Our next book choice is "We need to talk about Kevin" by Lionel Shriver. We meet on Friday, 16th May at the usual venue.............10.30 am start!
This will be introduced by Will.
A variety of reviews will be posted about this book in the next few weeks.
I've read about 200 pages and I'm enthralled.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Time Traveler's WifeAudrey NiffeneggerHarvest Books: 2003546 pp. $14.00ISBN: 015602943X
Introduction:
Audrey Niffenegger published her first traditional novel in 2003. Her book, The Time Traveler's Wife, has earned wide acclaim: it's a New York Times bestseller, one of People's top ten books of 2003, and a book club pick on the Today Show.
Her book is quite an accomplishment for a person who has, until now, produced visual novels that would run a mere ten copies. Niffenegger is a professor at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts' MFA program. She teaches for the Interdisciplinary Arts department, mostly focusing on classes dealing with making books from scrap.
There have been some interesting side stories to the novel's success: Niffenegger dyed her hair red (the same as her female lead's) in celebration of her novel's completion, and famous couple Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt have reportedly optioned film rights--though it's yet to be seen if the pair will play the destined couple in Niffenegger's book.
The Story Without Spoilers:
Characters
Henry DeTamble is the time traveler. We know him at many phases of his life, though not necessarily chronologically. Henry suffers from a disorder that causes him to travel through time involuntarily.
Clare Abshire is the wife. We know her through many phases of her life and most of the time we are introduced to her chronologically: as child, student, artist, and wife.
Plot Information:
The Time Traveler's Wife is set in Chicago over a period of many years with a smattering of punk and art references. We meet the characters through an alternating first-person narration of the book. Clare always knew that she'd be with Henry; she met the adult Henry while she was only a child. Henry didn't meet Clare until he was older. She went to his library looking for a librarian, when someone suggested she speak with him. When she realized the librarian she was speaking to was the Henry she knew as a child she excitedly greeted him, leaving him to wonder how he knew the young woman.
There are interesting dynamics created by the unusual plot. For example, when Clare first meets Henry he had knowledge of their future life but she knew nothing of it. However, when Clare and Henry meet in real time she knows about his future even though he hasn't lived that phase of his life yet. There are also many conflicts to resolve along the way: dating, meeting friends, or visiting family is always a bit suspenseful. Once married, the pair is unsure if they will be able to have children or not. They also try to resolve how Henry came to be afflicted with this disorder. While trying to discover the root cause they work with doctors to see if there is a cure. The biggest mystery for the reader is to see if Henry will be able to live a normal life or if something horrible happens to him while he is traveling through time.
Analysis of the work:
This is an interesting work in many ways. From a literary perspective, Niffenegger was able to use many interesting devices due to the unique nature of her story. Because of Henry's frequent time traveling, the story is not told in chronological order. This foreshadowing is natural, so the audience learns bits about the lives of the characters from Henry's time travel. The reader learns facts before Clare in some cases and before Henry in others. It allows the reader to be a detective and piece together information that would not be available if the story was told strictly from a real time-chronological order.
The shared first-person narrative allows the reader to get to know both Clare and Henry in a way that a single first-person narrative or a third-person narrative could not accomplish. This narrative also gives the reader a better understanding of the relationship between the pair. This book is a love story, and quite romantic, but it is also much more realistic because the reader does see the relationship from both party's perspectives. Clare does like to be alone sometimes and Henry can be irritating and rude, but it's okay because the characters seem entirely realistic, and real people do have traits that aren't perfect.
The science behind the story is nearly impossible to accept, but the story is so compelling that once the reader accepts the premise the storytelling truly carries the novel. Niffenegger's choice of location also tempers the far-fetched science. Having lived in Chicago, she has a thorough understanding of the environment. She places this very fanciful story in a very concrete place. It allows the reader to have something real to ground the story in.
Finally, Niffenegger also makes philosophy interesting to the average reader. Her story is a metaphor dealing with metaphysical issues of identity, time, fate, and destiny. Is one really the same person over completely different periods of time? Does time run in only one direction? Is there such a thing as predestination or free will? This book will be interesting to those who like these kinds of questions as well as those who just want to read a good story.
