The Time Traveler's Wife
Encyclopedia
Once their timelines converge "naturally" at the library—their first meeting in his chronology—Henry starts to travel to Clare's childhood and adolescence in South Haven, Michigan
, beginning in 1977 when she is six years old. On one of his early visits (from her perspective), Henry gives her a list of the dates he will appear and she writes them in a diary so she will remember to provide him with clothes and food when he arrives. During another visit, he inadvertently reveals that they will be married in the future. Over time they develop a close relationship. At one point, Henry helps Clare frighten and humiliate a boy who abused her. Clare is last visited in her youth by Henry in 1989, on her eighteenth birthday, during which they make love for the first time. They are then separated for two years until their meeting at the library.
Clare and Henry marry, but Clare has trouble bringing a pregnancy to term because of the genetic anomaly Henry may presumably be passing on to the fetus. After six miscarriage
s, Henry wishes to save Clare further pain and has a vasectomy
. However a version of Henry from the past visits Clare one night and they make love; she subsequently gives birth to a daughter, Alba. Alba is diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement as well but, unlike Henry, she has some control over her destinations when she time travels. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets his ten-year-old daughter on a school field trip and learns that he died when she was five years old.
When he is 43, during what is to be his last year of life, Henry time travels to a Chicago parking garage on a frigid winter night where he is unable to find shelter. As a result of the hypothermia
and frostbite
he suffers, his feet are amputated when he returns to the present. Henry and Clare both know that without the ability to escape when he time travels, Henry will certainly die within his next few jumps. On New Year's Eve 2006 Henry time travels into the middle of the Michigan
woods in 1984 and is accidentally shot by Clare's brother, a scene foreshadowed
earlier in the novel. Henry returns to the present and dies in Clare's arms.
Clare is devastated by Henry's death. She later finds a letter from Henry asking her to "stop waiting" for him, but which describes a moment in her future when she will see him again. The last scene in the book takes place when Clare is 82 years old and Henry is 43. She is waiting for Henry, as she has done most of her life, and when he arrives they clasp each other for what may or may not be the last time.
, where she painstakingly prepares editions of handpainted books. She produced some of her earlier works in editions of ten copies, which were sold in art galleries. However, she decided that The Time Traveler's Wife would have to be a novel: "I got the idea for the title, and when I draw I have this big drawing table covered with brown paper, and I write ideas down on the paper. So I wrote down this title and after a while I started to think about it. I couldn't think of a way to make it a picture book because still pictures don't represent time very well, so I decided to write a novel." She was intrigued by the title because "it immediately defined two people and their relationship to each other". Niffenegger said that its source was an epigraph
to J. B. Priestley
's 1964 novel Man and Time: "Clock time is our bank manager, tax collector, police inspector; this inner time is our wife." Drawing her central theme from this image, she says, "Henry is not only married to Clare; he's also married to time." Other authors whom Niffenegger has cited as influencing the book include Richard Powers
, David Foster Wallace
, Henry James
, and Dorothy Sayers.
She has said the story is a metaphor
for her own failed love affairs and that "I had kind of got the idea that there's not going to be some fabulous perfect soulmate out there for me, so I'll just make him up." She also drew on her parents' marriage for inspiration—her father spent the bulk of each week traveling. Despite the story's analogies to her own life, Niffenegger has forcefully stated that Clare is not a self-portrait; "She's radically different. I am much more willful and don't think I could go through a lifetime waiting for someone to appear, no matter how fascinating he was."
Niffenegger began writing the novel in 1997; the last scene, in which an aged Clare is waiting for Henry, was written first, because it is the story's focal point. The narrative was originally structured thematically. Responding to comments from readers of early drafts of the manuscript, Niffenegger reorganized the narrative so that it largely followed Clare's timeline. The work was finished in 2001. With no history of commercial publication, Niffenegger had trouble finding interested literary agents—25 rejected the manuscript. In 2002, she sent it unsolicited to the small, San Francisco–based publisher MacAdam/Cage
, where it reached Anika Streitfeld. Streitfeld, who became Niffenegger's editor, "thought it was incredible. Right from the very beginning you feel like you are in capable hands, that this is someone who has a story to tell and who knows how to tell it." She gave it to David Poindexter, the founder of the publishing firm, "who read it overnight and decided to buy the book". However, Niffenegger had acquired an agent by this time, and several publishing houses in New York City were interested in the novel. The manuscript was put up for auction and MacAdam/Cage bid US$100,000, by far the largest sum it had ever offered for a book. Although another publisher outbid them, Niffenegger selected MacAdam/Cage because they were so dedicated to her work. Also, Niffenegger explains that her "own natural inclination is to go small. My background is in punk music—I'd always pick the indie company over the giant corporation."
