"That Is, Time Travel Is Sort Of An Altered State, So I'm More...Aware When I'm Out There, And It Seems Important, Somehow, And Sometimes I Think That If I Could Just Be That Aware Here And Now, That Things Would Be Perfect"

What is really remarkable about The Time Traveler's Wife, is that it is Audrey Niffenegger's first novel. Because the logistics of trying to write this book seem very daunting to me. I envision large whiteboards with the timeline of Clare (the titular character), the straight timeline of Henry (the time traveler), and then a third crazy timeline of when he time travels to the past or future.

I envision this last whiteboard to have lots and lots of arrows going in every direction. Because there were times when it was hard enough for me to wrap my head around where Henry was coming from and where he was traveling to, the fact that there could be 2 of him in one place, and what was going on with each of the versions of Henry that was important to the story. Fortunately, each chapter (and even many subsections within a chapter) indicated the date and how old Henry and Clare were (or sometimes just how old one of them was if the chapter was only told from one of their perspectives). I think I went back and looked at these dates and ages from previous chapters at least 100 times while reading to match things up. Because there were events that occurred when Henry went into the past that were told early in the book and then events that occurred during the time when Henry left to time travel that were related to what happened in the past that you end up reading about later. Confused yet? Exactly. That's why I was so impressed with the book. 

I also was impressed with the creation of the rules and circumstances around how Henry time travels. It's something that I think could kind of be taken for granted and accepted casually as the reader focuses more on the content of the story between Henry and Clare. But something as simple just the basic concepts around his time traveling is actually the biggest driver of the drama in the book. For example, the fact that he cannot take anything with him including clothes and the inherent problems this causes him, how he can't control where and when he travels to, and not having clothes or money all have a huge impact on him and I would say even affects many facets of who he is. And not just who he is in regards to having to be super fit to run away and fight if he happens to drop into a public place stark naked or having to learn how to pick pockets for money. But these things that Henry has to do for self-preservation while time traveling seem to make him very wild, self-destructive, and reckless when he's in his 20s. So something as simple as the "rules" of Henry's time travel really drives a significant amount of the story. 

I mentioned that I have seen the movie a couple times, and the book was definitely more enjoyable to me. Just because there was just so much more detail in the book that the movie lacked. The movie could have been much longer to try to capture more of the details of Clare and Henry's love, explain the time travel better, and include some other critical parts of the storyline. Side note: there is the strangeness that Henry knows Clare from the time that she is 6 years old which could absolutely be seen as a creepy, pedo turn off to the entire book/movie, but the book does a good job of showing his feelings for her as just being kindly and caring which don't develop into love until Clare is much older. So it didn't even cross my mind as being creepy at all in the book. I think the movie was lacking a little bit in this regard. 

Needless to say, I flew through the 500+ page book in a week, so clearly I was engaged. And I read that Niffenegger is working on a follow-up to this book, which is exciting. This is definitely a world that I would want to be re-immersed in and to read about another story of another character who faces the same set of time traveling circumstances. Once the groundwork is laid, it seems that there are infinite possibilities of how a character would handle his/her time travels. I know I will read it when it comes out. 

And so it's back our regularly scheduled programming. I head back to the reading lists with Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell. I was running low on books in the queue from the lists so I recently went on a book buying spree. There are few things in this world that bring me as much joy as buying books. I don't know what it is, but there's just something about seeing the physical representation of incredible stories just sitting across the room from me waiting to be unlocked that brings me so much happiness and anticipation. So I'm all stocked up and ready to soldier on. I seem to be on a roll lately, finding my reading mojo, and I'm happy as can be about it. Hopefully I don't hit a sour note/book that deters my momentum. So I'm looking at you Tobacco Road, don't let a girl down!

Happy Sunday!