Introduction:
Audrey Niffenegger published her first traditional novel in 2003. Her book, The Time Traveler's Wife, has earned wide acclaim: it's a New York Times bestseller, one of People's top ten books of 2003, and a book club pick on the Today Show.
Her book is quite an accomplishment for a person who has, until now, produced visual novels that would run a mere ten copies. Niffenegger is a professor at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts' MFA program. She teaches for the Interdisciplinary Arts department, mostly focusing on classes dealing with making books from scrap.
There have been some interesting side stories to the novel's success: Niffenegger dyed her hair red (the same as her female lead's) in celebration of her novel's completion, and famous couple Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt have reportedly optioned film rights--though it's yet to be seen if the pair will play the destined couple in Niffenegger's book.
The Story Without Spoilers:
Characters
Henry DeTamble is the time traveler. We know him at many phases of his life, though not necessarily chronologically. Henry suffers from a disorder that causes him to travel through time involuntarily.
Clare Abshire is the wife. We know her through many phases of her life and most of the time we are introduced to her chronologically: as child, student, artist, and wife.
Plot Information:
The Time Traveler's Wife is set in Chicago over a period of many years with a smattering of punk and art references. We meet the characters through an alternating first-person narration of the book. Clare always knew that she'd be with Henry; she met the adult Henry while she was only a child. Henry didn't meet Clare until he was older. She went to his library looking for a librarian, when someone suggested she speak with him. When she realized the librarian she was speaking to was the Henry she knew as a child she excitedly greeted him, leaving him to wonder how he knew the young woman.
There are interesting dynamics created by the unusual plot. For example, when Clare first meets Henry he had knowledge of their future life but she knew nothing of it. However, when Clare and Henry meet in real time she knows about his future even though he hasn't lived that phase of his life yet. There are also many conflicts to resolve along the way: dating, meeting friends, or visiting family is always a bit suspenseful. Once married, the pair is unsure if they will be able to have children or not. They also try to resolve how Henry came to be afflicted with this disorder. While trying to discover the root cause they work with doctors to see if there is a cure. The biggest mystery for the reader is to see if Henry will be able to live a normal life or if something horrible happens to him while he is traveling through time.
Analysis of the work:
This is an interesting work in many ways. From a literary perspective, Niffenegger was able to use many interesting devices due to the unique nature of her story. Because of Henry's frequent time traveling, the story is not told in chronological order. This foreshadowing is natural, so the audience learns bits about the lives of the characters from Henry's time travel. The reader learns facts before Clare in some cases and before Henry in others. It allows the reader to be a detective and piece together information that would not be available if the story was told strictly from a real time-chronological order.
The shared first-person narrative allows the reader to get to know both Clare and Henry in a way that a single first-person narrative or a third-person narrative could not accomplish. This narrative also gives the reader a better understanding of the relationship between the pair. This book is a love story, and quite romantic, but it is also much more realistic because the reader does see the relationship from both party's perspectives. Clare does like to be alone sometimes and Henry can be irritating and rude, but it's okay because the characters seem entirely realistic, and real people do have traits that aren't perfect.
The science behind the story is nearly impossible to accept, but the story is so compelling that once the reader accepts the premise the storytelling truly carries the novel. Niffenegger's choice of location also tempers the far-fetched science. Having lived in Chicago, she has a thorough understanding of the environment. She places this very fanciful story in a very concrete place. It allows the reader to have something real to ground the story in.
Finally, Niffenegger also makes philosophy interesting to the average reader. Her story is a metaphor dealing with metaphysical issues of identity, time, fate, and destiny. Is one really the same person over completely different periods of time? Does time run in only one direction? Is there such a thing as predestination or free will? This book will be interesting to those who like these kinds of questions as well as those who just want to read a good story.
