The Time Traveler's Wife

Rating:
Summary: Dirty enough not to read
Review: I'll be honest and say I didn't make it very far in this book. Let me just tell you up front that after the fourth dirty section I lost interest. The author should stick to story telling (...). Instead of writing about love making she gets caught up in the dirty details of explicit sex (...); and all this in the first 100 pages. If you want a wholesome feel good book, this is not for you.

Rating:
Summary: Movie Like Imagery
Review: There is a vividness to "The Time Traveler's Wife" that is amazing. I see every detail. Reading the book is like seeing a movie in my head, not unlike reading "My Fractured Life" or "Seabiscuit." "The Time Traveler's Wife" is both romance and drama, science fiction and literature. It easily holds its own among "Secret Life of Bees," "The Lovely Bones," and "My Fractured Life" on my short list of recommendations.

Rating:
Summary: Yes, there is such a thing as adult science fiction
Review: Science fiction today is not necessarily found in the science fiction section of the local bookstore, a very sensible state of affairs indeed. After all, this is not 1955; the future is not fifty or a hundred years away anymore, it's next week. At that time, we will be dealing with the same problems, and calling upon the same inner resources, that we have now, which was always the case, but it's more obvious these days. The only difference will be in the tools we have at hand. Our souls will be the same, and so will our stories. The Time Traveler's Wife is a good case in point.

Audrey Niffenegger's debut novel is about a woman married to a man with a dangerous task to perform that takes him away from home for indefinite periods to places she cannot go; he himself points out that it's not unlike being married to a policeman. As the title indicates, however, Clare DeTamble's husband Henry travels in both time and space, for no particular reason.

In truth, this is not a science fiction story, or at least not a recognizable one. A doctor arrives at a genetic explanation for Henry's malady, but apart from that the story contains little advanced technology of any kind. Nevertheless, as it is set (partly) in a viable future and contains a new development in human evolution, we will quietly claim it for sf, because it is a beautiful piece of work and deserves the honor of the title. (We are a little biased, as you can plainly see.)

It is a first novel, and suffers from some first-novel flaws. Although narrated by Clare and Henry in turn, it has a lot of trouble providing distinct voices for the two of them; husband and wife are poetic and sensitive, philosophical and very much in love, so that apart from the fact that one travels and the other does not, they are linguistically indistinguishable. More seriously, Ms. Niffenegger seems to have a problem with violence. Not that she's incapable of writing about it; she's a little squeamish, is all.

Henry DeTamble's violent ways make perfect sense; at a moment's notice he may find himself in dangerous territory without money or clothes, and therefore develops mastery in mugging, breaking and entering, picking pockets and other crimes, some of which we see him practice to assure his survival. He also has a nasty habit, before encountering Clare, of drinking too much and womanizing. Believable, is it not? On the other hand, he reads great books and works with special collections at a Chicago library. He is intimately familiar with museums of various kinds and cooks wonderful meals at the drop of a hat. His is a complex personality. Fine. So why does Ms. Niffenegger insist on describing his drunken outrages and bone-breaking episodes in her loveliest, most poetic terms?

In short, like many first-time authors, this one tends to serve her own needs before her story's, and I don't care because the book works. It's lovely, and it carries the reader along for the ride so smoothly that you don't quite notice how much you hop around the years. Not only does Ms. Niffenegger get you deeply inside this dedicated, loyal and loving marriage and get your praying for its success despite formidable pain, she also manages the neat trick of mapping out a complex plot while describing its events seriously out of order. The narrative at various times jumps backwards, or more rarely forwards, by up to twenty years or so, yet we are never confused as to when we are or what's going on. And she's not so devoid of mischief as to fail to take advantage of the opportunity to foreshadow important events through one character's eyes and withhold the payoff for hundreds of pages.

Thankfully, the plot points and tricks (delicious through they are) do not overwhelm this novel. Henry and Clare, their various family members and friends are also real people with real lives, real jobs and interests, real sins. A good story often includes real-world knowledge apart from its basic scheme of events, and this one teaches us something about library operations, papermaking, cooking, genetics and music without interrupting that all-important flow.

So here's a long but fast-reading book about a successful marriage between two real people with real problems and real disagreements. It's even got certain markings of a classic tragedy and a closing that's enough to melt the heart of a snowman. I'm not sure the title is quite accurate, since the story is as much about Henry as it is about Clare and more about them both than either one separately. Quibbles aside, though, and despite the flaws, this is about as impressive a debut effort as we've seen for many a long year, however counted.

And you thought science fiction was kid stuff. Hah.

Benshlomo says, Believe it or not, you're living in a science fiction story.

Rating:
Summary: Unstuck In Time
Review: In 1969 a novel by Kurt Vonnegut was published in which Billy Pilgrim had come unstuck in time. In "Slaughterhouse-Five" Billy wandered willy nilly to the past and future, met philosophical aliens, fell in love, and along the way witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden during World War II. Now in "The Time Traveler's Wife" Billy is back, reincarnated in the character of Henry DeTamble. But Henry has little in common with Billy Pilgrim aside from his chronologic unstuckedness, for the author's concerns are very different from those of Vonnegut. While Vonnegut focused his ironic scrutiny on the foibles of humanity in general, Niffenegger's gaze is turned inward, toward (shall I say it?) the tangled mysteries of the human heart. There, I said it. So sue me.

