Book Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife

Last night, or more accurately, this morning, I finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife for the second time. The first time I read it was I think September of 2007 (yes, I have a wonderful memory). Although I don’t love romance novels I do remember loving this book. I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I bought it last Christmas so I could read it again.

Surprisingly, the second time around, I’m not sure I still agree with my initial feeling of loving this book. The writing is good. The story however, is very unique. I also happen to be a sucker for any novel that relates in any way to time travel. I had forgotten though, how much this novel leaves me in agony. I’m all for bittersweet endings, don’t get me wrong, but this book is agonizing, far beyond bittersweet, most of the way through.

I may be partially to blame here, my husband Robert claims he can no longer read novels because he can no longer suspend belief. I, on the other hand, get very wrapped up in the world of every book I read. It’s not unusual for me to be very moved emotionally by any book I pick up, even out of boredom. This is why I’ve been questioning putting myself through this novel for the second time.

I don’t want to give anything important away, but in short, the main characters are Henry and Clare. Henry has a condition which causes him to spontaneously travel through time without a will to do so. He arrives naked, many times in public and stays anywhere from minutes to days. Clare is his eventual wife who does not time travel. They are caught up in a fascinating chicken and the egg life together. Henry travels backwards in time to when Clare is a small girl and spends time with her as she is a child while in his present being married to her. She falls in love with him and eventually finds him in the present time, tells him she is in his future, and they start their relationship in their “present”. The later Henry continues to show up and occasionally prompts the earlier Clare in how to help him become who he is when she knows him as a girl and he is middle aged. They are unconventional and charming but the suffering the spontaneous time travel causes them both throughout their lives is truly agonizing for me.

Their relationship is very authentic and sweet which is in part what makes the story compelling. The question of free will in their lives tangled up in time travel is really interesting and the author does a wonderful job weaving it all together. However, it’s pretty obvious from the beginning (or in retrospect, I’m not sure) that both characters are doomed to heartache throughout the duration of their lives together. Yes, I know this may be perceived by some as romantic. This book really is a modern day, very down to earth Romeo and Juliet story…but in place of the family rivalry there is Present Time vs. Future/Past Time. I’m not going to go into the ending, you will just have to read it for yourself.

To summarize, I still think it’s a great book, I still love its uniqueness…but I guess I’m just not into agonizing, tragic, love stories. It’s not the tragedy I want to avoid, I rarely read any book without at least a pinch, however for some reason this book seemed to be more suffering without fault than I can enjoy. The characters were thrown into lives where their free will choose was thrown into question and they spent most of the time suffering together with intermittent happy times, no thanks to fate. They had no power to change anything and you had to watch them go through the inevitable together which gives my knots in my stomach…which is why I can’t sleep when I read this book.

I want to reflect on what part of this type of tragedy makes me so uncomfortable. I’ve read slews of difficult novels where bad things happen. I think the difference is the characters always have either some level of reponsibility or they are victims of someone else who has the blame. What is it about blameless suffering that can’t be prevented that makes me uncomfortable? I guess it’s fairly normal, we humans fear and avoid things we don’t understand and/or can’t prevent. I guess one could find it redeeming that the characters triumphed over their out of control lives and managed to share a deep love anyway, but I know I wasn’t left with that comfort.

Definitely worth reading at least once.