Inquisitiveness & Desire
Inquisitiveness and Desire by Audrey Niffenegger
The Time Traveler's Wife (Harvest Book)
by Audrey Niffenegger
"[A] soaring love story illuminated by dozens of finely observed details and scenes." Publishers Weekly
Your Price: $7.50
(Used - Trade Paper)
More about this book/check for other copies
The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel
by Audrey Niffenegger
Your Price: $9.95
(Used - Hardcover)
More about this book/check for other copies
It's hard to convey the experience of making art to someone who doesn't. "Where do you get your ideas?" is the question writers hear most often. Well, where do ideas come from? Mine tend to plop down out of nowhere. One minute I'm wondering where I left my keys, the next minute I'm thinking about a little girl named Lizzie whose face is covered with soft black fur. She wasn't in my head the minute before; where did she come from? Some enormous waiting room, perhaps, full of ideas. I imagine Lizzie waiting patiently, holding a little ticket with a number on it, listening for her number. Maybe she's been waiting there for years. Now it's her turn, and she gets up, ready to jump into my head, hoping for the best.
I believe that we attune ourselves to receive certain kinds of ideas. It's unlikely, for example, that I would pay any attention to an idea about a young widowed farm woman trying to keep her land from being sucked up by agribusiness. Even if I thought of her (and, of course, I just did) I wouldn't bother with her; she's not mine to use, I don't know her story, and I don't care to know it. I want little, furry Lizzie. The farm widow belongs to someone else, she just wandered into my head by accident to illustrate this point. We all have ideas all the time. But we only pay attention to a few. I'm interested in strangeness, and so my chosen ideas are... strange.
I am both a visual artist and a writer. I don't make too many distinctions between the two. I have made portraits of myself as Siamese twins, as Medusa, as a vampire. I'm interested in mutants, love, death, amputation, sex, and time (the themes of my novel, The Time Traveler's Wife). Symmetry, cemeteries, translation, and superstition are the obsessions of the novel I am writing at the moment, but all of these concerns appear and reappear in my visual art. When you are fishing for ideas you tend to catch the kind you have baited your hook for, and you throw back all the others.
In the movies, writers are always balling up pieces of paper and staring moodily into the corner as though they were struggling to read a teleprompter. Sheesh. Writing is a completely internal activity. Watching someone write is pointless. Reading is where all the action is. You are moving your mind across someone else's, like a snail, like a long kiss.
A while back my boyfriend and I went to see Sylvia, the rather overwrought movie about the marriage of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. We happened to see it in London, where much of the movie takes place, and the dank flats and overcast skies of the movie seemed extra real, completely correct. But the actors in the movie were pretending to be writers. There was a great deal of furious discussion of writing, jealous rants and drunken recriminations. There was a lot of staring into space while seated in front of vintage typewriters. And of course there was the obligatory scene of Sylvia Plath sealing the kitchen with tape prior to putting her head in the oven.
That's attractive, I thought, munching Pringles. (English movie theatres sell the oddest foods in their concessions stands.) Yet another movie reinforces the art = pain connection. Yawn.
My own experience has been that it's not pain that makes art. If art were simply a response to pain, there would be a lot more art.
I think that art is the result of inquisitiveness, mingled with a deep desire to make things be.
In 1997 I was sitting at my drawing table when a phrase popped into my head: the time traveler's wife. I wrote it down on the sheet of Kraft paper that covered the table, along with all the other ideas and song titles and lists of Things to Do. It was a generous phrase. It assured me that there were two characters, a husband and a wife, and that the husband was a time traveler. I started to think about the wife. It would be hard to be the wife, I thought; you'd spend a lot of time waiting for your man, and he would be the one having all the adventures. I felt sorry for her; I could see her, sitting at a table, drinking tea, waiting. Why does he leave her alone? I wondered. Another idea plopped down: time travel is a disease, it's a genetic disorder. By now this little cluster of ideas had my full attention. I wasn't interested in anything else now, and I began to build and ponder and worry them into being.
Their names are Clare and Henry. She has red hair. His mother died in a car crash. He visits Clare when she's a child. She makes art about birds. My curiosity was riveted: I had to find out the story, and to find out, I wrote.