You might say the "The Time Traveler's Wife" is a love story with a time traveling twist; or a time travel story with a romantic twist. Both are true, and neither - and this is what makes it difficult to categorize. Is it a science fiction story? That depends on how exacting your definition of SF is. Look at it this way: If you were to strip away the time-traveling element, the tale simply wouldn't work; it would collapses without the support of its framework. Take away the love story, and there's no story. All that's left is a hapless guy unstuck in time with nothing meaningful to do.

Now the particulars. Clare Abshire is eight years old when she first meets Henry as he appears naked in her meadow. Henry is 28 when he first meets Clare in a library, both fully clothed this time. At this library meeting Henry doesn't know Clare from Adam's cat, yet Clare has known Henry since she was eight, and has always loved him. For Henry, it's not quite love at first sight, but close enough. Thus begins the strangest, most convoluted love story I can recall reading, or seeing in the movies.

Henry has no control over when or where he goes. Think of it as a bizarre form of epilepsy, with which it shares certain symptoms. Henry may be contentedly reading a book, begins to feel light headed and nauseous, and suddenly finds himself naked in the middle of February, in the middle of the night, sprawled in eight inches of snow on a sidewalk in downtown Chicago. This is the reason Henry runs to stay in shape. He depends on his feet to keep him ahead of whomever may find him naked in their back yard or cornfield. He has taught himself to pick locks, to steal clothes and shoes, to pilfer food. For Henry it's all a matter of survival.

Clare compares herself to a sailor's wife who scans the horizon for the return of her her wayward Odysseus. She never knows when Henry will leave or how long he will be gone. Sometimes he is gone for minutes, sometimes an entire day. All that's left of him are his clothes where they collapsed on the floor. All she can do is worry, and go about her business of making art.

No synopsis can prepare the reader for the twists and turns the story takes. Speaking for myself, it grabbed me and wouldn't let me go until the last page was turned. It may be a romance, a love story, yet Audrey Niffenegger pulls no punches here. She is brutally realistic in her unfolding of the implications of her premise. "The Time Traveler's Wife" is populated by characters the reader cares about, all carefully drawn by the subtle hand of the artist. I haven't found any information about the author, but I would be surprised if this were a first novel. It is too complete for that, too deft, and too carefully plotted. The dialogue is often clever, yet has the undeniable ring of authenticity. The plot flows naturally and unforced from the premise, and from the heartfelt desires of its characters(...)

Author Audrey Niffenegger owes only one thing to Vonnegut: a basic premise. The rest is hers alone.

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe I cried at the end
Review: Who wouldn't want the ability to go into the future to get the winning lotto numbers. I would, I would. who wouldn't want the ability to meet your wife as a child, see your self as a child, and have your child see you as a dead guy. Aha this book makes for an interesting read. It was again as I've said before a joy of words, and I shed a few tears. Now that's a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Could Be True
Review: Audrey Niffengger's "The Time Traveler's Wife" beautifully captures the spirit of time travel with her scene changes, while focusing more prominently on character driven story issues (love, marriage, children, religion) as the foundation of the book. Even though the scenes move about through time, Niffengger never loses us because of the careful structure of how the scenes are sequenced. The scene structure of moving through time out of sequence but for the effect of actually telling the story in sequence of priority is similar to author Rikki Lee Travolta's stunning "My Fractured Life" and the equally stunning film "Momento". Also, like both "Momento" and "My Fractured Life" the characters are human and defined with impeccable clarity - although that clarity shifts and changes with revelations from scene to scene. I really did find myself emotionally attached to the characters. The unconventional but fantastically perfect use of injection of Rilke and Walcott poems was also reminiscent of the use of Edgar Alan Poe and Tennessee Williams injections within "My Fractured Life." It is amazing that this is a first novel because it is written with a fresh ingenuity of seasoned skill.

Rating:
Summary: A Time Travel Winner
Review: Readers will be entranced by this engaging tale of love over time. I read this one in very little time and I'm sure you will too, it really does hold your attention and is a unique storyline.

Rating:
Summary: Hold On for the Whole Ride
Review: I found "The Time Traveler's Wife" thoroughly enchanting on a level not many books capture. With the exception of "The Da Vinci Code," "My Fractured Life," and "The Secret Life of Bees" it is hard to book that comes close to "The Time Traveler's Wife" in the sheer ability to capture the reader and hold on. No knocks against other authors - I read hundreds of fantastic books a year but not all of them grab me for the whole ride. "The Time Traveler's Wife" is original, grabs you from the start, and is fully satisfying.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books!
Review: I was thoroughly enchanted by this book. I loved it.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating concept and emotionally intriguing
Review: The concept of this novel compelled me to purchase it. I expected to be fascinated with the read and wasn't disappointed-for the most part. Niffenegger demands attention and challenges the reader to think. My mind was reeling at the implications of time travel in the beginning scenes. Then, I became invested in the love story of Clare and Henry on top of that. This novel is intellectually and emotionally taxing at times, but that is a good thing.

As did other reviewers, I wanted to know more about the other characters, Gomez in particular. Gomez was integral to the story and I feel as though I hardly knew him.

I do think the story faltered at times, especially near the end, but not as much as it could have. Overall, I was pleased with this intriguing story. If you like a little sci-fi and thought provocation in a novel, read this one.