Book: The time traveler's wife
Aug. 13th, 2013 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Audrey Niffenegger
Details: (c) Audrey Niffenegger 2004; Pub Vintage 2005; ISBN 978-0-099-46446-4
Verdict: The time traveler's wife is well-written but doesn't quite live up to its potential.
Reasons for reading it: There was a lot of buzz about it when it came out and it seemed like it might lead to some interesting conversations.
How it came into my hands: I grabbed it from a charity shop five for £1 table, which is a very good way of acquiring bestsellers from a few years ago.
The time traveler's wife is successful as slipstreamy litfic but I have mixed feelings about slipstreamy litfic. The writing is strong, the words feel well-chosen and resonant without being lush or over-written. There are some interesting explorations of relationships, not just the central romance but the characters' relationships with their families of origin and peers. And some pretty good stuff about grief, covering bereavement as well as infertility and miscarriages. TTTW navigates somewhat successfully between actually telling a story about time travel, and exploring time travel as a metaphor and generally philosophizing about free will and what it means to be human and all that literary stuff. But basically it has the same problem as a lot of slipstream stuff, in that it feels superficial compared to actual science fiction, and sometimes the story element drags because you're never quite sure if you're supposed to take it literally.
The chapter headings have lots of quotes from Rilke and similar poets, as well as, to my slight surprise, from AS Byatt's Possession. I suppose it is the type of book that might appeal to Byatt fans, but it's not even close to being in the same class. In some ways it feels almost written for book clubs, you can just picture the questions for discussion it's supposed to be evoking. I wasn't sure what to make of the love story; at some points it seemed like the narrative was actually going to examine the issue of how disturbing it would be if you really literally had a destined One True Love, and at other times it seems to accept that sort of conventional romantic frame. I know some people found the interactions between Henry and Clare when she's a child creepy, but I thought the book did successfully manage to avoid undertones of grooming. I found the ending kind of awful, not the death but the presentation of waiting 50 years for one glimpse of one's love presented as if it were a positive thing.
I think part of why I feel unsatisfied with tTTW is that I didn't really believe in the relationship. I felt I was being asked to just accept that Henry and Clare are deeply in love simply because the narrative tells me so, it didn't really come across. There are a few hints about Henry having a violent, somewhat nasty streak, but they're never really followed up, it just falls back to True Love Conquers All. There's also the typical problem with this sort of litfic that it's about rich, beautiful people who yes, have problems both realist and fantastical, but don't really seem to be meaningfully part of the world, somehow. There's a scene I found moving where Henry asks Clare to accept the present Henry who is kind of a fuck-up for the sake of the future Henry, the more compassionate and humane self he is trying to become, which really works well with the time travel as metaphor / time travel as real within the story slipstream thing. Overall, though, the book didn't quite work for me.
Details: (c) Audrey Niffenegger 2004; Pub Vintage 2005; ISBN 978-0-099-46446-4
Verdict: The time traveler's wife is well-written but doesn't quite live up to its potential.
Reasons for reading it: There was a lot of buzz about it when it came out and it seemed like it might lead to some interesting conversations.
How it came into my hands: I grabbed it from a charity shop five for £1 table, which is a very good way of acquiring bestsellers from a few years ago.
The time traveler's wife is successful as slipstreamy litfic but I have mixed feelings about slipstreamy litfic. The writing is strong, the words feel well-chosen and resonant without being lush or over-written. There are some interesting explorations of relationships, not just the central romance but the characters' relationships with their families of origin and peers. And some pretty good stuff about grief, covering bereavement as well as infertility and miscarriages. TTTW navigates somewhat successfully between actually telling a story about time travel, and exploring time travel as a metaphor and generally philosophizing about free will and what it means to be human and all that literary stuff. But basically it has the same problem as a lot of slipstream stuff, in that it feels superficial compared to actual science fiction, and sometimes the story element drags because you're never quite sure if you're supposed to take it literally.
The chapter headings have lots of quotes from Rilke and similar poets, as well as, to my slight surprise, from AS Byatt's Possession. I suppose it is the type of book that might appeal to Byatt fans, but it's not even close to being in the same class. In some ways it feels almost written for book clubs, you can just picture the questions for discussion it's supposed to be evoking. I wasn't sure what to make of the love story; at some points it seemed like the narrative was actually going to examine the issue of how disturbing it would be if you really literally had a destined One True Love, and at other times it seems to accept that sort of conventional romantic frame. I know some people found the interactions between Henry and Clare when she's a child creepy, but I thought the book did successfully manage to avoid undertones of grooming. I found the ending kind of awful, not the death but the presentation of waiting 50 years for one glimpse of one's love presented as if it were a positive thing.
I think part of why I feel unsatisfied with tTTW is that I didn't really believe in the relationship. I felt I was being asked to just accept that Henry and Clare are deeply in love simply because the narrative tells me so, it didn't really come across. There are a few hints about Henry having a violent, somewhat nasty streak, but they're never really followed up, it just falls back to True Love Conquers All. There's also the typical problem with this sort of litfic that it's about rich, beautiful people who yes, have problems both realist and fantastical, but don't really seem to be meaningfully part of the world, somehow. There's a scene I found moving where Henry asks Clare to accept the present Henry who is kind of a fuck-up for the sake of the future Henry, the more compassionate and humane self he is trying to become, which really works well with the time travel as metaphor / time travel as real within the story slipstream thing. Overall, though, the book didn't quite work for me.
