The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003)

Written By: Audrey Niffenegger
Published By: Harcourt Books

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a love story about a woman who is perfectly normal in every way and her husband who is not so normal.  He happens to be a time traveler, but not in the traditional mad scientist sense.  Instead, he time travels to places he’s been before when beset with any amount of stress.  This means that any trip he makes to the past or future is strictly involuntary and unpredictable.  The novel focuses on how the husband’s time traveling is both the cause of their relationship the source of all its problems.  And it’s brilliant.

So when two people get married, the general consensus is that the relationship will have a bunch of ups and downs.  There is a lot of sex, a lot of fighting, and a lot of compromise, sometimes kids.  Countless generations of families have beat around this bush for so long that there isn’t a whole lot of intrigue, a whole lot of “newness” in it.  Sure, you got your basic questions: “How did you two little lovebirds meet?” being one such question.  And, with perhaps starstruck eyes, one of the askees will tell you, “well this one time we met at a Holiday Inn Express, s/he was going that way and I was going that way…” and then they would keep running their mouth about how awesome or how horrible things turned out.  Yawn.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is pretty similar, but features way more interesting people at its core.  The characters of Henry and Clare DeTamble are both charming, cultured, and overall very pleasant in the way one would hope a young married couple would be.  They aren’t superheroes or supergeniuses in spite of one’s ability to move through the ether of time.  Actually, Henry is very humble about (if not totally resentful of) his condition in spite of knowing that it is the source of all the happiness he would ever know.  Clare is a pistol, well-off but not obnoxious, maybe a little naive at times, surprisingly gutteral at others, but makes for a sound pairing with her chrono-impaired soulmate.  Their personalities are distinct and compelling as they make their confessions over the course of the whole lifespans together, and their stories come through at the hands of some really terrific, careful, and inspired writing.

The time traveling aspect is also treated with great care, having evolved a personality unto itself.  There is some self-awareness carefully weaved into the narrative that aims to keep your eyesockets from rolling out of your skull, lest you are used to stupid heroes not capable of selfishly applying their powers for the betterment of their station.  This novel has plenty of that, even boldly addressing certain issues that would be unique only to time travelers in some rather surprising ways.  But it also adds some restrictions to Henry’s ability to move around time, even adding some danger in the mix to offer yet another facet to his already carefully manicured personality.

But what really makes this novel work is how it meticulously sets up and pays off even the smallest little character quirks or traits, harnessing the power of time to open and close the loose ends of what is ostensibly a closed loop of a story.  You are given just enough information to presume you know how it will all turn out, but even as more things are revealed, you are never quite sure if that’s really going to happen.  Or, more frequently, some time traveling thing will happen and you’ll keep that filed away to see if it ever gets resolved, no doubt to write an angry email to the author once it never comes.  And so, you keep turning and turning the pages, wondering if what you are expecting will come to pass, whether this future that this book reluctantly shares is actually going to be real.

One of the big questions of The Time Traveler’s Wife revolves around this idea of fate.  Think about it, if some guy or girl entered your life from another dimension and told you that you were married to them in the distant future, how would you feel about that?  Both characters more or less grapple with that, and the joy from reading this novel is grappling with that concept ourselves.  Are our futures already written for us?  Do we have a chance to change them?  Or is changing them part of the plan?  Should we ever know our future? And if we do know the future, should we at any point share that information with anyone?

In a good work of literature, there are underlying themes that challenge us to explore the world in a different way, to become people that we are not and possibly could never be.  To ask the important questions and to get us to think about the differences of our lives and how our unwritten futures toddle ahead, forming endless possibilities just as endless possibilities are snuffed out every waking second of every day as we decide a yes or a no or a maybe.  The Time Traveler’s Wife asks these questions by giving us the ability to see the world unfold through the eyes of two charming and lovely individuals who may carry the answer within themselves, who might offer some reassurance that defying fate might be possible, even for them.  It is nearly perfect.

A

Choice Passages:

     “Clare takes the Thermos cup away from me. She pours herself half an inch of coffee and takes a cautious sip. ‘Ugh,’ she says. ‘This is disgusting. Is it supposed to taste like this?’
     ‘Well it usually tastes less ferocious. You like yours with lots of cream and sugar.’
     Clare pours the rest of the coffee into the Meadow and takes a doughnut. Then she says, ‘You’re making me into a freak.'”

     “I’m stomping the living shit out of a large drunk suburban guy who had the effrontery to call me a faggot and then tried to beat me up to prove his point. We are in the alley next to the Vic Theater. I can hear the Smoking Popes’ bass leaking out of the theater’s side exits as I systematically smash this idiot’s nose and go to work on his ribs. I’m having a rotten evening, and this fool is taking the brunt of my frustration.”

     “I’m standing in the bathroom, shivering in my slip and brushing my teeth. In the mirror I can see Henry lying on the bed. He’s snoring. I spit out the toothpaste and rinse my mouth. Suddenly it comes over me: happiness. And the realization: we’re married. Well, I’m married, anyway.”