This past month, however, I was traveling and befriended an Australian woman named Kylie, who was reading The Time Travelers Wife and was completely enthralled. When she was able to tear herself away from the book, she extolled its virtues. When she finished it, she wouldn't tell me anything about it, but just put her hands on her heart, sighed, nodded, and said "It was beautiful.”
With such encouragement, how could I not at least give it a shot? So I bought the book and began it, reading it in many planes and on many friends" couches at the end of my travels. I tried to read it slowly, drawing it out and savoring the story, like sucking on a piece of dark chocolate. It's that good.
The book was nothing like I imagined. It is the story of Henry DeTamble, who has a disease that sends his body shooting through space and time when he becomes stressed, anxious, or is exposed to bright flashing lights. His disease is called chrono-displacement, and it more of a burden than a gift. Henry can't take anything with him (not even clothes, which causes a lot of embarrassment and trouble with the law), and can't change anything.
The only things that help make his involuntary travels less frequent are meditation, running, and sex. In this sense, we are all a bit like time travelers, able to get lost in time in our minds, sometimes having difficulty being in the moment while dwelling on the past or scheming for the future. This is physically manifested in Henry when he loses focus, and time is fluid for him.
The Time Traveler's Wife is, as made obvious by the title, also the story of Clare, an artist who is Henry's wife and the love of his life. Through time travel, Henry has met her throughout her life, at many different ages, and even after he dies in one point in time (death is a wavy line for the families of a time traveler). She is the one constant in his life, a rock and stable place for Henry as well as for the reader. Henry's life makes sense through Clare.
The love story of Henry and Clare is extremely well written. A real love story seems extremely difficult to write, as much as it is to be involved in. The two argue, make love, support each other, and are constant - everything works out, will work out, despite the unbelievable extenuating circumstances. Henry disappears periodically, somewhere in time, and Clare never knows when he will be back. It could be minutes, hours, or days. And she is always waiting. And sometimes it really pisses her off. But she is always glad when he is back, and they are indisputably faithful to each other.
Henry and Clare are in the rare position of knowing, literally, that they are meant to be together. They are already married in a point in time before they even meet. The lines of time blur, and this gives them unshakeable hope in some cases, aching despair in others.
Rarely am I moved to tears by good fiction, but The Time Travelers Wife did it for me. Silent tears slid down my cheeks as I finished the book, sitting next to the window on a plane back to Arizona, to be reunited with my own love. The ending is beautifully sad yet happy at the same time, somehow. It is also one of those magical books that leave you in good book withdrawal when it's over, missing Clare and Henry. This, I believe, is the sign of a truly good book.
