Reviews & Overviews by Rod Cameron

        
The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

This is Audrey Niffenegger’s first novel. The Time Traveller’s Wife has been marketed strongly as a love story, and the science fictional elements played down. It is the story of the relationship between two people. Clare Abshire and Henry DeTamble. Clare is a normal person who grows up and lives her life serially, just like you and me (don’t go there!). Henry however suffers from a genetic disorder – chrono-impairment. His physical symptoms are that he has seizures – like epileptic fits, only he is physically displaced in space and time. He normally travels into his own past, but sometimes into his future. He arrives naked, and can be in a life threatening situation e.g hypothermia, or even beaten up by people scared by the appearance of a naked man. They have known each other since Claire was six and Henry was 36, and they were married when Claire was 20 and Henry was 28. The element of the story ‘pushed’ by the marketing people is the love story between the two main characters. They hope that you will suspend (dis)belief over chrono-impairment, and then there being no more brain-stretching science fictional elements to worry about, you can bathe in “an intensely moving and entirely unforgettable old-fashioned love story” according to some of the blurb on the back cover. And from this perspective, the book is very well written.
However, to ignore the SF elements is to ignore one of the main points of the book, how a time traveller would / could cope with maintaining a ‘normal’ relationship. This is fascinating stuff, which has not been explored to any great extent science-fictionally. Your normal SF time traveller jumps for a purpose – to progress the plot. Henry is just trying to live as normal a life as possible. The closest attempt at analysing a character’s thoughts and experiences that I can think of is Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon (1966). And from this perspective, the book is tightly written as well. I did not notice any inconsistencies or paradoxes. Apart from the initial premise that a genetic disorder could cause temporal displacements.
So if you find Time Travel novels interesting, don’t hesitate in acquiring a copy from your usual source. Similarly if you like romantic fiction, don’t hesitate to give this a try. Then track down a copy of Flowers for Algernon. If you want any more suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact me at rod@rodcameron.co.uk

Publisher: Vintage
Date:
2004
Pages: 518 Pages
Price: £6.99
ISBN: 0-099-46446-2
Format: Trade paperback
Reviewed by: Rod Cameron
Date Reviewed: November 2005

Copyright : Roderick Alasdair Cameron 2001 - 2012                   rod@rodcameron.co.uk

Copyright : Roderick Alasdair Cameron 2001 - 2015                   rod@rodcameron.co.uk

Copyright : Roderick Alasdair Cameron 2001 - 2015                   rod@rodcameron.co.uk