Reviewers have found The Time Traveler's Wife difficult to classify generically
: some categorize it as science fiction
, others as a romance
. Niffenegger herself is reluctant to label the novel, saying she "never thought of it as science fiction, even though it has a science-fiction premise". In Niffenegger's view, the story is primarily about Henry and Clare's relationship and the struggles they endure. She has said that she based Clare and Henry's romance on the "cerebral coupling" of Dorothy Sayers's characters Lord Peter Wimsey
and Harriet Vane
.
Time travel stories
to which the novel has been compared include Jack Finney's
Time and Again
(1970) and the film Somewhere in Time
(1980). Henry has been compared to Billy Pilgrim
of Kurt Vonnegut's
Slaughterhouse-Five
(1969). Science fiction writer Terence M. Green
calls the novel a "timeslip romance". The Time Traveler's Wife is not as concerned with the paradoxes of time travel as is traditional science fiction. Instead, as critic Marc Mohan describes, the novel "uses time travel as a metaphor to explain how two people can feel as if they've known each other their entire lives".
, the novel is "an elegy to love and loss". The love between Henry and Clare is expressed in a variety of ways, including through an analysis and history of the couple's sex life.
While much of the novel shows Henry and Clare falling in love, the end is darker and "time travel becomes a means for representing arbitrariness, transience, [and] plain bad luck", according to The Boston Globe
s Judith Maas. As Andrew Billen argues in The Times
, "The book may even serve as a feminist analysis of marriage as a partnership in which only the male is conceded the privilege of absence." Several reviewers noted that time travel represents relationships in which couples cannot quite communicate with each other. Natasha Walter of The Guardian
describes the story's attention to "the sense of slippage that you get in any relationship—that you could be living through a slightly different love story from the one your partner is experiencing." She points, for example, to the section of the book which describes the first time Clare and Henry make love. She is 18 and he is 41, already married to her in his present. After this interlude, he returns to his own time and his own Clare, who says,
The novel raises questions about determinism
and free will
. For example, critic Dan Falk asks, "Given that [Henry's] journey has 'already happened,' should he not simply be compelled to act precisely as he remembers seeing himself act? (Or perhaps he is compelled, and merely feels he has a choice...?)." Although Henry seemingly cannot alter the future, the characters do not become "cynical" and, according to Lee-Potter, the novel demonstrates that people can be changed through love. Walter notes that there is a "quasi-religious sense" to the inevitability of Henry's and Clare's lives and deaths. Niffenegger, however, believes that the novel does not depict destiny but rather "randomness and meaninglessness".
The hardback edition of The Time Traveler's Wife was published in the United States in September 2003 by MacAdam/Cage and in the United Kingdom by Random House
on January 1, 2004. MacAdam/Cage initiated an "extensive marketing drive", including advertising in The New York Times
and The New Yorker
and a promotional book tour by Niffenegger. As a result, the novel debuted at number nine on the New York Times bestseller list
. After popular crime writer Scott Turow
, whose wife is a friend of Niffenegger, endorsed it on The Today Show, the first print run of 15,000 sold out and 100,000 more copies were printed. In Britain, the book received a boost from its choice as a Richard & Judy book club recommendation—nearly 45,000 copies were sold in one week. It was named the 2003 Amazon.com
Book of the Year. A December 2003 article in The Observer
reported that although "a tiny minority of American reviewers" felt that the novel was "gimmicky", it was still "a publishing sensation". At that point, the novel had been sold to publishers in 15 countries. As of March 2009, it had sold almost 1.5 million copies in the United States and 1 million in the United Kingdom. The success of The Time Traveler's Wife prompted almost every major publishing firm to attempt to acquire Niffenegger's second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry
, which has been called "one of the most eagerly sought-after works in recent publishing history". It garnered her an advance of US$5 million from Scribner's
.
Reviewers praised Niffenegger's characterization of Henry and Clare, particularly their emotional depth. Michelle Griffin of The Age
noted that although Henry "is custom-designed for the fantasy lives of bookish ladies", his flaws, particularly his "violent, argumentative, depressive" nature, make him a strong, well-rounded character. Charles DeLint wrote in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that one of Niffenegger's "greatest accomplishments" in the novel was her ability to convey the emotional growth of Clare and Henry in character arcs while at the same time alternating their perspectives. Stephen Amidon of The Times
, however, questioned the selfishness of the central characters.
