Book: The Time Traveler`s Wife

Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Publisher:

You wouldn’t think that science fiction and romance are literary genres that go too well together, but Audrey Niffenegger manages to do just that in her debut novel The Time Traveler’s Wife. In Henry, the Time Traveler, and Clare, the Wife, Niffenegger paints a snapshot-like collage of the remarkable story of a couple who try to live through the difficulties of being subject to a genetic disease that causes Henry to vanish from his present and land, naked and disoriented, into any time in his past or future. It’s a bold concept, not without its flaws, but it keeps you glued to the story from beginning to end.

Henry explains that time travel, caused by Chrono-Displacement disorder, is not a pleasant experience. 'I can be reading the Sunday Times,' he says, 'coffee in hand and Clare dozing beside me on our bed and suddenly I`m in 1976 watching my 13-year-old self mow my grandparents` lawn. Some of these episodes last only moments; it`s like listening to a car radio that`s having trouble holding to a station. I find myself in crowds, audiences, mobs. Just as often I`m alone, in a field, house, car, on a beach, in a grammar school in the middle of the night. I fear finding myself in a prison cell, an elevator full of people, the middle of a highway. I appear from nowhere, naked. How can I explain? I have never been able to carry anything with me. No clothes, no money, no ID. I spend most of my sojourns acquiring clothing and trying to hide. Fortunately I don`t wear glasses.'

But time travel has its pluses. He can go back in the past, for example, and see his parents as young people, before the death of his mother in a gruesome car accident (although he often finds himself watching the accident over and over again from the side of the road). He can go into the future and find out about lottery tickets, stock market options, and other advances. Although he can’t change anything that happens in the past or future, he can let people know about important things that are going to happen to them. And, most significantly of all, he can go back and meet the girl that is going to become his wife, something which he does starting from when Clare is six and Henry is thirty-six.

It’s from these visits that the love story between Clare and Henry begins, although Henry keeps the visits entirely honorable while Clare is a girl and teenager. Clare is entranced by this visitor from the future, who she meets in a place called The Meadow, and leaves clothes and sandwiches for in a wooden box. As time goes by, Henry explains to Clare that she is going to be his wife sometime in her future (his past), and armed with this foreknowledge, Clare slowly falls in love with Henry.

Finally, they meet in real time, and the rest of the novel is about the stresses that Henry’s disorder places on their relationship. There is no such thing as a normal life when one of you time travels at unexpected moments; when Henry disappears, for minutes, hours, days, or even weeks, there is nothing Clare can do but wait, like Penelope waiting for Odysseus to return from his epic journey. This is a theme that Niffenegger plays on throughout the novel – that of the loneliness and longing that separated lovers go through against their will. Other challenges come up at different times – a previous lover of Henry’s who keeps reappearing in their life; Clare’s problems with her mentally unbalanced mother; Henry’s unresolved pain about his mother’s death; their inability to have a baby. Every time things get stressful for Henry, he disappears, and Clare has to keep the appareance of normality going so that other people don’t wonder where he’s gone.

For all its quirkiness and oddball premises, the novel flows beautifully; Niffenegger handles prose, characters, dialogue, and plot with the ease and control that belie a first-time novelist. Her descriptions of things are sensual and use all five senses, and she has an eye for detail and the beauty in small, everyday things. She manages to craft a love story in the midst of chaos, one that is haunting and evocative. Her setting, Chicago in the vibrant late 80s and early 90s, suits the novel’s fast pace and almost frenetic, jump-shot back and forth movement.

A few oddities will bother you if you’re a stickler for accuracy. A key scene in the story, which appears twice, is never fully explained, which causes a hole in the plot (as well as in other things). Also, Clare’s role as the subservient wife who is waiting and waiting and waiting for Henry to keep showing up is a bit odd – we never get to see her internal conflict about this whole deal, nor does she ever question her role in it. What would have happened if Clare had refused to marry Henry? Why doesn’t she ever get angry at him about the situation (she finally has a meltdown when the book is near its end)?

Still, The Time Traveler’s Wife is an impressive novel: gripping, evocative, thought-provoking. It’s a testament to the power of love to surpass time and space. It’s a sweet and heartbreaking love story. It’s a terrifically smart story, with an original and imaginative idea at its core. It will probably make you think a lot about your own past and future and the love that you hope is waiting for you out there. Read it if you can suspend belief long enough to be entranced; you won’t be disappointed.