Standing in yet another pair of shoes. (The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger)

Member Name: QueenElf

Product:	The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Date:	13/03/08 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Captivating.

Disadvantages: None.

~~~Standing in another pair of shoes.~~~

First of all can I say that I am not expecting a great deal of reads for this review. It's been reviewed exceptionally well by ten other members and I don't think there is a lot that I can add to their reviews. So why bother to review it at all? Simply because its a wonderful book and if I left it any longer then the film will be out and if its anywhere as good as the book then I expect a lot of people to start reading the book because of the film...if you know what I mean.

I have never heard of the author before now and will I read any of her new novels on the strength of this, her debut novel? I honestly don't know. The author is a Visual artist and a professor in Chicago. She's written another novel and from the bit I have read about her on the Internet, the film of the book is due out sometime this year. My feelings about a film based on the book are ambiguous. For a start it's a very complex plot with more than enough problems to require a lot of special effects. Then there's the length of the book, 518pages in the paperback version. My last reason belongs in the summary of the book.

~~~Plotting and the Paradox.~~~~

The book is essentially a love story, though a highly unusual one. Its also a rather weird and wacky look at that old familiar paradox...time travel on the level of one person and the effects it can/will have on the future. I agree that this book cannot be pinned down into either category of Romance or science fiction, so is loosely put under the heading of General Fiction.
Sorry, but that's pushing it into a category where it will not "grab" the attention of both men and women. I can only reiterate that this book will appeal to anyone of either sex from 18 to 80. (its too graphical for under 18's, though possibly with parental supervision????)

Clare, the heroine of the book has an advantage on Henry, the time-traveller. For Clare has met her future husband long ago in her past when she was first aged six and Henry a man of various ages. Clare's family are well-to-do people with a beautiful old house and sufficient acreage that allows Henry to appear and disappear without causing too much alarm. Since Henry cannot take any object or piece of clothing with him on his time travels, then this is a perpetual danger to him. Just imagine materialising like someone from Star trek but stark naked. This is mostly hinted at, though there are a few examples of Henry arriving at some past time in the middle of nowhere and needing to find both food and clothing, as well as shelter. But we, the reader, do not get to know about Henry's ways to survive until we first meet him as Clare sees him, in a library where she goes to further her research and meets Henry for the first time in the immediate present. Clare is then twenty and Henry is twenty-eight. This is part of the paradox. Until Henry actually meets Clare in his own present time, then he can't travel back in time to meet her when he's much older and she is just a child.

This grab's the reader's interest long before we really get to know the two main characters and from there on the narrative just gets better and better. The author is not afraid to throw in some more problems as Henry actually gets to meet his younger and older selves and even to interact with them. Of all the sci-fi books I have read, this is the ultimate paradox, yet the author breezes through it with an ease that would leave many of the science fiction great authors left standing.
So the story continues with each chapter revealing a little more about the couple and why Clare already knows that she is going to become Henry's wife in the near future. Though what will happen when Henry vanishes suddenly and Clare is left behind to wonder just where and when he is. For Henry seems to have little control over where and when he time-travels and Clare is left waiting for him to return, hours/days/weeks later.

~~~Writing Style.~~~~

Apart from the Prologue and the first time that Clare and Henry meet in their shared present, the chapters leap about from past to future, to present, to shared futures until it becomes a bit dizzy. It's here that the author helps by providing the date and the ages of the participants of that chapter. So one would start like this:-

Saturday December 24th,1988. (Henry is 40, Clare is 17.)

Some readers find this confusing, I found it helped as I didn't have to work the dates out. The author deals with the whole concept of time-travel in a deceptively easy way. In the future Henry will meet a doctor who will be able to diagnose his condition as a genetic chromosome dysfunction, not that it will help him to cope with his time-travelling, though it is stress related in some ways. I mention that because it leads to some hilarious misunderstandings in what is, essentially, a fairly serious book.
I did have a few quibbles with the science behind the story. Why did the older Henry travel back in time so often when Clare was just a child? His condition is supposed to be random, and there is no explanation for this. Of course it helps, as the young Clare manages to get a box of old clothing together for Henry to wear when he appears stark naked.
At other times he travels randomly and gets beaten up fairly regularly for stealing, indecent exposure and breaking and entering.
Wanted throughout his lifetime for these offences, I wondered why he never got caught. Also, the fact that he never travelled beyond America did seem to suggest that he could control his time travel, when the author says he cannot do this for himself. Perhaps that's part of the mystery and wonder of the book.

~~~Leaving Behind~~~~

Though the concept is intriguing and completely believable, there is only so much a reader can accept. I saw the book in two different ways and loved both of them. If I seem critical it's only as I want people to read and enjoy this as much as I did.
In the first instance I could accept it as a love-story with a huge difference. The woman could never know when her man would disappear. Pretty traumatic especially on their wedding day. The beatings that happened to Henry, the drugs he takes to try and stabilise his condition, they all add up to an immensely readable book.
The element of his time-travelling could be almost an allegory for love's different stages in any couple's lives. The love between Henry and Clare spans a lifetime of innocence, laughter, joy, unbridled sex and the agonies of trying for a baby when one partner has a chronic condition not conducive to having a healthy baby.

I loved the book. I wanted to tell everyone I knew about it the moment I put it down. Then I wanted to pick it up and read it again, but it's a long book and I know that I will see more in it on a second reading. How do I sell it to you? Well I'm really just re-enforcing other opinions. The main issue is whether it would appeal to men as well as women. I can't judge that, mainly as few men comment on what they see as a "women's" book.
Shall I give Henry the last word? It would be appropriate I think.
"If I had to live on without you I know I could not do it. But I hope. I have this vision of you walking unencumbered, with your shining hair in the sun. We will see each other again Clare. Until then, live fully, present in the world, which is so beautiful.
I love you always, time is nothing."

This beautiful big book is full of feelings. Read it and live. Think of time as the joker in the pack, always surprising you when you least expect it.

Available on Amazon and Ebay from as little as 90p or look among the 2nd hand book shops as I do and found this at a bargain price of £2.50.

©Lisa Fuller. March 2008.

Summary: A big book full of heart.