The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
September 16th 2006 03:36
The Time Travler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
It has a nice idea to get going though not entirely original. We have seen time warp romances before where a person travels back or front in time and falls in love with somebody from different era, haven’t we? (Think Kate and Leopold). Except that in this one, the time travelling gig is the routine not the exception.
Henry DeTamble is chrono-impaired which means he pops into past and future without control every few days. This is a bit convenient; when Henry is five and has done the time-travel for the first time, he has an older Henry to guide him through the confusion and when Henry is getting married and time travels at the nick of the moment under pressure, well, some other Henry is there just to make sure. Though I have never understood how these older Henrys could pop back to the time and date they want but the story has to go on.
On one of his journeys into the past, Henry meets a six-year old girl, Claire Abshire, his own future wife. They keep meeting now and then and he keeps tutoring her in French and maths and she won’t have sex with anyone else. They meet in real time when Claire is 20 and he is 28 and he does not know who Claire is but she knows who he is. They meet, date and marry and the first part ends. In the second part, the novel becomes more and more like Forget Paris, the diary of a expectant wife and a busy husband. They even have baby problems. One day, Henry comes back with a heavy brow and you know he has known of his own mortality from somewhere in time and the novel races to its unusually sappy conclusion.
I don’t know why this novel went on to become such a big hit. I know, its not one of those ordinary romances but a literate romance. By that they mean, I suppose, references to Carmina Burana and playing, not Monopoly but Modern Capitalist Mind-Fuck. I suppose normal romances do not come with such perks and therefore, they have to be neutered in search of these literate romances. Even if it happens to packs way more schmaltz than a normal romance can ever dare to do.
Strictly for those who have thought themselves out of reading romances but not the need for romance.
| 72 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
