Basic Facts:
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Book: The Time Traveler's Wife
First published: 2003
I read: The Vintage paperback edition, published in 2004
First line: It's hard being left behind.
I first read The Time Traveler's Wife in 2004 pretty soon after the paperback version was published, and I just loved the book! It made quite an impression on me. I still remember thinking that it was the best, most interesting book I had read that year, and it was a year when I read rather many novels! After rereading it now, I am able to say that I 'm still very much impressed by the story. I am a sucker for great stories :), and The Time Traveler's Wife truly is A Great Story! It is also very much current at the moment. The movie based on the book, and starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, is going to be released in August 14th in the USA, and also in the UK and Canada. And even without the movie, it simply is such a great summer read!
The Time Traveler's Wife tells the story on Henry, a librarian, and Claire, an artist, who meet (from Claire's point of view) for the first time in 1977, when Claire is only 6-years old, and Henry is 36. Henry, on the other hand, meets Claire for the first time, when she is 20 and he himself 28. How is this possible? It is possible, because Henry suffers from a rare genetical condition that makes him travel in time. He explains how that feels in the beginning of the book:
"It feels exactly like one of those dreams in which you suddenly realize that you have to take a test you haven't studied for and you aren't wearing any clothes. And you've left your wallet home."
When travelling in time he cannot bring anything with him from the present time. Thus he always arrives naked, and often has to succumb to crime in order to survive in the past or the future.
"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."Despite the time travelling aspect of the story The Time Traveler's Wife is not science fiction or fantasy. It is a gripping tale of sickness, sorrow, and loss, but above all it is a story about love. It is the extraordinary, and very touching love story of Claire and Henry, two ordinary people living in very extraordinary circumstances.
"I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow", laments Henry, and Claire's thoughts echo his:The truth is that as the story progresses is seems more often than not that Henry is not okay, when he returns to present time, and the reader starts to feel, actually quite early on, that maybe there will not be a happy end in store for Henry and Claire. And yet. Audrey Niffenegger has weaved a beautiful tale, a well-rounded story that makes you laugh and cry in equal proportions. I did shed a few tears, when I first read the book, but many lines also brought a smile on my face, like when Henry teaches Claire how to cook.
"I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way."
"Henry holds up an onion and looks at me gravely and says, "This...is an onion." I nod. "Yes. I've read about them."The author has managed to take a complex story that could be very incoherent, and tell it in a very coherent, easy-to-follow way from the start to the very touching, very bittersweet end. All in all this is a book you will not want to put down!
Audrey Niffenegger's new novel Her Fearful Symmetry will be out in the autumn.
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