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The Time Traveler's Wife (Paperback)

~ (Author) "CLARE: The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble..." (more)
Key Phrases: Mary Christina, South Haven, Reading Room (more...)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2,098 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with "Chrono Displacement" disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she'd known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare's childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare's points of view, and so does the narration. Reed ably expresses the longing of the one always left behind, the frustrations of their unusual lifestyle, and above all, her overriding love for Henry. Likewise, Burns evokes the fear of a man who never knows where or when he'll turn up, and his gratitude at having Clare, whose love is his anchor. The expressive, evocative performances of both actors convey the protagonists' intense relationship, their personal quirks and their reminiscences, making this a fascinating audio.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.


From Booklist

On the surface, Henry and Clare Detamble are a normal couple living in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Henry works at the Newberry Library and Clare creates abstract paper art, but the cruel reality is that Henry is a prisoner of time. It sweeps him back and forth at its leisure, from the present to the past, with no regard for where he is or what he is doing. It drops him naked and vulnerable into another decade, wearing an age-appropriate face. In fact, it's not unusual for Henry to run into the other Henry and help him out of a jam. Sound unusual? Imagine Clare Detamble's astonishment at seeing Henry dropped stark naked into her parents' meadow when she was only six. Though, of course, until she came of age, Henry was always the perfect gentleman and gave young Clare nothing but his friendship as he dropped in and out of her life. It's no wonder that the film rights to this hip and urban love story have been acquired. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 560 pages
  • Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (May 27, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 015602943X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0156029438
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2,098 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #1 in  Books > Romance > Time Travel
    #1 in  Books > Literature & Fiction > Women's Fiction > Domestic Life
    #9 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy

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Audrey Niffenegger
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First Sentence:
CLARE: The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mary Christina, South Haven, Reading Room, Merry Christmas, Father Compton, Library Boy, Field Museum, Jimmy Stewart, Lake Shore Drive, Michigan Avenue, Clare Abshire, Amit Montague, Thank God, Grant Park, Christmas Eve, Meadowlark House, Newberry Library, Cream of Wheat, Silent Night, Lake Michigan, Celia Attley, Ingrid Carmichel, Grandma Meagram, Iggy Pop, Violent Femmes
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2,098 Reviews
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4.1 out of 5 stars (2,098 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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784 of 866 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, well-written, original, September 4, 2003
By Diana (Emporia, KS USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Time Traveler's Wife (Hardcover)
"The Time Traveler's Wife" is one of the most interesting, powerful books I've read in a long time. Audrey Niffenegger did a beautiful job taking some of the most complex ideas - time travel, marriage, love, children, friends, literary and artistic allusions, religion, death, drugs, childhood, growing, loss, and what it means to be human - and weaving them together poetically and with amazing clarity. Her characters are wonderful, "real" people with strengths and flaws, and I really grew to adore them. Despite skipping around time at the same rate as Henry, the time traveler, the events are sequenced in such a way that you still witness each character's growth as a person, as well as discover many surprises along the way. Clare and Henry's story is one of the best love stories I've read in a very long time. This book also echoes important modern-day questions about the appropriateness of gene therapy, and what it means to be a human being. I highly and enthusiastically recommend this book.
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468 of 521 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Clever and Compelling, November 16, 2003
By crazyforgems (Wellesley, MA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Time Traveler's Wife (Today Show Book Club #15) (Hardcover)
I admit: I am an easy touch when it comes to time-travel books. I have loved such diverse books with this theme as "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", "A Wrinkle in Time," and "Time and Again."

I was not disappointed by "The Time Traveler's Wife." The book both moved me and challenged me to think about a number of deeper issues in life (most notably, the true meaning of love in a romantic relationship).

The underlying story concerns Henry, a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and Clare, his artist wife. Henry suffers from CDP (Chrono-Displacement Order) which whisks him from the present to another point of time (usually the past). One minute he may be in the stacks of the Newberry Library in 2003, the next minute he may find himself in a field (probably naked) in Michigan with his future wife as a child sometime in the early 1980's.

The author does an excellent job of sequencing the book. Even though Henry is shuttling back and forth in every chapter, she manages to move the plot forward. You do feel that you see Henry and Clare meeting, falling in love, starting a marriage and going through the stages of their lives. You do get to know their family and friends and see life happen to them.

However, I do feel that the author could have better developed all of her characters, particularly the supporting ones. I wanted to learn more about their close friends, Gomez and Charisse, and their troubled marriage. I felt that the landlady from Henry's child-whom he constantly visited in his time-traveling modes-was a sketch figure that could have been better developed. I wished that the author could have mined deeper into the inner feelings of Henry and Clare.

Still I would highly recommend this book to most readers. (If time-travel books bother you, this won't change your opinion.) It is a good, hard-to-put down read. And at the end, you're exhausted by all the travel!

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246 of 279 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars A good idea for a book destroyed by pretentious writing, October 31, 2005
By E. Graham (Hamburg, Germany) - See all my reviews
I'm quite obviously in the minority here, particularly among non-fans: I found the narrative jumping around in time to be quite effective - the characters are often confused and surprised by non-linear time; this device gives us a taste of that. Nor was I bothered by the use of profanity, descriptions of sexuality, or the idea that an adult Henry maintains contact with Claire as a child.

It's what happens (or doesn't happen) in the space between that sets my teeth on edge. For example: we are forced to endure paragraph (after paragraph after paragraph) describing a game of pool. Not the interactions between characters during said pool game, no no. If you like to listen to golf on the radio, then you might find who-made-what-shot-in-which-pocket to be entertaining. I started to rage because I was wasting so much time reading this nonsense.

I was also thoroughly annoyed at the 'name dropping' style of writing that was sometimes rewarded with an explanation, but most often not. I can't remember all of the characters names offhand, but they'll enter the story with something like, 'Fred walked in and startled me.' Yeah, he startled me too. Who the hell is Fred? We find out several pages later, 'Fred Flintstone was a childhood friend'. Thanks, coulda used that information ten minutes ago.

But this isn't limited to people. The characters ponder going to Ann Sather's for something to eat. Neighbor? Relative? Last night's one-night-stand who happens to make great waffles? Two pages later it's revealed that it's a Swedish restaurant. They talk of the CSO - only later can the acronym be explained as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As a Chicago native I recognized these references, but they grated on me nonetheless.

Same with descriptions. 'He looked like Joe Schmoe.' Great. That helps. Not 'his hair was slicked back in that Joe Schmoe style' or something like that - at least then I would start to form a mental picture. To use a similie with a subculture or hipster reference and no context is pretentious and condescending. 'He answered the phone while standing in front of a Maholy-Nagy poster'. How many people are familiar with the Chicago Bauhaus movement and would get this reference? What does it add to the story?

I've gone on too long already with my rant and haven't even mentioned the street directions - complete with street names. I don't care which streets you take to get to the library, either tell me what happens along the way or just get there already.

The one highlight of the book (and yes, there is one), is the climactic scene we all know is coming. It was handled in a very touching and sensitive way that nearly brought me to tears. If only the rest of the book could be like these three pages, I wouldn't have to count it among the absolute worst books I've ever read.
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