The delightful part about making anything is that no story or picture is ever complete. When I am reading, I add things to the story that were never put there by the writer. When you read my writing, you have your own vision of each character, and your own understanding of their motives and desires. If I could put my eye to your brain I would hardly recognize my world, it is a collaboration between the two of us. You have your own supply of ideas, which my writing is calling forth. Even Lizzie, the seven-year-old girl covered with chinchilla-like fur and wearing a dirty white lace dress, who is now wandering aimlessly around a hotel room in my head and talking to her stuffed rabbit, has a certain solidity for you that she didn't a few paragraphs ago. Excuse me; she needs my attention. Thank you for yours.
The Time Traveler's Wife (Harvest Book)
by Audrey Niffenegger
"[A] soaring love story illuminated by dozens of finely observed details and scenes." Publishers Weekly
Your Price: $7.50
(Used - Trade Paper)
More about this book/check for other copies
The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel
by Audrey Niffenegger
Your Price: $9.95
(Used - Hardcover)
More about this book/check for other copies
It's hard to convey the experience of making art to someone who doesn't. "Where do you get your ideas?" is the question writers hear most often. Well, where do ideas come from? Mine tend to plop down out of nowhere. One minute I'm wondering where I left my keys, the next minute I'm thinking about a little girl named Lizzie whose face is covered with soft black fur. She wasn't in my head the minute before; where did she come from? Some enormous waiting room, perhaps, full of ideas. I imagine Lizzie waiting patiently, holding a little ticket with a number on it, listening for her number. Maybe she's been waiting there for years. Now it's her turn, and she gets up, ready to jump into my head, hoping for the best.
I believe that we attune ourselves to receive certain kinds of ideas. It's unlikely, for example, that I would pay any attention to an idea about a young widowed farm woman trying to keep her land from being sucked up by agribusiness. Even if I thought of her (and, of course, I just did) I wouldn't bother with her; she's not mine to use, I don't know her story, and I don't care to know it. I want little, furry Lizzie. The farm widow belongs to someone else, she just wandered into my head by accident to illustrate this point. We all have ideas all the time. But we only pay attention to a few. I'm interested in strangeness, and so my chosen ideas are... strange.
I am both a visual artist and a writer. I don't make too many distinctions between the two. I have made portraits of myself as Siamese twins, as Medusa, as a vampire. I'm interested in mutants, love, death, amputation, sex, and time (the themes of my novel, The Time Traveler's Wife). Symmetry, cemeteries, translation, and superstition are the obsessions of the novel I am writing at the moment, but all of these concerns appear and reappear in my visual art. When you are fishing for ideas you tend to catch the kind you have baited your hook for, and you throw back all the others.
In the movies, writers are always balling up pieces of paper and staring moodily into the corner as though they were struggling to read a teleprompter. Sheesh. Writing is a completely internal activity. Watching someone write is pointless. Reading is where all the action is. You are moving your mind across someone else's, like a snail, like a long kiss.
A while back my boyfriend and I went to see Sylvia, the rather overwrought movie about the marriage of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. We happened to see it in London, where much of the movie takes place, and the dank flats and overcast skies of the movie seemed extra real, completely correct. But the actors in the movie were pretending to be writers. There was a great deal of furious discussion of writing, jealous rants and drunken recriminations. There was a lot of staring into space while seated in front of vintage typewriters. And of course there was the obligatory scene of Sylvia Plath sealing the kitchen with tape prior to putting her head in the oven.
That's attractive, I thought, munching Pringles. (English movie theatres sell the oddest foods in their concessions stands.) Yet another movie reinforces the art = pain connection. Yawn.
My own experience has been that it's not pain that makes art. If art were simply a response to pain, there would be a lot more art.
I think that art is the result of inquisitiveness, mingled with a deep desire to make things be.
In 1997 I was sitting at my drawing table when a phrase popped into my head: the time traveler's wife. I wrote it down on the sheet of Kraft paper that covered the table, along with all the other ideas and song titles and lists of Things to Do. It was a generous phrase. It assured me that there were two characters, a husband and a wife, and that the husband was a time traveler. I started to think about the wife. It would be hard to be the wife, I thought; you'd spend a lot of time waiting for your man, and he would be the one having all the adventures. I felt sorry for her; I could see her, sitting at a table, drinking tea, waiting. Why does he leave her alone? I wondered. Another idea plopped down: time travel is a disease, it's a genetic disorder. By now this little cluster of ideas had my full attention. I wasn't interested in anything else now, and I began to build and ponder and worry them into being.
