Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Time Traveler’s Wife

Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife is an amazing story. It is beautiful and sad. The story of Clare and Henry stays with you even after the end. I wish I could know more about Clare’s future; it seems so fragmented. I loved the evolution of Clare’s feelings for Henry, the childhood longing to the adult reality. I love Henry’s shock at his feelings of Clare. They each changed the other’s life before knowing the other existed.

Is there any free will in their stories if Henry comes to Clare knowing everything because he travels through time? The same question comes up when Clare runs into a young Henry. Do they ever make any real choices? There is a depressing inevitability to it. Fate or determinism? The added dimension to the story makes the events, the lives of Clare and Henry, seem real.

1 comment:

  1. I guess you're right, in that Henry is as much at the mercy of their inevitable relationship as Clare is. It's all very tragic. I was most impressed by the uniqueness of this storyline.

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