“The Time Traveler’s Wife” is a story that asks: what would your life be like if you kept on travelling in time, not with a machine, not with intent, but accidentally and randomly. Henry experiences random journeys into his past and future since his childhood, and as part of this process, meets his (eventual wife) Clare when she is six years old, and repeatedly at all stages of her life. Their story is one of love but also one of pain and terrible loss. It is told out of order and alternately from both their perspectives. It is not your usual time travel story.

I want to start by saying I do not read romances. I have never had any interest in love stories for the sake of them, and would not even think about reading a book just for its love affair. Time travel is what led me to this book, its science fiction premise. It turns out that this story is as much about the characters and how they live and love through what must be the world’s weirdest relationship as it is about time travel. Had Henry and Clare been less engaging I am not sure the book would have worked, but they are both fascinating characters, and the author brings them to vibrant life through their own words and points of view.

The alternating points of view would be a tricky way to write a story, but the author carries it off beautifully. Every chapter starts with a date and tells the reader how old each of the characters are. This is a practical way of letting the reader know where each character is on their own path. You are told next who is speaking, by the simple method of using their name and a colon. Some might say this is an easy way out but in my opinion the importance of letting the reader know promptly who is speaking in such a complex novel makes the simple way the best. For example, the first chapter starts with “Saturday October26, 1991 (Henry is 28, Clare is 20).” In a book where time, and each character’s chronology relative to the other is so important, it’s good to immediately know when you are in the story.

The science fiction angle, the time travel, is an innovative and interesting idea. I believe it owes some of its basic ideas to Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse 5”, which also depicts a character travelling through time. Unlike that story, Henry is not merely inhabiting himself at whatever time period he finds himself in, and is not necessarily visiting his own life or that of his family and friends. Consequently he frequently finds himself in the same place more than once and becomes accustomed to speaking to himself at different ages. He also learns very early on that attempting to change events never really works out, so he stops trying to do so. Henry cannot take anything with him through time, including clothing, so he always ends up at his destination naked. This leads to situations that can be embarrassing, but also situations that can become dangerous for him, so he learns to steal and to fight, solely to keep himself alive and as unharmed as possible. He eventually finds a scientist who is willing to work with him and find out what makes him time travel, with the intention of stopping it. The condition, which he passes to his daughter, is called ‘chrono-displacement’, and after his death becomes a well-known condition. I really liked this genetic version of time travel, rather than the usual machines or mystical events.  It is an attempt to ground the time travel in the real world, and I don’t remember having read or seen this idea anywhere else.

Henry, the time traveler, is a man who has grown up being randomly thrown into potentially dangerous situations, through no fault of his own. For all the times he travels to past places and people he knows, there are times he ends up somewhere and when he is not familiar with. As he travels with nothing, not even clothing, he can end up starving, freezing, and being attacked by random passers-by who think beasting up a naked man is the thing to do. So Henry, determined to keep himself as safe as possible, learns things. He learns how to fight, he learns how to steal, he learns how to pick locks, and how to run. This gives Henry a certain ruthlessness that is not always attractive, but if you put it in context he is a product of extremely weird life experiences and his attitudes are completely reasonable. I like Henry for his intelligence in the way he goes about trying to deal with his situation, and that he is an extremely well-read and articulate man anyway. He, again through no fault of his own, finds himself in the vicinity of Clare during her entire life, which leaves the reader somewhat uncomfortable about the juxtaposition of a naked man with a little girl. He is always correct with her, always careful and does not take advantage. He tells child Clare he is married to

…a very beautiful, patient, talented smart woman.

Child Clare does not know that this woman is her, and Henry does not disclose this. He is very careful about what he does and does not say to Clare when she is so young. He’s not always a good guy, but he’s as good as a man in his situation can be. He also really loves his wife, is faithful to her and does his best by her.

I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going.

The author can be deliberately vague about some of Henry’s adventures. We see him visiting Clare and other friends and family at various time periods. He sees himself on many occasions. Henry mentions he has had to steal and fight, and we do see him picking a lock on one occasion. The author only suggests the incidents that might have led to him learning these skills. Being in freezing weather, being chased and attacked, have certainly happened to him. We know he goes to his future as well as his past, as he visits his daughter after his death. We are never told how far into the future Henry has gone. He does not speak about it much and we only see future visits to family members. We also don’t know how far he goes into the past. He sees his parents before he is born, but again, how far into the past has he gone. I think the author was probably wise to leave that vague. Stories of the far future or historical past might have made the book more of a fantasy than it is. To me it’s actually more intriguing to leave that unstated, so the reader wonders about it. Just where and when has this person gone?

While Clare shares the point of view narrative with Henry, she is, as the title suggests, the main character in this story. She is the person around whom Henry’s whole life revolves. Clare falls in love with Henry very early in her life, almost as soon as she understands what that entails. It could be said that she never had a chance to experience anything different, as he is such an integral part of her life from such an early age. I don’t really see that, however. Clare is not isolated – she has many friends and many opportunities to date others, and she does so on a few occasions. Her focus never swerves from Henry. Her love and her faith are absolute.

I can reach into Henry and touch time … he loves me.  

Clare is a fascinating character. She is an artist, and a successful one. She pours her love and her pain into her work. She is not a saint – she is tempted to infidelity with Gomez, but does not go there while Henry is alive. She is her own person with her own life and interests.

Sometimes I’m happy when he’s gone, but I’m always happy when he returns.

She endures untold unhappiness with multiple miscarriages, but endures until they have a child. I see in her a woman who is loyal and steadfast, and very strong. She endures.

I won’t ever leave you, even though you’re always leaving me.

I very much enjoyed this book, far more than I expected to. The dilemma may ultimately be unsolvable, but ultimately their methods of dealing with it and each other create a beauty in the midst of a situation that could easily have turned into a horror story. The author instead gives us the triumph of love (that may sound sappy, but it is what it is), and the dignity and endurance of the human spirit. “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is a treasure, and I would strongly urge any reader to give it a go.