Most reviewers were impressed with the premise of the novel, but critical of its melodramatic style. While Griffin praised the plot and concept as "clever", she complained that Niffenegger's writing is usually "pedestrian" and the story at times contrived. Heidi Darroch of the National Post
agreed, contending that the story has an excess of overwrought emotional moments "which never quite add up to a fully developed plot". Writing in The Chicago Tribune, Carey Harrison praised the originality of the novel, specifically the intersection of child-bearing and time travel. Despite appreciating the novel's premise, Amidon complained that the implications of Henry's time-traveling were poorly thought out. For example, Henry has foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks but does nothing to try to prevent them. Instead, on September 11, 2001, he gets up early "to listen to the world being normal for a little while longer". Amidon also criticized the novel's "overall clumsiness", writing that Niffenegger is "a ham-fisted stylist, long-winded and given to sudden eruptions of cliche". Miriam Shaviv agreed to an extent, writing in The Jerusalem Post
, "There are no original or even non-cliched messages here. True love, Niffenegger seems to be telling us, is timeless, and can survive even the worst yet, the book is a page-turner, delicately crafted and psychologically sound." Representative of the bulk of reviews, the Library Journal
described the novel as "skillfully written with a blend of distinct characters and heartfelt emotions"; it recommended that public libraries purchase multiple copies of the book.
published an audio book of The Time Traveler's Wife that was narrated by William Hope and Laurel Lefkow, described as "feisty readers" in one review.Audible.co.uk produced an unabridged version in 2008, also narrated by Hope and Lefkow.
and Brad Pitt
's production company Plan B Entertainment
, in association with New Line Cinema
, before the novel was even published. The adaptation was written by Bruce Joel Rubin
and directed by Robert Schwentke
, and stars Rachel McAdams
and Eric Bana
. Filming began in September 2007 and the movie was released by Warner Brothers on August 14, 2009. When asked about the prospect of her novel being turned into a film, Niffenegger said, "I've got my little movie that runs in my head. And I'm kind of afraid that will be changed or wiped out by what somebody else might do with it. And it is sort of thrilling and creepy, because now the characters have an existence apart from me." In general, the film received mixed-to-negative reviews. For example, The New York Times wrote that the film was an "often ridiculous, awkward, unsatisfying and dour melodramatic adaptation".
South Haven, Michigan
South Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most of the city is in Van Buren County, although a small portion extends into Allegan County. The population was 5,021 at the 2000 census....
, beginning in 1977 when she is six years old. On one of his early visits (from her perspective), Henry gives her a list of the dates he will appear and she writes them in a diary so she will remember to provide him with clothes and food when he arrives. During another visit, he inadvertently reveals that they will be married in the future. Over time they develop a close relationship. At one point, Henry helps Clare frighten and humiliate a boy who abused her. Clare is last visited in her youth by Henry in 1989, on her eighteenth birthday, during which they make love for the first time. They are then separated for two years until their meeting at the library.
Clare and Henry marry, but Clare has trouble bringing a pregnancy to term because of the genetic anomaly Henry may presumably be passing on to the fetus. After six miscarriage
Miscarriage
Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
s, Henry wishes to save Clare further pain and has a vasectomy
Vasectomy
Vasectomy is a surgical procedure for male sterilization and/or permanent birth control. During the procedure, the vasa deferentia of a man are severed, and then tied/sealed in a manner such to prevent sperm from entering into the seminal stream...
. However a version of Henry from the past visits Clare one night and they make love; she subsequently gives birth to a daughter, Alba. Alba is diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement as well but, unlike Henry, she has some control over her destinations when she time travels. Before she is born, Henry travels to the future and meets his ten-year-old daughter on a school field trip and learns that he died when she was five years old.