Their names are Clare and Henry. She has red hair. His mother died in a car crash. He visits Clare when she's a child. She makes art about birds. My curiosity was riveted: I had to find out the story, and to find out, I wrote.
The delightful part about making anything is that no story or picture is ever complete. When I am reading, I add things to the story that were never put there by the writer. When you read my writing, you have your own vision of each character, and your own understanding of their motives and desires. If I could put my eye to your brain I would hardly recognize my world, it is a collaboration between the two of us. You have your own supply of ideas, which my writing is calling forth. Even Lizzie, the seven-year-old girl covered with chinchilla-like fur and wearing a dirty white lace dress, who is now wandering aimlessly around a hotel room in my head and talking to her stuffed rabbit, has a certain solidity for you that she didn't a few paragraphs ago. Excuse me; she needs my attention. Thank you for yours.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Interview with Niffenegger
MF: Was there a central theme that you wanted readers to grasp?
Audrey Niffenegger: I wanted people to think about the intimacy of time, how ineffable it is, how it shapes us. I wanted to write about waiting, but since waiting is essentially a negative (time spent in the absence of something) I wrote about all the things that happen around the waiting.
Audrey Niffenegger ~ Short Bio
Audrey Niffenegger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Audrey Niffenegger
Born
June 13, 1963 (1963-06-13) (age 44)South Haven, Michigan, United States
Occupation
Novelist, Artist
Nationality
American
Writing period
2003-present
Genres
Fiction
Influences[show]
Louise Fitzhugh
Official website
Audrey Niffenegger (born June 13, 1963 in South Haven, Michigan) is a writer and artist. She is also a professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. She is the founding member of T3 or Text 3, an artist and writer's group that also performs and exhibits in Chicago.
Niffenegger's debut novel, The Time Traveler's Wife (2003), was a national bestseller. The Time Traveler's Wife is an unconventional love story that centers on a man with a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time-travel and his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent and unpredictable absences. The film version, starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, is due for release in 2008.
She has also written a graphic novel, or "novel in pictures" as Niffenegger calls it, called The Three Incestuous Sisters. This book tells the story of three unusual sisters who live in a seaside house. Because of the artwork and mood, the book has been compared to the work of Edward Gorey.
Another graphic novel, The Adventuress, was released in September 1, 2006. She is currently working on another novel called Her Fearful Symmetry.
Niffenegger is also a Faculty member at the North Shore Art League where she teaches the Intermediate & Advanced Printmaking Seminar. [1]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Audrey Niffenegger
Born
June 13, 1963 (1963-06-13) (age 44)South Haven, Michigan, United States
Occupation
Novelist, Artist
Nationality
American
Writing period
2003-present
Genres
Fiction
Influences[show]
Louise Fitzhugh
Official website
Audrey Niffenegger (born June 13, 1963 in South Haven, Michigan) is a writer and artist. She is also a professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts. She is the founding member of T3 or Text 3, an artist and writer's group that also performs and exhibits in Chicago.
Niffenegger's debut novel, The Time Traveler's Wife (2003), was a national bestseller. The Time Traveler's Wife is an unconventional love story that centers on a man with a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time-travel and his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent and unpredictable absences. The film version, starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, is due for release in 2008.
She has also written a graphic novel, or "novel in pictures" as Niffenegger calls it, called The Three Incestuous Sisters. This book tells the story of three unusual sisters who live in a seaside house. Because of the artwork and mood, the book has been compared to the work of Edward Gorey.
Another graphic novel, The Adventuress, was released in September 1, 2006. She is currently working on another novel called Her Fearful Symmetry.
Niffenegger is also a Faculty member at the North Shore Art League where she teaches the Intermediate & Advanced Printmaking Seminar. [1]
Wikipedia report on TTW
The Time Traveler's Wife
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For the upcoming film based on the novel starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, see The Time Traveler's Wife (film).
