After the End" earlier in the book where Mark and his dad seem distressed that they are seeing Henry again ("After the End" was the vague appearance by Henry confronted by Mark and his dad in which both the reader and Clare have no idea what happened). Of course Henry tries desperately to stay in the present and only travels once in Church for a thankfully brief moment to his own apartment in the future. The future Henry calms him and tells him everything will be fine. There is also a scene at a party where Henry admires two young kids dressed in old school punk attire and muses why someone so young would harken back to an older age of their own free will. Not for a lack of love for the genre (he takes great interest in the children's interests), but it seems he begrudges their right to choose the era of their appearance as he obviously cannot. The section ends as Clare breaks down on the drive home, embarassed of her mother's behaviour and Henry calms her as he has (and will) lived with much more awkwardness.

"Home is Anywhere You Hang Your Head"

Henry has decided to propose to Clare, but first he must confront his estranged father and ask his permission and for the rings his mother wore. This chapter is more or less straight forward in which we learn that his father is not so much an angry, drunk, wretch of a man so much as he is Henry but for the loss of the love of his life. What begins as anger and resentment both on Henry's and the reader's parts, turns to pity and sadness as we realize that Mr. DeTamble has lost the ability to play music and his last tangible connection with his dead wife. He inquires about Clare and after listening for a time, decides its time to give up his wife's rings. Henry leaves his father, and one gets the impression that the elder DeTamble is a possible foreshadowing of Clare or Henry without the other. It's also hopeful that his dad will get his life together as Henry reveals that sometimes he still sees his mother happy and alive in the past, and suddenly Mr. DeTamble has a connection again.

Author's Note: Ugh, I was doing the whole chapter by chapter thing, but I am at the end of the book and this was just feeling tedious and a bit redundant. So, what I've decided I would do is that when I finish I will write one more post about this book and make that a comprehensive review. But since I have been writing this post for two days while still reading, I may as well have something to show for it. Overall, this chapter by chapter thing was a good learning experience.

Book: The Time Traveler's Wife: Pages 1-108

Author's Note: It dawns on me that this book has no chapters, only titled sections. So I put page numbers.

The Time Traveler's Wife is a book that has interested me for some time, and on the good word of mouth I've received I decided to give it a chance. This is a book that probably speaks to different people in different ways. For women, I imagine that the main hook is the deeply romantic tale of two people who are at once distanced and brought closer together by time itself. The story is a fairly complex dissertation on the power of true love and how it can overcome even the most outlandish of circumstances. Granted this is a generalization of how women may see things, but let's face it... I'm pretty dead on here.

For me, and perhaps the greater male gender in general, this book is interesting for the more (for lack of a better term) sci-fi elements contained within. Make no mistake, the love story is the central draw and the reason the novel exists, but the complexities of two people meeting at various different stages of one of their lives is at once fascinating and enjoyable. Personally, I would be remiss to exclude the fact that I am also turning each page to see how these two people end up together. I think any reasonably well adjusted human being finds comfort in the display of love as an all-conquering emotion, to say nothing of how it sometimes also makes life unnecessarily complicated.

For this "chapter by chapter" review, I will try and focus on each section of the novel.

The Man Out of Time "First Date, One"

This is a very interesting introduction to the concept of the novel. Though unbeknownst to the reader, the author Audrey Niffennegger writes this chapter the opposite of how she will write the rest of the book. This section deals with a 20 year old Clare meeting a 28 year old Henry. This is important because Clare will not meet Henry until he is 36, when she is 6 years old. Essentially, Clare has known Henry (a FUTURE Henry) since she was 6 years old, and some form of future Henry has known all of what was to transpire in her life ever since. The irony of "First Date, One" is that for once she has met present day Henry and he is uninformed. The other treat for the reader is that while reading the chapter one does not know that this is decidedly opposite of the rest of the book, but only upon looking back do the details reveal themselves. This is a technique that the author uses throughout the story; mentioning seemingly minor details that later either happen to one of the characters or plays a large part of the story.

This section goes a long way to demonstrate the way that each characters knowledge of each other doesn't necessarily always coincide with the other's and the general give-and-take of their relationship moving forward. Henry is presented here as a man with a very specific impairment; time traveling without a moment's notice, and he is understandably a bit disorganized and skiddish for it. Still, he is honestly committed to living as normal a life as possible. Clare, seen here in an obviously more adolescent-transition stage, seems to relish the flirtiness and 'power' that comes with the things she knows about her future husband. We learn fairly early on that each character has chosen (in either the future which is technically the past since it's "happened already" or the past when Henry was from the future) to withhold certain informations about and around the other as a means not to complicate their lives any more than they would have to. This is an effective literary tool which allows the author to be vague, as well as surprise the reader and her characters when they are given missing pieces to an almost complete picture.

The chapter deals with their rare "first date" (one which is presumably the first date for Henry with Clare but not vice versa), and how even though Henry has just met the girl he clearly feels a deep connection thanks to her intimate foreknowledge of him. The dinner they have is distracted at best as they try to root out how comfortable to be considering Clare has been presumably close to this man her whole life, though he hasn't done that yet. One thing leads to another and they end up back at Henry's apartment where they sleep together in what at once feels natural and awkward given the circumstances. It's revealed that, for Clare, this is the first time she is able to openly share this relationship with Henry in an honest and natural way with the world (as a time traveler story would likely get her committed). At once this scene is the end of Clare's time getting to know an older version of Henry, the beginning of Henry's knowing of Clare, and technically the continuation of a relationship that has existed for 14 years. Pretty cool.

