Ryan ChartrandIt’s a normal day: You go to work, come home, eat dinner and go about your other daily activities. Now imagine that all of a sudden, everything goes fuzzy and you wake up in an alley in New York City in 1968 with no clothes, money or clue where you are.
This is the life of Henry DeTamble in Audrey Niffenegger’s incandescent novel “The Time Traveler’s Wife.”
It is the tale of a man who is born with a “chromosomal disorder” that causes him to travel to different places throughout time. His wife, Clare, first meets him when she is 6 years old due to the numerous trips he takes back to see her. He cannot control where or to what time period he goes, but he tends to go to places that make him feel safe when he’s stressed in his current life. Henry goes to the past more frequently than the future and repeatedly returns to the moment of his mother’s death.
The story is told from two points of view: Henry’s and his wife’s. The prose switches between the two and changes dates frequently, but Niffenegger never loses the reader. The dates and ages of the characters don’t matter except out of pure curiosity.
There are events that are a mystery to the reader until much later in the book, when the story gets to the time in his life that he left. Though time is continuous and certain to humans, Niffenegger’s strong writing can make anyone doubt the sureness of time and place.
Clare finds herself in love with a man who is three times her age and disappearing on a regular basis when she is only 9 years old. She sees him vanish in front of her eyes the first time she meets him only to realize that he’s not lying about time travel. She has to wait 18 years to actually meet the Henry of real time, who is eight years older than her.
The stress of time-traveling on Henry transfers to Clare and the reader. Due to Niffenegger’s strength with words, both characters are understandable and relatable. Throughout the trials they encounter both medically and emotionally, it is easier to understand the situation and their relationship. It makes sense that Clare is completely in love with Henry regardless of what happens to him and that Henry would do anything to keep her happy.
The suspense of Henry’s life keeps the audience reading, and their relationship keeps the reader invested in their story. It is a perfect novel that executes time travel believably and intriguingly, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants not just a good story but also an interesting twist.
Christina Casci is a journalism senior and a Mustang Daily book columnist.