book review for english

Book Review

THE TIME TRAVELLERS WIFE

Hannah McMillen

The novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife is written by Audrey Niffenegger as a debut novel that became a national bestseller in 2003. The novel has a unique concept and structure. Niffenegger was able to hold my attention for 518 pages, it is the kind of book that probably sounds like it would be difficult to follow but it was indeed very engaging and easy to follow. It’s a story about love, longing andvwaiting told from the perspectives of two charming characters

            The book is not the average time travel fantasy with a time machine and scientists. Henry DeTamble wishes he did not have the disorder known as Chrono-Displacement Disorder. It causes him to involuntarily travel in time, he drops in and out of various moments in life and when he does, he wakes up in another place and time, naked, nauseous and hungry. Henry's time travel drives the story, but is not really what the story is about. The story mainly revolves around a romantic relationship between a simple librarian guy called Henry and an artist, Clare who specialized in sculptures. From the outside, it seemed like a normal dating relationship. But the novel pushes questions of meaning and purpose, its built around the connection between Clare and Henry, and Clare’s longing for Henry.

            There is  so much real life-description in the novel, family tensions, friendships, rock shows, jobs. She describes a very realistic world, finding yourself believe people can really have involuntary time travel. The novel does not follow linear time, which makes the love story somewhat hard to understand. The novel is very compelling and will give you much to think about and feel.

            Throughout this book, Claire meets Henry a number of times throughout a young age, her teens and adulthood. Claire was six the first time she met Henry and he was a grown man. She found him in the meadow next to her house and they started talking. The story, you follow the times that Henry and Claire meet. Henry's age was usually switching between his twenties, thirties and forties whenever he visited Claire. Claire's life progressed chronologically throughout the story, whereas especially in the beginning, Henry was entering her life at different ages.

In Claire's present, Henry may only be gone for fifteen minutes, but to him, he has been visiting other years of his life for significant periods of time and reliving him. Henry is unable to change the past during his time travel - he can only replay the past. In some cases, Henry even watches himself in the same moment at two different ages in his life.

Claire knows from puberty that she is in love with Henry. Henry never "takes advantage" of her crush on him, even though she makes attempts to sway him in her teenage years. Their romantic encounters do not begin to happen until Claire is an adult.

“Our life together in this too-small apartment is punctuated by Henry's small absences. Sometimes he disappears unobtrusively; I might be walking from the kitchen into the hall and find a pile of clothing on the floor. I might get out of bed in the morning and find the shower running and no one in it. Sometimes it's frightening.”

In conclusion, this book is a must read. The love story is quite amazing. Claire and Henry go through quite a bit to be together. Henry disappears with almost no notice, and there is no way to know if he is ever coming back.