The Time Traveler’s Wife

admin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:39:00 +0000

When I started reading The Time Traveler's Wife, I was hooked right away. I don't read fiction very often, so it was a refreshing change of pace, and the concept was cool: a man with a genetic condition that makes him time travel, but he can't control it.

The narration in the novel switches back and forth between the two main characters, Clare and Henry. We jump through time to follow their love story, which starts when Clare is only six, and see it develop as Clare grows up. Each time the narration switches, we are told who is speaking, where they are in time, and how old they are.

There are a lot of things I liked about this novel. I liked the relationship between the main characters, and the way we see that story unfold. Their love of food, their quirks, their shared interest in punk music—it all made me feel like the characters were real people, like I knew them. Their flaws, the secrets they keep from each other, and the way we learn the truth made me connect with the characters throughout most of the story.

I also liked trying to keep up with the dates and the ages of all the characters, and matching up events we learned about in passing with what we see happening. The many parent-child relationships in the novel were also true-to-life, and I appreciated the range of experiences. All of these things kept me very happy during the first three quarters of the book. After that point, the story started to drag a bit.

The reader is well past the point of climax by the time threads in the story start looping together. One already knows everything that is going to happen, and suddenly has to wait another 100 pages or so before it actually happens. I found myself growing impatient and just wanted to finish already.

This was also around the time that I stopped liking Clare. Her obsession with having a child started to irritate me, particularly when she says that adoption is fake and that it's like pretending. But what really bothered me was how the story ended. Even though Clare spends most of the book waiting around for Henry, I still imagined her as a strong woman with her own will and an independent streak. By the last few chapters, it's as if her life is meaningless without that relationship. She falls apart and we never see her put herself back together, which is what I kept hoping would happen.

I can certainly see this book's appeal as a great love story between two people who can't live without one another. Perhaps I left my feminist lens on for too long, though, because that wasn't enough for me. Overall, though, I enjoyed the story and did get swept away for a bit into a world where time travel was possible and a love was meant to be.

Written by: frau sally benz, August 16th 2009

The Time Traveler’s Wife

admin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:38:00 +0000

Directed by Robert Schwentke

New Line Cinema

Shortly after I started reading The Time Traveler's Wife, I found out that there was a movie coming out, and was interested in seeing how the two would compare. Book-to-movie adaptations are generally thought to be letdowns, but I wanted to see exactly how a love story about a time traveler—from a book more than 500 pages long that shifts through time and narration—would look on film. I was curious as to how Henry and Clare’s interwoven story would translate to the big screen, and if the problems I had with the book would be present in the film.

So how did the movie do? The short answer is, it did well. Now on to the long answer…

The style of the storytelling changed for the big screen. There was no narration and not a lot of time traveling actually. The story was mostly told as it happened in the present. They removed a lot of minor characters and got rid of extra storylines. This made it much easier to keep up with the primary story of Henry and Clare's love.

Getting rid of the excess, however, took away a lot of what I liked about the book. For one, some of the minor characters were also my favorites. There are references in the film to things that are important in the book, but are given no explanation in the movie, such as Henry’s need to run. What suffered most were scenes of Henry’s interaction with Clare as she’s growing up. I was disappointed that so much was left out because without that background, you have no idea why Clare loves Henry so much once they meet in the present. There are several pivotal moments that Clare and Henry share when she’s a child and a teenager that bond them together, and those are not mentioned.

Thankfully, some of the problems I had with the book were not present in the movie. The story did not lag at the end, and I didn’t get the same sense of devastation and defeat from Clare that I did in the book.

It’s hard to say what I might have taken away from the movie without first reading the book. I think the core of the story is still there—an unbreakable bond between two people who love each other. And it was a treat to see their story move from inside my mind to the big screen.

Written by: frau sally benz, August 16th 2009