You have to suspend disbelief, just for a moment. Open your mind to the possibility that time is not the solid dependable thing that we count on everyday to make that clock tick and heal our emotional wounds. It was easy for me, I've spent most of my life convinced that the Egyptians were aliens and the Universe is shaped like a donut, but I can see how it could be hard for others. But if you take that first step and hold those protesting thoughts for just a few pages, you're already there. You're already fully immersed in Clare Abshire's life, in Henry DeTamble's life, in their worries, in their joy and their pain. You almost forget that time travel is a bit of a fantastical idea.
      This is a love story at its heart. One of those loves that surpasses time and space and cannot be eroded by even the cruellest of hardships, even when your affliction is a genetic disorder called Chrono-Displacement that makes you jump around through time with no clothes on. I don't mean to make light of it, Henry's life is complicated at best and horrific at worst.
      Clare lives chronologically, not being Chrono-Displaced and everything; we see the story from her point of view in a relatively organised order and we also see Henry's point of view. Each section begins with the speaker, the date and both their ages, sometimes multiple ages for Henry if more than one of him exists at that time. Confused? There's more. She first meets Henry when she is six, and he is 36. As an older man he visits her in her past on different occasions until she is 18. She doesn't meet the Henry of her present, the Henry that first falls in love with her, until she has left home. To him, he has never met her before. Suddenly there is this woman in his life that knows more about him than he does. Terrifying.
      The book changes at the point that Clare meets present Henry. She says, in her childhood 'Every visit was an event. Now every absence is a non-event, a subtraction'. It seems from this point as though Clare's life or her time with Henry is inverted. It is after this that the trials within their lives become apparent to us. The periods that Clare is waiting for Henry's return to the present is excruciating.
      When Henry travels, he travels alone. No clothes, no objects, even his fillings stay behind. He can't drive, for the obvious reason he might disappear at any time and kill someone. He can't even go on holiday because the plane or boat won't be there when he comes back. When he gets to where he goes he is naked and often has to steal or lie to survive. Henry's world is unpredictable. His leaving is mostly triggered by stress. He can disappear at any time and appear at any moment. These moments are linked to his sub-consciousness, which is how he could go back to see Clare as a child and how he goes forward to see his daughter, Alba.
      Clare and Henry want a baby desperately but Clare is unable to carry the baby full term because, as this is a genetic disorder, it is hereditary and the babies keep displacing themselves out of her womb. Henry does eventually convince a doctor of his condition and gets help. Drugs suppress the effects but not completely and after some horrific scenes and a bit of jumping to the future, it is obvious that Henry will die soon.
      Niffenegger must have understood Henry's rules early on. He never reveals too much about the future to anyone, and understands he cannot change what has happened, not even the death of his mother. Niffenegger created this world with its rules and gave a whole new dimension to a love story. The question is would the love story stand on its own without the fantastical time travel twist. I think it would, the time travel burden or curse acts as the catalyst which is present in many other love stories, it�s the complication, the challenge. The fact that Niffenegger chose time travel for this role only adds to the magic and indestructible quality of their love.
      I really do feel something for this book. Now, please don't take that lightly. I am a self-confessed unenthusiastic reader. Rarely I will read a book all the way through, let alone finish it in a week. I was gripped, to my core. Niffenegger keeps the reader in an almost constant state of alertness. You don't know when Henry will go, you feel just like Clare. As a reader you feel so much for the characters. I laughed with them, I felt their love, and I cried with Clare when the enviable came.

Other books...




Nobody Nowhere by Donna Williams

My mam gave me this book just before a decided I wanted to go to Uni. It's tattard and falling apart. I sometimes wonder how many people have read it. It is an autobiography, written from the point of view of an autisic woman. And it is facinating. I always wondered what the world is like from that point of view. She sees the world we live in as compleately separate from the world she lives in and she describes her difficulties in making the transition into our world.

Witch Child by Celia Rees

I love the supernatural, but stories like this make you realise that the witchcraft that was ridiculed and despised in the colonial period was the natural and simple application of science. They had knowledge of herbs that had healing properties that we take for granted now but at that time they were sometimes incomprehensable and people are afraid of what they don't understand.

Sheepshagger by Niall Griffiths

I have absolutely no idea how I got this book. It just appeared on my bookshelf one day (to my knowledge) and I innocently picked it up as a quiet young girl and put it down as very different person. I'm not quite sure what I have changed into but I couldn't continue being a quiet young girl after reading it. 'Sheepshagger' by Niall Griffiths was beyond anything I had ever read before. It was so different, and coming from the valleys I think I understood it more than would, say. a Russian nun. It was gripping and I loved the way it changed from the present to the past and back, and with it changed the whole style of writing. Loved it. An interesting read, but I warn you, not for the faint of heart.