The Time Traveler's Wife
Author
Audrey Niffenegger
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre(s)
Romance, Science fiction,Tragedy
Publisher
MacAdam/Cage Publishing
Publication date
September 17, 2003
Media type
Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages
519
ISBN
ISBN 0224071912
The Time Traveler's Wife (ISBN 0224071912) is a novel by Audrey Niffenegger. It is an unconventional love story that centers on a man with a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time-travel and his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. In this book, unlike many other time travel stories, it is not possible to change the past or future.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
2 Sales and critical response
3 Film adaptation
4 See also
5 Notes
6 External links
//
[edit] Plot
The novel tells the story of Henry DeTamble (born 1963), a librarian at the Chicago Newberry Library, and his wife, Clare Abshire (born 1971), an artist from a wealthy family who makes paper sculptures. When 20-year-old Clare meets up with 28-year-old Henry in 1991, he has never seen her before, although she has known him most of her life. Clare's past is still in Henry's future. Henry begins to experience the events in Clare's childhood at the same time that he experiences life with the adult Clare in the present. In the novel, the future cannot be changed, and many tragic events are foreshadowed in the past.
Henry has a very rare genetic disorder known as Chrono-Displacement that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. He is unable to control when he leaves, where he goes, or how long his trip will last. His destinations are tied to his subconscious, as Henry most often travels to places he has visited or will eventually visit. Very often, Henry is taken back to the moment his mother dies in a car accident he survives, and is forced to relive the memory again and again. Certain things like stress can trigger time travel for Henry. It is described as being similar to epilepsy or a panic attack, though on brain imagery, his brain shows patterns similar to those who are schizophrenic. He uses running as a way of keeping calm and remaining in the present. But more importantly, he needs to be able to run fast to escape any unknown situations he could travel back (or forward) to at any given time.
Henry cannot take anything with him into the future or the past. Even fillings in his teeth are left behind. He always "arrives" naked and must work hard while "away" to find clothing, shelter, and food without getting beaten up or arrested. He amasses a number of survival skills including pickpocketing, lock-picking, and expert fighting skills to allow him to get by without the bare necessities. He learns many of these skills from older versions of himself, either when the older self is time-traveling into his own past, or when his older and younger selves' time-traveling coincides.
Henry time travels into Clare's childhood and adolescence many times, starting in 1977 when she is six years old. On one of his early visits, he dictates to her a list of the visits he will make to her; she writes these dates into a diary so she can expect his visits. As an adult, when all of the visits are through, she gives the list to him to memorize so that he will know them when he returns to her in her past. This is a paradox, since the knowledge of the dates did not actually come from anywhere, and it is not clear how the dates can be accurate unless Henry has subconscious control over his visits to Clare as a child. Clare told Henry, and Henry went back in time and told Clare. During one of Henry's visits, he inadvertently reveals that he and Clare will be married in the future. His last visit takes place on her eighteenth birthday in 1989 where Claire is made love to for the first time, and then they are separated for two years until they finally meet in real time for both of them.
Clare and Henry get married, but have trouble conceiving a child because of his genetic disorder. After five miscarriages, Henry gives up and has a vasectomy. Later, a past version of Henry travels to the future and makes love to Clare and she becomes pregnant and carries the child to term. They have a daughter named Alba, who is diagnosed with the same disorder. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets Alba at ten years old. Alba reveals to Henry that he is to die when she is five years old.
Years later, Henry time-travels to Chicago on a very cold winter night, where he is unable to find shelter. He experiences hypothermia and develops frostbite. When Henry returns to his 'present', his feet must be amputated. The story has stressed that his ability to run is, for Henry, a vital survival skill, and it is not long before Henry time-travels into the middle of the Michigan woods during deer season and is fatally shot by Clare's brother. He returns to the present and dies in Clare’s arms.
Clare is devastated by Henry's passing, and feels unable to live her life without him. Although Alba sees him from time to time, he and Clare seem never to be able to see each other. She finds a letter from Henry describing an experience he had with her in her future, when she is an old woman. Henry doesn't want Clare to wait for him, but he wants her to know that they will see each other again and that love knows no boundaries and transcends time and death. Clare lives to old age, and is visited by Henry for a final time.
