The Time Traveler's Wife (#4)

Before this blog likely turns back to the cheese of American Idol for the next couple of days, figured it was time to play catch-up (yet again!) with the book stuff... 

As I mentioned yesterday, I am struggling quite a bit with my current book... but we'll save that discussion when we get to it... but back in late January-early February I was on cruise control (and at 80mph at that!)... and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife was one of the reasons why ... averaging over 45 pages a day.   Full disclosure: very short chapters/breaks, biggish print, and some empty space -- but still pretty darn good if I do say so myself. 

This was one of the books that I had seen pretty much every time I went to a bookstore.  It's been a staple on the paperback fiction bestseller list, but judging a book by its cover I dismissed it as "chick lit"... though as I have said time and again, that doesn't necessarily exclude it from my reading list.   

Then there was the title... as you can guess, if you are not willing to keep an open mind and suspend all belief... this is not the book for you.  Again, that is not necessarily an issue for me... but it was another reason for my initial hesitation.  Still I was interested in it (or curious why it was so popular)...  put it on my "wish list" just as a "maybe"... and, much to my surprise, Mom remembered I had that list (which I hadn't used in years, at least for gift giving suggestions) and bought it for me for Christmas.

I was glad she did.... but another friendly warning is that this is very much one of those "trick"/gimmick novels.  "Gimmick" tends to viewed negatively, but again it all depends on how much of on open mind/suspend belief you can tolerate in that department as well.  In this sense, it kind of reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in th Night-Time... where the concept kind of trumps the writing.  While Curious Incident got us in the mind of an autistic child, Time Traveler is often mind blowing as the lead character, Henry travels back and forth to the past, present, and future within a matter of pages.   Like Mark Haddon's Curious, this is also Niffenegger's first novel.  I suspect she will have similar issues (well to me, at least) in following up such a spectacular, original work. 

I was kinda right in thinking the book was "chick lit."  There is a epic romance of sorts as Henry does meet his titular (that always sounds so dirty) wife Clare while time traveling and when she is a mere child.  Henry comes to her at different ages ... for example, she can be age 12 and he'll come to her at age 32... the next time, she may be 13 and he'll be 27.... and likewise, in what eventually becomes the "present" he only learns new things about Clare when he gets there... like in my example, if they had a discussion when she was 12, he won't be aware of it until he is 32 in the "present".... see what I meant about mind boggling!!!   I won't give too much else away... there are some nice time travel oriented surprises (at least to me)... but no need to worry, Niffenegger masterfully executes all this and it is nowhere near as confusing as I just made it!

Given the book's success, it is no surprise that a big screen version has wrapped and is scheduled for a November 2008 release.  Again, I managed to avoid this news, so I had my own images in my head... but I think they did a pretty good job casting Eric Bana and Rachel MacAdams as the leads.  Henry's clothing doesn't time travel with him... so one can only hope they keep faithful to that part of the book with regards to yummy Bana.

2008 1-2-3-4-5 Reading Challenge: + 536 Pages (Total: 1,792 pages - Finished: 2/7/2008)
405 pages ahead of pace (+164 change in pace since last book).