I'm halfway through The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. At this point, the book hasn't 'wowed' me, but it's been interesting enough to read. Who knows? The ending might knock my socks off. I'll reserve final opinions until then.
After 269 pages I still think there is some mysterious element that I'm not fully getting and that will be revealed by the book's end. So far the book has been completely about these characters, there is no real plot other than their love story. Given that, I'm wondering how things will wrap up. Something tragic perhaps? Something metaphorical? Something philosophical? Something mundane? I personally think they're headed for tragedy at the moment, but they may not end there. After all, the book jacket boasts it as an "original love story" (I would agreed) and "dizzyingly romantic" (umm? define 'dizzyingly').
I do think it's well-written, but I'm not absorbed.
I've read a couple of other stories where characters have time traveled and I can't help thinking that Niffenegger's vision of time travel makes it seems like a burden, where you're unwillingly pulled from the present to seemingly random moments along your life continuum. While the other stories/visions I've read or seen also have an element of randomness (discounting Back to the Future ;) they also seemed a tad more romantic. Characters were pulled into the past to discover something or redeem a character flaw or it's where they find love. There was some stasis in the travel. They would be in the past for weeks at a time, but were only gone for moments in the present. I guess in both visions there is some heartbreak. You can't stay where you don't truly belong forever.
I'm sure there are some stories that end with the person staying the past. Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series has the protagonist set up camp in the past; although, I haven't finished the series so I don't know if she will end up there. But she married a guy, had a daughter, and is now in her 50s (although she did spend about 20 or so years in her original time... sort of a complicated story? lol).
ReplyDeleteI would love it. Just ask M, he knows I mop about it *all* the time. lol, I would go back to England during the Regency, but only if I am rich or at least moderately so. Or I would go back to the turn of the century - around 1920ish (after the spanish influenza). There are just so many inspiring artists who lived during that time, it would be wonderful to meet them!
Ah yes, it does seem romantic, but only under strict circumstances. No one would want to time travel to a place where they are poor or unprotected, lacking rights, or at risk. There are times I imagine how things might have been if I'd grown up in a different time and/or place, but at the end of the day, I'd rather imagine it than live it out. How things are recalled now, years after they occurred, are likely quite different than how they were experienced back when that time was the present time.
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