[edit] Sales and critical response
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (August 2007)
UK sales were boosted in 2005 when Richard & Judy included The Time Traveler's Wife in their Book Club.
[edit] Film adaptation
Main article: The Time Traveler's Wife (film)
New Line Cinema will develop a film adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife. The adaptation will be directed by Robert Schwentke and will star Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. Filming began in September 2007. [1] The film was originally due for release on June 6, 2008 but has now been put back to November 2008.
[edit] See also
The NBC TV show Journeyman, in which the main character displaces through time to alter other people's destinies.
The Girl in the Fireplace, a 2006 episode of the TV series Doctor Who, touches on the same idea of a time traveler visiting somebody at various points through their life (although in this case they are chronological meetings), and the relationship between them.
The Jacket, starring Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley, uses the same premise of a time traveler who falls in love with a woman he knew when she was a child.
Tom's Midnight Garden, a novel by Philippa Pearce uses a similar premise. At midnight (although when the communal clock strikes 13), a garden from the past appears and he meets with Hatty, whose age varies on each night. Ultimately though, the story is not one of romance.
If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy (1974)by F. M . Busby visits similar themes, with a protagonist living his life out of order; his life intermittently intersecting that of his wives.
The Lost episode "The Constant" contains a similar theme of the transcending power of love through time travel.
[edit] Notes
^ Michael Fleming; Dave McNary. "New Line finds its cast on 'Time'", Variety, 2007-04-17. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
[edit] External links
The Time Traveler's Wife at the Internet Movie Database
Audrey Niffenegger's official website
The Time Traveler's Wife Forum
Reader's Review on The Diane Rehm Show podcast
The Time Traveler’s Wife Reading Group Guide
Guardian (UK) review
Observer (UK) article on publication
Amazon.com reviews
Timelines created by reader Jack Humphrey
Amazon.co.uk reviews
The Times Book Review
The Time Traveler's Wife Forum
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Traveler%27s_Wife"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For the upcoming film based on the novel starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, see The Time Traveler's Wife (film).
The Time Traveler's Wife
Author
Audrey Niffenegger
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre(s)
Romance, Science fiction,Tragedy
Publisher
MacAdam/Cage Publishing
Publication date
September 17, 2003
Media type
Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages
519
ISBN
ISBN 0224071912
The Time Traveler's Wife (ISBN 0224071912) is a novel by Audrey Niffenegger. It is an unconventional love story that centers on a man with a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time-travel and his wife, an artist, who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. In this book, unlike many other time travel stories, it is not possible to change the past or future.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
2 Sales and critical response
3 Film adaptation
4 See also
5 Notes
6 External links
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[edit] Plot
The novel tells the story of Henry DeTamble (born 1963), a librarian at the Chicago Newberry Library, and his wife, Clare Abshire (born 1971), an artist from a wealthy family who makes paper sculptures. When 20-year-old Clare meets up with 28-year-old Henry in 1991, he has never seen her before, although she has known him most of her life. Clare's past is still in Henry's future. Henry begins to experience the events in Clare's childhood at the same time that he experiences life with the adult Clare in the present. In the novel, the future cannot be changed, and many tragic events are foreshadowed in the past.
Henry has a very rare genetic disorder known as Chrono-Displacement that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. He is unable to control when he leaves, where he goes, or how long his trip will last. His destinations are tied to his subconscious, as Henry most often travels to places he has visited or will eventually visit. Very often, Henry is taken back to the moment his mother dies in a car accident he survives, and is forced to relive the memory again and again. Certain things like stress can trigger time travel for Henry. It is described as being similar to epilepsy or a panic attack, though on brain imagery, his brain shows patterns similar to those who are schizophrenic. He uses running as a way of keeping calm and remaining in the present. But more importantly, he needs to be able to run fast to escape any unknown situations he could travel back (or forward) to at any given time.
