by Oliver Kennett

Created on: April 22, 2008

The time traveler's wife

This is one of the most original and awe inspiring books I have read for a long while. The concept is simple; Claire and Henry fall in love but they are divided by Henry's disease which causes him to be snapped back and forth in time. What is created is a disjointed series of events that leaves both of the characters at odds with the other's age and circumstance.

The realism of the relationship between Claire and Henry reinforces the tortuous nature of time travel and the problems it causes. The reader is left with the sense that the pure thing of the novel is love and that time does not divide two hearts when our loved ones are torn away from us.

Fate, destiny and causality are lovingly intertwined making the fanciful plausible and the plausible sacred. There is much of what all of us look for in life, guaranties of love and security. The author does also hint at pain that will come which does indeed manifest itself, but the attitude of "What will be will be", far from being neutral and abstaining from direction, is hopeful.

Both characters are well conceived and developed. Claire is from a wealthy family with an over baring father and a manically depressed mother. Henry has only his father, a broken soul since his opera singing wife died. Both lives bare their weight of sorrow and joy, the sorrow from their families, the joy from each other.

The disjointed nature of the writing can at some points be confusing; making the reader feel like they are in a tumble dryer of narrative, yet the balance between character development and the short stories of two average lives is charming. This is not a science fiction book by conventional standards. The concept of time travel fades into the back ground, always there but not the main point of the book. It is the relationship that is what stands timelessly in the spotlight.

This is an excellent book if you are looking for something that is not your run of the mill romance and that is written in a clever way. If you are looking for an easy read, or a book which concerns itself more deeply with the metaphysics of time travel and its theoretical consequences, look for something else. This looks at time travel from the perspective of love and relationships.

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