Book Club: The Time Traveler's Wife

[meep]

Saying what I have above, after looking at the photos more carefully, for some reason I have a good feeling about this film. From the screenshots, and looking at who they've chosen for Gomez, Charise, Richard etc. I feel they've stayed quite true to the book.

Anyway, sorry, this is straying from our discussion of the book itself, just thought it was interesting!

[dinahsmum]

I forgot about Henry's feet until 'The Incident in the Parking Lot' too.
We've all got the same selective memory!
Yet I distinctly remember his death (at Clare's) and thought it was mentioned much much earlier in the book and was watching out for it again from quite early on.
Strange isn't it, the things that stick?

[meep]

DM, what did you think about the fact that Henry lost his feet? (or at least they were unusable? I have still forgotten what exactly happens, but I'll find that out tonight )

Whilst I have so many positive things to say about the book, and I am feeling teary at knowing the ending and also thinking it will be over soon, there is one thing I have felt throughout the rereading: the relationship between Claire and Henry grates on ever so slightly. They are obviously head over heels, destined to be together, true love etc. etc. and it is nice to know (not in a sadistic way) that they fell out, particularly over the pregnancies, as it shows they aren't too unrealistically head-over-heels, I did feel sorry for Claire.

The ending of the novel leaves her alone, and she has to wait 40 years or so before she sees Henry again for one last time, by which time she's very old. She is left with Alba, a piece of Henry (which she explicitly desired) but Alba can time travel and gets to see Henry, something which Claire does not. When Henry travels forward in time once and meets Alba for the first time, at the museum, Claire almost gets to meet him but he goes back in time just as shes running up to him. In this scene you get a real feeling for her distress, and depression, and Henry's leaving. Although I haven't gotten to it yet, the scene where she and Gomez have sex, and she says Henry's name (or something like that?) again, you get a real feeling for her complete despair. She has been abondoned entirely, and throughout her whole life was constantly being left in the lurch by Henry, left worrying about him and constantly waiting.

Whilst Henry does experience some awful horrors (his feet, and that brief section where he disappears for 2 - 3 months and returns one night having lost a lot of weight, which was eery in its lack of information) you get the feeling that he gets the better experience of the relationship out of the two. He and Alba get to meet more often, even after his real-time death. Claire is his anchor, around whom his time travelling revolves. No matter where in time he goes to, he soon gets pulled back to her. I almost imagine it as a rubber band being wrapped around a nail, and no matter which direction you stretch it in, it will lengthen but then contract back to its origin: the nail (or pin, whatever you will).

So Claire serves a purpose for Henry. Henry explicitly says, in the scene where he is found trapped in the cage in the Library and someone says Claire is his Lois Lane, that he would have given up a long time had ago had it not been for Claire.

Yet what exactly is Henry to Claire? A life-long love, the love of her life, but also the source of so much anguish, pain and lonliness. I know that this is part of the romance, that alongside their intense love is intense pain, yet for me the balance is ever so slightly tipped so that Claire gets the short end of the stick, and the slightly worse experience. She suffers for Henry, but does Henry suffer for her, or does Henry just suffer?

[meep]

Oh, and also to add to my above post, even though Henry's death is horrific, and so sad, at the same time it is worse for Claire as she is left alone; and at the same time, the reader feels as if Henry isn't quite dead, or at least not gone, as we know that somewhere out there in time he is alive, and travelling backward and forward, as he does in the final part of the book when he visits Claire as an old lady.

I never felt this way when I read the book the first time, but on my re-reading I have felt sorry for Claire. Not angry at Henry, as I don't think it's his fault, I just think the dynamic between the two is interesting.

But as I said, I have so many positive things I could say about it! And will do once I finish and have a copy of it in front of me.

[dinahsmum]

Am just going out but (and pardon my cynicism) isn't the author just describing the norm for male/female relationships? He gets the better part of the bargain? I'm not meaning to sound bitter, because I'm not - not at all - I have a long and happy relationship, I just feel the author is expanding on life. The woman is the rock, who keeps things together, the man does the exciting, the adventurous, the boys stuff.
This musing may be old-fashioned and not reflect relationships starting now rather than decades ago but ....

will be back later this aftie. keep chatting

[meep]

DM, interesting theory. To be honest, that doesn't strike a chord with me as I feel as a woman in a long term relationship I don't need a rock and I am not my partner's rock and we both go out and do exciting things, and I don't feel there is an imbalance; and I feel this is the norm for a lot of my friends my age in long term relationships.

