The Time Traveller's Wife / Sunday, March 29, 2009
Yesterday, I finally put down a marvellous book I've been lugging around with me everywhere from uni, to basketball, to church, and of course the mundanes of my room. "The Time Traveller's Wife" is an excellent read, and explores the concept of space-time in an unexpected but at the same time hidden-in-our-subconscious-worry manner.
Basically, imagine yourself as a time traveller, where you're zipped into your own past and future (mainly the past) constantly and it is completely out of your control. Wherever you land, you can't take anything with you, so you always end up stark naked in a surrounding you don't know WHERE or WHEN. Henry DeTramble, as the protagonist, knows all too well how that feels. He often has to turn to petty crime to feed and clothe himself when he travels, and must run from people, thugs, or the police. Eventually Henry returns to his present time, bringing only the bodily injuries he's suffered back with him. Sometimes he travels back in time and visits an earlier version of himself.
Having the background of the story, it then builds the foreground of the magical fairytale love story between the protagonist time traveller Henry DeTramble and the endearing Clare Abshire.
The novel raises the issue of 'fate' and makes you question the power of choice you actually have if the future already has happened. "If you could go back in time and change any event, would you?" is a question I believe many of us have asked or have been asked before. The book questions the very question itself, and asserts that even if you go back in time, you can't do anything about it, because if you could, you would've already done.
The book will make you laugh, make you think, make you cry and make you want to believe. As expected from Niffenegger, its a wonderful effusion of strong emotions and explores the all too real complexities of real modern life with the wonders, joys and immortalities of youth. It encompasses our fears and resolutions and what we'd always put off as 'things for later' or 'the future' into one cookie, where 'the future is the past, and the past, the future'.
Highly recommend this book for a read and I believe everybody will have something to take home from this science-fiction but not novel. Enjoy the chronologically askew sequence of events and understand the perspectives from the one always chrono-leaving and the one who's always left behind.
There's a twist at the end, but I won't say what it is. Suffice to say that when you start thinking the book gets predictable, Niffenegger decides to screw with you by throwing another bone at you.
One last question for you to ponder about: "What would you do if you knew the time of your death?"
Labels: books, literature
/because of my high tolerance.
11:16:00 AM
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