Henry cannot take anything with him into the future or the past. Even fillings in his teeth are left behind. He always "arrives" naked and must work hard while "away" to find clothing, shelter, and food without getting beaten up or arrested. He amasses a number of survival skills including pickpocketing, lock-picking, and expert fighting skills to allow him to get by without the bare necessities. He learns many of these skills from older versions of himself, either when the older self is time-traveling into his own past, or when his older and younger selves' time-traveling coincides.
Henry time travels into Clare's childhood and adolescence many times, starting in 1977 when she is six years old. On one of his early visits, he dictates to her a list of the visits he will make to her; she writes these dates into a diary so she can expect his visits. As an adult, when all of the visits are through, she gives the list to him to memorize so that he will know them when he returns to her in her past. This is a paradox, since the knowledge of the dates did not actually come from anywhere, and it is not clear how the dates can be accurate unless Henry has subconscious control over his visits to Clare as a child. Clare told Henry, and Henry went back in time and told Clare. During one of Henry's visits, he inadvertently reveals that he and Clare will be married in the future. His last visit takes place on her eighteenth birthday in 1989 where Claire is made love to for the first time, and then they are separated for two years until they finally meet in real time for both of them.
Clare and Henry get married, but have trouble conceiving a child because of his genetic disorder. After five miscarriages, Henry gives up and has a vasectomy. Later, a past version of Henry travels to the future and makes love to Clare and she becomes pregnant and carries the child to term. They have a daughter named Alba, who is diagnosed with the same disorder. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets Alba at ten years old. Alba reveals to Henry that he is to die when she is five years old.
Years later, Henry time-travels to Chicago on a very cold winter night, where he is unable to find shelter. He experiences hypothermia and develops frostbite. When Henry returns to his 'present', his feet must be amputated. The story has stressed that his ability to run is, for Henry, a vital survival skill, and it is not long before Henry time-travels into the middle of the Michigan woods during deer season and is fatally shot by Clare's brother. He returns to the present and dies in Clare’s arms.
Clare is devastated by Henry's passing, and feels unable to live her life without him. Although Alba sees him from time to time, he and Clare seem never to be able to see each other. She finds a letter from Henry describing an experience he had with her in her future, when she is an old woman. Henry doesn't want Clare to wait for him, but he wants her to know that they will see each other again and that love knows no boundaries and transcends time and death. Clare lives to old age, and is visited by Henry for a final time.
[edit] Sales and critical response
Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (August 2007)
UK sales were boosted in 2005 when Richard & Judy included The Time Traveler's Wife in their Book Club.
[edit] Film adaptation
Main article: The Time Traveler's Wife (film)
New Line Cinema will develop a film adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife. The adaptation will be directed by Robert Schwentke and will star Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. Filming began in September 2007. [1] The film was originally due for release on June 6, 2008 but has now been put back to November 2008.
[edit] See also
The NBC TV show Journeyman, in which the main character displaces through time to alter other people's destinies.
The Girl in the Fireplace, a 2006 episode of the TV series Doctor Who, touches on the same idea of a time traveler visiting somebody at various points through their life (although in this case they are chronological meetings), and the relationship between them.
The Jacket, starring Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley, uses the same premise of a time traveler who falls in love with a woman he knew when she was a child.
Tom's Midnight Garden, a novel by Philippa Pearce uses a similar premise. At midnight (although when the communal clock strikes 13), a garden from the past appears and he meets with Hatty, whose age varies on each night. Ultimately though, the story is not one of romance.
If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy (1974)by F. M . Busby visits similar themes, with a protagonist living his life out of order; his life intermittently intersecting that of his wives.
The Lost episode "The Constant" contains a similar theme of the transcending power of love through time travel.
[edit] Notes
^ Michael Fleming; Dave McNary. "New Line finds its cast on 'Time'", Variety, 2007-04-17. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
[edit] External links
The Time Traveler's Wife at the Internet Movie Database
Audrey Niffenegger's official website
The Time Traveler's Wife Forum
Reader's Review on The Diane Rehm Show podcast
The Time Traveler’s Wife Reading Group Guide
Guardian (UK) review
Observer (UK) article on publication
Amazon.com reviews
Timelines created by reader Jack Humphrey
Amazon.co.uk reviews
The Times Book Review
The Time Traveler's Wife Forum
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