The Time Traveler's Wife
I think it's about time we broke this place in with a good book review, don't you? Therefore, re: the following; a good book.
Honestly, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is the best book I've read this year. It follows the lives of Clare and Henry, with excerpts (from a single paragraph to several pages long in each instance) from their lives, from their individual perspectives. Here's the hitch: They're not exactly in chronological order.
Henry De Tamble suffers from 'Chrono-impairment', and as a result will find himself hurtling back and forth in his own life-time, with one or two visits beyond it at both ends. Not to be mistaken with Quantum Leap, Henry takes his body with him and materializes, naked, anywhere at all, provided that he has been there before. He (in his 30's) teaches himself (at age five) how to pick pockets. How to find spare clothes or something to eat in a building that's been closed for the night. How to defend himself. Namely, all the preparations one can make after landing in an unprecedented situation, again and again.
Clare and Henry have friends, they have left-over problems with exes. They have their high points and low points. Through it all, Henry helplessly vanishes in a gush of vacuum to some far-off place for hours or days at a time. Clare is always waiting for him to get back, safe and sound.
The beauty of this book is not the time-travel aspect, which plays a huge part throughout, but rather the developing relationship between Clare and Henry. She first encounters Henry when she is six, outside her house on her family's rather expansive property. He is about 40. He does not meet her for the first (sic) time until she is 20, and he is 28 in real time. She leaves one hell of an impression on him.
The detail Niffenegger put into bringing these two to life is, frankly, extraordinary. The characters have real fears, flaws, dark sides and doubts that are a part of them from beginning to end. They're real. I think that's what drew me to this book as much as anything else, although I am an admitted sci-fi geek.
I loaned a copy of TTW to a friend and co-star in Proof. She devoured it. I then made a gift of a new copy for her when her birthday came around, and she devoured it again. Another co-star had also read the book, and we spent three hours at a pizzeria (horrible service, incidentally) just talking about the book. I haven't done that before. I haven't come across a book good enough to warrant that before. At least not as a 'spur of the moment' thing.
I've read the book three times. If you have a romantic sinew in your body, you will love something in this book. I can't recommend it enough. Go. Go buy it now. I'll wait.
Honestly, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is the best book I've read this year. It follows the lives of Clare and Henry, with excerpts (from a single paragraph to several pages long in each instance) from their lives, from their individual perspectives. Here's the hitch: They're not exactly in chronological order.
Henry De Tamble suffers from 'Chrono-impairment', and as a result will find himself hurtling back and forth in his own life-time, with one or two visits beyond it at both ends. Not to be mistaken with Quantum Leap, Henry takes his body with him and materializes, naked, anywhere at all, provided that he has been there before. He (in his 30's) teaches himself (at age five) how to pick pockets. How to find spare clothes or something to eat in a building that's been closed for the night. How to defend himself. Namely, all the preparations one can make after landing in an unprecedented situation, again and again.
Clare and Henry have friends, they have left-over problems with exes. They have their high points and low points. Through it all, Henry helplessly vanishes in a gush of vacuum to some far-off place for hours or days at a time. Clare is always waiting for him to get back, safe and sound.
The beauty of this book is not the time-travel aspect, which plays a huge part throughout, but rather the developing relationship between Clare and Henry. She first encounters Henry when she is six, outside her house on her family's rather expansive property. He is about 40. He does not meet her for the first (sic) time until she is 20, and he is 28 in real time. She leaves one hell of an impression on him.
The detail Niffenegger put into bringing these two to life is, frankly, extraordinary. The characters have real fears, flaws, dark sides and doubts that are a part of them from beginning to end. They're real. I think that's what drew me to this book as much as anything else, although I am an admitted sci-fi geek.
I loaned a copy of TTW to a friend and co-star in Proof. She devoured it. I then made a gift of a new copy for her when her birthday came around, and she devoured it again. Another co-star had also read the book, and we spent three hours at a pizzeria (horrible service, incidentally) just talking about the book. I haven't done that before. I haven't come across a book good enough to warrant that before. At least not as a 'spur of the moment' thing.
I've read the book three times. If you have a romantic sinew in your body, you will love something in this book. I can't recommend it enough. Go. Go buy it now. I'll wait.
posted by Casey Jones @ 12/06/2004 09:10:00 AM
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