The Time Traveler's Wife

I just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. In my earlier post I mentioned how I was currently reading this book and how good it was. After finishing this book, I still cried at the end even though I knew what was going to happen. (I really am going to work on reading a book from beginning to end and not skipping ahead because I am robbing myself of the experience to just let the plot develop naturally.)

I really enjoyed this book and found the story to be satisfying and fulfilling. The book is about a man named Henry who has the ability to time travel. I know you’re thinking science fiction, lame, but it’s not a science fiction novel. This novel looks at time and how our future, past and present is always interconnected with us and how time is always constant. Niffenegger explains Henry’s ability to time travel as a genetic disorder, which I sometimes feel isn’t satisfactory enough, but then the story would be about how he is what he is and not about his life.

Henry cannot control when he is going to time travel or where to. He usually travels to the past and to places that he has been to, and occasionally he travels to his future. This is where things can get confusing. As an adult he time travels and meets his wife, Clare, when she is a child. But remember, he is currently married to her in his present. (This is where the whole concept of time travel boggles my mind and I can’t quite wrap my mind around this phenomenon because I then feel like there are multiple dimensions or parallels, however you want to look at it. But I don’t believe Niffenegger views time in that way, and just believes that time is continuous and it’s all connected.) So he meets his wife as a young girl and you see how their relationship develops through the course of time.

It’s a very moving story and looks at true love through a different perspective. Does Clare fall in love with Henry because she knows that in her future he’s her husband or was it only natural for Clare to fall in love with Henry because time put the two of them together? When Clare and Henry finally meet in his present, he does not know who she is, while she has known him all her life. She is already in love with him and has been waiting for the day for them to finally meet and he is just learning who she is. Here there relationship develops all over again as Henry falls in love with Clare.

I love how this story jumps back and forth between times. It can get confusing, but it all makes sense in the end. Niffenegger also tells the story between Henry and Clare’s point of view, which I think is interesting also. It enables the reader to see different perspectives over the same incident. I love how she uses time as a character in itself. All Henry wants is to be able to stay in his present and not be an interloper throughout time. Henry makes an interesting point about how he only has free will in the present and he doesn’t have free will when he is time traveling. Even when he knows his future, he does nothing to change or alter it because its done, it has already happened.

This is a great book and I encourage others who like to think on another level to read it. Cause this book will definitely force you to think.