Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler’s Wife

Reviewed by Malcolm on show Nov 19th.
What a daunting task to review! The story of Henry, the time traveler and Clare who becomes his wife. Most of the story is of meetings in and out of real-time of the two. The story of Clare’s life from childhood to old age, and Henry’s life from a child until his demise at 43 but also on into the future. Henry possesses a rare gene affecting his genetic clock which sometimes resets casting his body into a different time. Really? I mentioned it to my son who writes SciFi novels who immediately condemned it as:
“Unfettered unscientific schmaltzy ….round objects….. and should be thrown away”. In some ways he is right – unscientific? – I suppose genetically cloned disappearing mice are a bit far fetched - but consider it a SciFi book but without too many technical bits; Schmaltzy – well it is Henry and Clare’s love story. After consideration I read on despite my son’s censure.

To help, each section is given with the date and the ages of both. The only stable age is Clare who is the age stated on any given date. Are we all getting this? So the first time Henry meets Clare he is 36 and she is just 6. Therein is a problem: When Henry time travels only Henry and just Henry goes – he arrives everywhere naked. The concept of this naked adult appearing at random in front of this child as a theme was a little eyebrow lifting but Clare sensibly soon found Henry some old clothes and the awkward moment passed.
Getting my mind around not just the variable age differences but also the non-chronological dates of each section was a struggle – maybe because I thought there could be something else in it. But generally there is an onward and inevitable trend. Checking the dates at the beginning of each section was essential for me. Real-time Henry is 8 years older than Clare so you do begin to get a sense of what is going on – but only if you check the dates.

A bit like Dr Who’s TARDIS the actual times and destinations of travel are sometimes unpredictable, on the occasion of their wedding the stress causes Henry to disappear unexpectedly but somehow an older version is recruited for the ceremony – of course the older version knew he was needed. Another example is when after they are married Clare suffers numerous miscarriages an is getting really ill Henry reluctantly says he is going to be vasectomised – reluctantly because he knows from his forward time-travels that they do have a child, but that does not stop an earlier version of Henry from successfully fathering their child, Alba, after the real time Henry has had his operation, but surely real-time Henry would have known this? Sometimes there are two different age Henry’s together at the same time, and Alba is also a time traveller?

The whole concept certainly stretches the imagination, but that is its strong point. Overall it is the love story of Clare and Henry – over 80 years - but his ability to time-travel is Henry’s downfall, he knows the date of his death aged 43– and who, 23 years earlier, caused his death? ……………..Mind-bending!

I do hope you give this book a chance the characters are fun – I suspect red-haired Clare is based on the author – anyone have any idea who Henry is supposed to be?
I’ll definitely be looking out for the recently released film.

reviewed by Malcolm Martland – 19 November 2009.