"A First Time for Everything"

This is a very interesting chapter in which we learn three things: that Henry commonly meets up with himself at different eras in his life; the first time he ever time traveled; and briefly how it is he survives when he finds himself stranded in new times with few resources.

We are treated briefly to a story of Henry's five year old self enjoying the Field Museum of Natural History on his birthday to begin. This both informs the character's love of knowledge and learning (he's a librarian later in life) but also expresses the wonder he inherently possesses which will make the fantastic nature of his 'impairment' all the easier to cope with. We then cut to a narration of Henry later in life and he finds himself back at the same museum years in the past, only now he is much older. Here he will meet his five year old self upon his first involuntary trip into time. In the first of many paradoxical scenes we learn it is Henry who helps his young self come to terms with the disorienting nature of his condition, and that he remembers the encounter vividly from when he was five years old. We also get glimpses of the older Henry's proficiency in picking locks and going to rather illicit means to procure necessary items for survival (even when that survival involves indoctrinating the fragile child version of himself with the faculties needed to handle what's going to happen to him). It's a very sweet scene of a man and a child sharing a night that each remembers and will remember for the rest of their lives.

"First Date, Two"

This section deals with the first time Clare meets Henry. She is six years old at this time (Henry is 36). Of course Henry knows a lot about Clare as he is from their mutual future, but he does not know yet the first time he meets her as a child (the technical first time he meets her is when he is 28, as seen in "First Date, One"). That just so happens to be the day he finds himself in. It's a very delicate scene for both the characters and the reader as we are essentially presented a naked 36 year old hiding and being discovered by a 6 year old. It plays reasonably well and Henry is able to convince his future wife that he is indeed from the future, and that if he is to continue traveling back in time he will need her help and companionship. These are fun moments in this book because we get to learn things the characters assume, but have never experienced yet. For instance Clare remembers the times as a girl she met Henry and got to know him, but the 36 year old Henry in this section has never had that initial meeting, but knows it has to happen (because the Clare who is his wife has told him it will/did). Seeing it play out is a rare mix of what is arguably destiny or fate -- two topics that are sometimes touched on later in the book to much discussion.

Here we learn the set up of how Henry will travel back to dates he tells Clare (because she wrote them down as she grew up he can tell her when he comes back when he came back), and how she will wait for him and provide shelter, food, and clothes. We also get the first few forays into the Clare coming to terms with the fact that she knows someone who knows how her life will play out no matter what she does (a concept that is expertly handled for the character as she matures and realizes the ramifications of such a friend).

"Lessons in Survival"

This is a fairly simple chapter in which an older Henry imparts on his nine year old counterpart the skills he has learned (from himself when he was nine -- a veritable mobius strip of continuity) in order to stay alive when he travels to dangerous and bewildering times. It involves the two learning to pick pockets and properly dupe unwitting marks as well as dealing with the moral ramifications of existing in such a way.

There is a fairly poignant scene later in the section in which Henry the older must reveal to Henry the younger that they are indeed the same person. Ultimately this serves to dishearten the younger as he finds for the first time that he is truly alone (without some mystical protector who guides him through his endeavors -- young Henry was under the impression that old Henry was in fact a fellow time traveler and that there were others like himself), and that he is unlikely to ever find someone like himself to lighten his burden. It is a testament to the author that these scenes, while absolutely fantastical in nature, can still resonate so personally given their unusual context.

The rest of the section deals with two 15 year old Henry's engaging in what I suppose could be considered masturbation (he is the same person only a few weeks older in one instance) and how their father deals with that. We get some more musing between Clare and Henry on just how real Henry is (that is to say she wonders reasonably if he may be a figment of her imagination); Clare gains obviously deeper attractions to Henry and begins to pry about their future; and over chess they have conversations about the nature of fate, how God is involved if he exists, and if their lives are already set in stone and they are just living out a script. These are all interesting vignettes as the questions and encounters are just as easily shared by the reader as they are with the characters. If anything the extraordinary circumstances of the novel cause the reader to become more mentally engaged in the complexities of the proceedings, and that's as admirable as it is entertaining.

"After the End"

This section opens with a very cryptic scene in which a 13 year old Clare awakens to find a 43 year old Henry in the meadow confronted by her angry father and brother. Not much more is revealed as to the 'how' of the situation, except a foreboding that something significant happens that both Clare and the reader are not privy to. The section title "After the End" also suggests a tone of finality.

The rest of the section covers a quiet moment where Henry accidentally reveals to Clare the way her mother will eventually die, and the inevitable sexual overtones their relationship begins to manifest as Clare reaches the age of 16. We are also shown an instance in which an adult Clare has only informed Henry of vague details of a brutal act committed upon her when she was young that an older Henry helped exact vengeance for. The section is concluded with a scene where the two briefly flirt with the idea of seeing if they can affect the future by changing the past.

Overall, The Time Traveler's Wife is a very intriguing book. The writing is very tight and makes it easy to designate the various layers of complexity that make up its narrative. It is also a book that forces you to retain details as you go due to the nature of time travel. It definitely has me turning each page with anticipation and enough curiosity to wonder where this is all going to end up, and frankly it would be hard to ask anything else of a novel these days.