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Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveller's Wife


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I'm about 150 pages in & I'm surprised that it's not nearly so confusing as I thought it would be with all the jumping back & forwards. I'm rather enjoying it so far!

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I actually started this a while back, read about 100 pages, and just wasn't really being 'grabbed' by it. It got put aside as I got into other things.

 

I picked it back up on Sunday, and I have to say, suddenly it's working for me. Maybe I hit a good point, maybe my frame of mind is different.

 

The bit that my brain had trouble with was that he changes his age aswell. I expected him to be a set age, no matter where he jumped to.. I didn't think about him jumping throughout his life. :D

 

So, you have a 36 year old man jumping into his past.. he meets Clare when she's 6. However, when he's 28, he may jump to a part of his past where Clare is 20. It sounds odd, doesn't it?!

 

However, it's starting to flow together now, and make sense. :reading:

 

The actual writing style is really nice, it's 'grown up', but easy to read... if that makes any sense!? lol

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I'm particularly enjoying the writing style - when she's 6, you can really believe you're listening to the thoughts of a young kid & you see how it all changes as she grows up.

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I reckon I'll get this finished tonight - it's intriguing the way the plot unfolds. Im' wishing I could have stayed home from work to read it! How's everyone else getting on with it?

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Well, I finished it tonight & I've popped a review into the appropriate forum. I've tried (&, I think, succeeded) not to give away any of the plot & spoil it for anyone. Can't wait for folks to finish so we can discuss it!

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I'm getting there...

 

The bit I find strange is when he pops into his own past / future, and meets himself.. that must be the weirdest thing to deal with!!

 

Yes, it is enjoyable.. I'm caught up in the general story, as well as the time travel issue.

 

Anyone else reading along with us?

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Hmm. I'm only 30 pages in (been busy the last few days), but I'm already getting deeply frustrated with the usual time-travel paradoxes. It'll be interesting to see if the book tries to resolve them. I'll say nothing more for the time being, and I guess I don't want anyone to tell me. It's just a broad comment at the moment.

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There are a lot of paradoxes, but I found myself not minding so much once I got into the story (usually I pick things like that apart). I found that once I was submerged, the paradoxes didn't matter so much to me. I hope you'll get into it soon...

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Yep, I agree.. I'm not thinking too much about the details, just really enjoying the story. However, do you think it's more of a 'girly' story?

 

I've just realised how hard this discussion is with people at different points. Do we need a 'spoiler' thread, to discuss the finer points without spoiling it for others.. or will that stop the flow?!

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I think that at certain points there's a more "girlie" feel, but then at others it's much more masculine. Strangely, I found the "Clare" sections to be the harder, more masculine parts (just some of the language she uses for a start!) & Henry's to be a lot softer & feminine.

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I've not got much further in, thanks to too much alcohol abuse and too many hangovers, but I've a real problem with the implied Calvinism of the whole thing so far - Henry knows what he's going to do, anyway, so why couldn't he just sit around and wait for it to happen, rather than participate in the doing? Wouldn't you experiment to see if you could break your own past, and see what happened?

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I'd certainly be tempted to try changing the past, Andy, but I think I'd be too afraid to actually do it in case I changed my own present too much into something I didn't want & then I'd be doomed to forever return to the past & change things to make a better future (a la Butterfly Effect).

 

I think part of the frustration was that Henry wanted to try changing the occasional thing but didn't want to risk losing everything that was good in his life. Also, there was the implied notion that there is no way he could change things no matter how hard he tried as it's all already happened anyway.

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Well, it definitely has elements of it in there - the whole questions of the ethics involved in time travel & the resonsibilty of the person doing the travelling is kind of grasped at in the background. It kind of makes you think about it a lot. Like Andy said, there are holes in the theories, but it's still very enjoyable to read as the underlying love story, I thought, was beautifully written.

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Yup, I'll admit to shedding a few tears while sitting in the cafeteria at work & trying to hide it so nobody would be tempted to ask me if I was alright.

 

Even thought the end had an inevitable feel to it, it didn't change the fact that I didn't want it to end that way.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think I felt more for Claire - all that waiting around she has to do. First she's waiting for her life with him to begin, then,, once she has him in the "here & now", he keeps disappearing & she never knows how long he'll be gone nor whre he is. The constant worrying must really take its toll. Then with the whole baby thing - I know it affects Henry too, but the phsyical danger she is put in must put terrible strain on the relationship.

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