Synopsis
Audrey Niffenegger's bestselling novel has a fantastical concept--a man who involuntarily travel through time and his wife--but for all its strangeness, its true power lies in its ability to make the reader feel the force of the characters' love and the depth of their tragedies. Henry DeTamble suffers from a genetic condition called Chrono-Displacement that causes him to unexpectedly slip backwards or forwards in time, appearing completely naked at times and places with special significant to his life. As a result, he has visited his wife Clare many times during her childhood, so when she finally meets him at the age of 20 she already knows much about his personality and their life together in the future--he, however, does not know who she is because his time traveling episodes have not happened yet. Sly charming magic of this sort infuses the novel with a kind of dreamy wondrousness. More importantly, the time-traveling acts as a marvelous metaphor for the nature of love, how it changes, how it's constantly impacted by the events of the past, and the promises of the future.
Henry has a mysterious condition: he is able to travel through time. On one such trip, he meets Clare, visiting her at various times in her life until, finally, the two meet in real time, marry, and have a child--who is also a time-traveler. Henry dies, tragically, at 43--but returns to Clare when she herself is in extreme old age.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2003-09-01 | | Edition Description: | Abridged |
| Size | | Height: | 6.3 in | | Width: | 4.3 in | | Thickness: | 2.8 in | | Weight: | 12.0 oz |
Industry Reviews
"Mainstreamed time-travel romance, cleverly executed and tastefully furnished....Presented as a literary novel, this is more accurately an exceedingly literate one....A LOVE STORY for educated, upper-middle-class tastes...."
Kirkus Reviews (08/01/2003)
"[A]n unabashed homage to love, a tear-jerker of the first order which also happens to be an absorbing existential exploration of 'being' and temporality."
Literary Review - Lucy Beresford (02/01/2004)
"The author has produced a splendid and original tale....I won't spoil the ending, except to say that it is a tearjerker."
Bloomsbury Review - John A. Murray
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