But I do agree that from maybe the 1950s backwards it was the complete norm for the woman to be the rock, a stay-at-home wife who keeps the home happy for her husband whilst he goes out and does as he pleases (from the 1950s back right through the Edwardian, Victorian, Romantic, Renaissance... etc. etc. periods). So when writing my post above, that describes my take on their relationship, I didn't once think that it might be a portrayal of the stereotype of males and females roles in a relationship. Partly because their relationship is described, by both of them, in such loving and wonderful terms.

Although I guess you could say Henry was also Claire's rock as when he dies, she is a broken woman, half the woman she was before. So sad

[dandysmom]

Sorry to be the odd woman out, but I did not enjoy this book. Probably because it's a love story, a genre I don't particularly care for, also that it was non linear. I had no problems with the time travel per se, been a sci-fi reader since early teens, but did have a problem accepting the premise that Henry could meet himself. Had to keep muttering Coleridge's comment "willful suspension of disbelief" to myself every time it happened. In classic sci-fi, impossible. But that's the alternate universe the author has designed, and it's possible in hers.

I didn't find the main characters particularly engaging, quite stereotypical male and female roles. Usually you tend to like the heroes, but frankly I didn't really feel any sympathy for the starcrossed (time crossed?) lovers. The most human people to me were Kimy and Nell.

That aside, don't you think it was odd that Henry continued working after winning the lottery? And the fact that the library hadn't let him go because of his frequent disappearances, showing up naked in the stacks, etc? Apparently they had a very high tolerance for eccentricity.... and.in the 50s?!!

The tinges of eroticism in the scenes when adult Henry met pubescent Clare were a bit too Lolita-ish for my taste...

I thought the pool playing episode was way too long and didn't add much to the story; also the dinner at Clare's family dragged on and on.

Nitpicking over, I do admire her way with words: that expression about "small domestic comforts" was lovely and so descriptive; and loved the bit of Henry's excitement at going to the museum....exactly the way I felt as a child.

My thoughts, for what they're worth ..

[calismum]

Oh DM, thank goodness. I have just read this post through and was beginning to dread my view which is 'and here I am to say, I didn't like it'.

I did appreciate the writing and the descriptive detail that let you feel as if you were part of the story, albeit a bystander, and sometimes a very unwilling one.

Whilst I started off enjoying the story and I galloped thru' the first third, keen and eager to find out what happened next, I have to say, had it not been a book club book I would not have finished it. (I found it quite boring!)

I do, however, think it must have been a nightmare to write. Trying to keep track of who did what and when etc. shows some real skill. I can appreciate the way that time travel has been presented in a more unusual way and, I think perhaps a bit more believable? I too thought that part of the writing skill was that the reader just accepts Henry and what he is able to do.

It was, tho', just a love story - boy meets girl, falls in love, loses girl, meets girl again and then lives happily ever after (or until one of them dies.)

Didn't know it was going to be made into a film but think I'll give it a miss.

I did relate to Claire's lonliness. Thought that was quite apparent in the way some of the passages were written.

Going out tonight to drawing evening so will check back tomorrow to see how others feel.

[dandysmom]

Ah, CM. so glad I wasn't the only negative poster...huge sigh of relief!

[angieh]

It's so good that people have different opinions!

Catching up on some of what's been mentioned - have to say re casting of the film that I agree with meep. Henry is fine, but Clare is a disappointment - of course she may end up with amber hair in the film, but I doubt it. I can see in my mind's eye the woman for Clare's part ..........

Also, I have been thinking along the lines that Eileen mentioned about "The tinge of eroticism in the scenes when adult Henry met pubescent Clare were a bit too Lolita-ish for my taste..." sort of puts what I was thinking in far better terms than I could have found.

I have no idea how long it took Audrey Niffenegger to write, but it must have been a logistical nightmare keeping track of who was were when and at what age.

There is certainly some really beautiful phrases
".......must love me now in some bat-squeak echo of other time." is IMO just one.

I also loved the descriptions of Clare's paper-making - I'm sure there is another thread there running alongside the main theme, which mirrors it. Haven't thought that through yet.

I still love the book and I shall see the film, with a bit of trepidation.

Oh, and Henry's poor feet - I remember that much more clearly than his death at the moment - I knew something really tragic was coming, I could feel it and was sort of prepared. Don't think it was gratuitous.