My brother gave me a copy of this for Christmas and I’ve only just gotten around to reading it. I thought it would last me a couple of days, since I’m confining my reading to limited periods because of the move. Wrong. I was totally sucked in and found it impossible to set down.
I rate books like this: Didn’t Like It, Not Bad, Enjoyed, Recommend This, and Will Read Again. The Time Traveler’s Wife
is the first book I’ve read in ages that earned a WRA. It beautifully explores the relationship between Henry and his wife Clare over the course of their lives–lives that are complicated by the fact that Henry is an involuntary time-traveller. In the book it is described as something like epilepsy, that he will have a fit that causes him to drop out of time. The book is smart, deeply moving and touches on the ideas of free-will versus pre-destination.
Read it.
Edited to Add: There are Spoilers in the comments.
I hated it.
Claire is completely passive, despite being the title character–but even in the title, she’s only referred to by her relationship to the really important character, the protagonist, she’s not named. She’s a spear carrier in the book, which is really the story of Henry, and how he manipulates her into every choice she makes, starting when she’s just a child.
I was really disturbed by the worldview reflected in this story.
I’d have to completely disagree with you about Clare’s passivity. Clare manipulates Henry just as much as he does her. They both withhold information from the other person until they live through it in their “natural” timestream. Not completely, of course, but as a general rule.
Take, for instance, Clare’s handling of Henry when he meets her for the first time (not when she meets him). At this point and for the first several years of their adult relationship, she holds all the cards because she knows their shared history/future and he doesn’t. Even before that, she manipulates him into beating up the high school jock for her but when she meets him in the “natural” timeline doesn’t tell him about the event until it happens for him.
Because he is the character that goes back and forth in time, he may seem like the more active character, but I do think the story is about their relationship.
Yes, Clare is put into the position of waiting for him, but I think if the gender roles were reversed so it was the time-traveler’s husband, that the position of being the one who waits would fall to the husband. I don’t think that it is a gender issue at all, which is the only thing that I can guess you mean when you talk about a disturbing worldview. I am guessing, however, so please let me know if I’m off the mark.
It’s not only about gender, although certainly that’s part of it: Claire’s waiting echoes the women who waited on shore for men at sea, or at home for men at war or exploring new trade routes. But I object to the worldview mainly because I believe in free will over fate and that convincing someone of the rightness of your proposed action is better than manipulating them into doing something because you want the outcome.
How would you describe the worldview of this book? What do you think it is saying about how things should be, or how they are?
Do you think Henry ever understands Claire as a person with her own desires and goals?
I think the book is written with great sympathy for Henry, and because I see him as an abuser and a narcissist, I don’t think that’s good.
What I found interesting about it was that I felt like the question of freewill versus fate wasn’t cut and dried. Like when Clare dates the picture and then cuts the date off later. That’s a choice that she makes and though she makes it because she knows the future, it is still a choice. If the date had been removed because of an accident at the framer’s then that would have had a very different impact, to me.
There’s a point when Henry says something like “you have to always act like you can make a difference.” I’m paraphrasing badly because I can’t find the section again, but the idea that I took out of it was that you might feel like you don’t have a choice, but you always have to act like you do. I think that’s how the bigger world works; I might feel pressured into things by family or friends or work or circumstances but I always have to act as if I have a choice, because I’m the one that has to live with the choices that I make. Not once, that I saw, did Henry ever escape from a sense of guilt by thinking “this was fated.” He referred to events that he tried to change and felt anguished by his inability to change the past, but it was never a route to relieve himself of responsibility. I would expect something like that if the book were saying that everything is pre-determined. I’m also not sure its trying to say something about how things should be; I think she picked ground rules for the time travel and stuck with them. Plenty of other time-travel stories picked the other rule which is that you can change the past but that doing so changes the future.
Absolutely. His understanding of the importance of her art to her played out in acquiring the studio. The importance of having a child and the lengths they go to while trying.
I’d don’t see him as an abuser–although capable of violence–or a narcissist. I’d argue that the violence that he inflicts while time-travelling is no greater than we’d see in a standard fantasy but is more shocking because of the setting. Why do you think he’s an abuser and a narcissist?
These oposing interpretations are riveting! Though, I rarely read fiction, this will be a must!
I’ve acted quickly, and amazon says it’ll be at my doorstep in 3 days. Yippeeeee! I’ve heard from others that this is a fantastic book.
love to you!
Em
It is fascinating to meet someone whose view on a book is so totally different from mine. I’m not sure I’ve had the opportunity before to this degree.
I think you’ll enjoy it, but I’m less certain now. I know I did, so it depends on how much we have in common.
It’s been some months since I read it, and my memory of detail is sketchy, but: partly because I am a parent, I was appalled that he would start a relationship with a young girl. What if his “knowledge” of her future was just a schizophrenic fantasy? Or wish fulfillment? He conspired with her to lie to her parents, to steal from them, to hide this life he wanted her to lead–all so his past turns out the way he wanted it to. He limited her choice field by attaching her to himself, by telling her they’d share a future and focusing her on it with detail.
He groomed her, as much as any pedophile ever has.
As for her role as an active person:
No, she knows what he has told her. She helps it come true, but she’s still just aiding his story, the story he chose. Where’s her agency?