The Time Traveler's Wife

This is a different kind of post, which I have been writing for one week now. A book review; I'm venturing into new territory and I want to be just perfect at it… I want to be perfect at it because the “Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger” is a FANTASTIC BOOK and I want to do it justice. In fact, I had a mind to look for a review of the book online and post it here as my own writing J but I was taught better… Plagiarism is a crime.

To meet the love of your life (a librarian) at the age of six, he is butt naked and thirty years older than you, is not any girl’s fantasy or ideal romance story. That is how Clare Abshire met Henry DeTamble. He was butt naked and trespassing into her secret place at the meadow. Henry has a gift, super-power if you wish, of time traveling. He was coming from 1991 to 1977 and every time he time traveled, he found himself naked, sometimes injured and always hungry. Clare is as innocent as six year old come. She believes his story immediately and  stocks up her secret place with food and her father’s old clothes for future meetings. Here is the thing: Henry knew Clare. He had come from the future and she was his wife… But here he is, meeting the six year old Clare. He knew all these things about her life but he hardly ever divulged information on the same, which just goes to show the truth in the statement that men can keep a secret. I suppose if the shoe was on the other foot, Clare would have spilled the beans on his entire life… A scenario that eventually happens in 1991 and Clare often finds herself struggling to withhold information about Henry. (Maybe its because for every 1000 words a man talks, a woman talks 3000 more.)

Clare at Eight: Are you married

Henry DeTamble: Yes, I am.

Clare: Is your wife a time traveler

Henry DeTamble: No. No. Thank God.

Clare: Do you love her?

Henry DeTamble: Yes, very much. (I am astonished to see tears streaming down her face). What’s wrong?

Clare: Nothing! It’s just that I thought, maybe you were married to me.

Henry: It comes out so quietly that I have to ask her to repeat it.

She goes through teenage waiting for Henry… waiting to be old enough to be his, eternally. She is always being left by Henry…

Clare: “It’s hard being left behind. Its hard always being the one who stays.”

Clare and Henry get married in 1994. Clare is 22, Henry is 30 and 38. Henry time travels on his wedding day J and the 38 year old Henry shows up for the wedding instead. Later, at the reception, 30 year old Henry shows up. Their life is as normal as it can possibly get, well at least for one party:

Henry: “When you live with a woman you learn something every day. So far I have learned that long hair will clog up the shower drain before you can say "Liquid-Plumr"; that it is not advisable to clip something out of the newspaper before your wife has read it, even if the newspaper in question is a week old; that I am the only person in our two-person household who can eat the same thing for dinner three nights in a row without pouting; and that headphones were invented to preserve spouses from each others musical excesses. <------- I suppose these are sentiments many, if not all, married men share.

Clare wants to have a baby… But she can’t bear one to full term. They have five miscarriages.  Henry suggests that they should adopt. Clare wants her OWN child. They argue about it. Fight about it. Henry storms out and leaves. He gets a vasectomy behind Clare’s back.  While he is away, a younger version of him travels through time to Clare and gets her pregnant. J They get a time-travelling baby girl, Alba.

Clare: Honey do you know who is that playing with Alba?

Henry DeTamble: That’s Alba

Clare: Yes, I know. But who is that with her?

Henry DeTamble: That’s your daughter at 11. She is time-travelling. Is it too weird for you?

Clare: No, it’s actually kind of magical.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a love story, a fictional love story that blends perfectly with reality… The reality of all the emotions wrapped up in relationships , the reality of death, the reality of friendship, reality of love and family and the importance and/or lack thereof of time when it comes to love; It is an unreal story that sparks untold emotions with just the right amount of humor.

“Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?” ~ Audrey Niffenegger ~