The Time-traveler's Wife
(Audrey Niffenegger)
Audrey Niffenegger's The Time- Traveler's Wife utilizes an old concept -- time-travel -- in a completely new and original way. The time-traveler of mention is one of the story's two protagonists, Henry DeTamble, whose Chrono-Displacement syndrome forces him, without prompting or control, to fall into random points in his past or future. He always arrives unclothed (because, as he quickly learns, he can bring nothing with him when he jumps out of time), and as a result has to resort to criminality (primarily stealing and beating people) in order to survive. During one of his jumps out of Time he meets his future wife, Clare Abshire, who is six years old (Henry is thirty-six). Then, throughout Clare's childhood, she meets Henry again and again, in the meadow behind her house. On one visit, Henry provides her with a list of the dates on which he will be arriving in the meadow (having jumped from the future, he has access to this information), so as to insure that Clare will meet him. Soon Clare learns that Henry is her future husband (though he is deliberately sparing on the details of their life together), and as a result spends a vast majority of her childhood avoiding questions from friends as to why she never dates. At their final meeting (there is a two-year span between when Henry last visits Clare from the future and when she finally meets him in the present), Henry refuses to tell Clare how they will actually meet, saying only that they meet in Chicago in two years. When they finally meet, Clare has seen Henry in the meadow 152 times, but Henry has never met Clare -- all of his encounters with her are still in Henry's future. He quickly learns that she has an entire history with him, and they begin dating. They soon marry. The book explores the difficulties Clare faces in being married to a man who can disappear at a moment's notice, without warning (for example, at their wedding), and who often reappears in dangerous places (in the middle of fights, in extremely cold weather, in front of moving vehicles), always entirely naked. The time-travel itself is handled beautifully, although it takes the reader several chapters to fully understand how the time-travel works (since Henry appears in time at all different ages, although the moments in time can be days apart). Clare and Henry struggle with the birth of a child, look for a cure for his disease (a disease which, until Henry jumps in and out of time in front of his doctor, goes unbelieved and undocumented), as well as cope with ordinary marital difficulties. As Henry ages, the trajectory of his life becomes increasingly apparent. Both the characters and the reader become enmeshed in a loop of time and events which cannot be changed. This is one of the key issues the novel presents: Henry's life is at times so tragic because though he is forced to relive, over and over, events such as the car crash which killed his mother, he can never change the outcome of the situation. Henry is forced to live his life in a bizarre, disjunct manner without any recourse for change. Thus, many times he knows his own future, as well as the futures of those around him, and struggles to keep tragedies secret, as well as joys, knowing that nothing can be changed, even if change is the one thing he desperately desires. Toward the end of the book Henry's jumps out of time become considerably more dangerous -- once landing on the hood of a moving car, another time ending up naked (as always) in winter, fifteen degrees below zero. In this period of his life, his journeys are the main cause of pain and sorrow. Niffenegger presents a tremendous love story, one which, like real-life love, is filled with joy, hardship, tragedy. Though time-travel could have easily been used in a hokey, campy, or tired way, Niffenegger presents the story so realistically and simply -- and the idlf is so fantastic -- that the book feels fresh, new, amazing. This is one of the best love stories to be written in a long, long time.
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