When he is 43, during what is to be his last year of life, Henry time travels to a Chicago parking garage on a frigid winter night where he is unable to find shelter. As a result of the hypothermia
Hypothermia
Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions which is defined as . Body temperature is usually maintained near a constant level of through biologic homeostasis or thermoregulation...
and frostbite
Frostbite
Frostbite is the medical condition where localized damage is caused to skin and other tissues due to extreme cold. Frostbite is most likely to happen in body parts farthest from the heart and those with large exposed areas...
he suffers, his feet are amputated when he returns to the present. Henry and Clare both know that without the ability to escape when he time travels, Henry will certainly die within his next few jumps. On New Year's Eve 2006 Henry time travels into the middle of the Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
woods in 1984 and is accidentally shot by Clare's brother, a scene foreshadowed
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing or adumbrating is a literary device in which an author indistinctly suggests certain plot developments that might come later in the story.-Repetitive designation and Chekhov's gun:...
earlier in the novel. Henry returns to the present and dies in Clare's arms.
Clare is devastated by Henry's death. She later finds a letter from Henry asking her to "stop waiting" for him, but which describes a moment in her future when she will see him again. The last scene in the book takes place when Clare is 82 years old and Henry is 43. She is waiting for Henry, as she has done most of her life, and when he arrives they clasp each other for what may or may not be the last time.
Composition and publication
Niffenegger is an artist who teaches at the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College ChicagoColumbia College Chicago
Columbia College Chicago is one of the largest art colleges in the United States with nearly 12,000 students pursuing degrees within 120 undergraduate and graduate programs...
, where she painstakingly prepares editions of handpainted books. She produced some of her earlier works in editions of ten copies, which were sold in art galleries. However, she decided that The Time Traveler's Wife would have to be a novel: "I got the idea for the title, and when I draw I have this big drawing table covered with brown paper, and I write ideas down on the paper. So I wrote down this title and after a while I started to think about it. I couldn't think of a way to make it a picture book because still pictures don't represent time very well, so I decided to write a novel." She was intrigued by the title because "it immediately defined two people and their relationship to each other". Niffenegger said that its source was an epigraph
Epigraph (literature)
In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component. The epigraph may serve as a preface, as a summary, as a counter-example, or to link the work to a wider literary canon, either to invite comparison or to enlist a conventional...
to J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
's 1964 novel Man and Time: "Clock time is our bank manager, tax collector, police inspector; this inner time is our wife." Drawing her central theme from this image, she says, "Henry is not only married to Clare; he's also married to time." Other authors whom Niffenegger has cited as influencing the book include Richard Powers
Richard Powers
Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology.- Life and work :...
, David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...
, Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, and Dorothy Sayers.
She has said the story is a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
for her own failed love affairs and that "I had kind of got the idea that there's not going to be some fabulous perfect soulmate out there for me, so I'll just make him up." She also drew on her parents' marriage for inspiration—her father spent the bulk of each week traveling. Despite the story's analogies to her own life, Niffenegger has forcefully stated that Clare is not a self-portrait; "She's radically different. I am much more willful and don't think I could go through a lifetime waiting for someone to appear, no matter how fascinating he was."
Niffenegger began writing the novel in 1997; the last scene, in which an aged Clare is waiting for Henry, was written first, because it is the story's focal point. The narrative was originally structured thematically. Responding to comments from readers of early drafts of the manuscript, Niffenegger reorganized the narrative so that it largely followed Clare's timeline. The work was finished in 2001. With no history of commercial publication, Niffenegger had trouble finding interested literary agents—25 rejected the manuscript. In 2002, she sent it unsolicited to the small, San Francisco–based publisher MacAdam/Cage
MacAdam/Cage
MacAdam/Cage is a small publishing firm located in San Francisco, California. It was founded by David Poindexter in 1998. As of 2003, it published around 30 to 45 titles per year, primarily fiction, short story collections, history, biography, and essays, and had twelve employees...
, where it reached Anika Streitfeld. Streitfeld, who became Niffenegger's editor, "thought it was incredible. Right from the very beginning you feel like you are in capable hands, that this is someone who has a story to tell and who knows how to tell it." She gave it to David Poindexter, the founder of the publishing firm, "who read it overnight and decided to buy the book". However, Niffenegger had acquired an agent by this time, and several publishing houses in New York City were interested in the novel. The manuscript was put up for auction and MacAdam/Cage bid US$100,000, by far the largest sum it had ever offered for a book. Although another publisher outbid them, Niffenegger selected MacAdam/Cage because they were so dedicated to her work. Also, Niffenegger explains that her "own natural inclination is to go small. My background is in punk music—I'd always pick the indie company over the giant corporation."
Genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
: some categorize it as science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, others as a romance
Romance novel
The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...
. Niffenegger herself is reluctant to label the novel, saying she "never thought of it as science fiction, even though it has a science-fiction premise". In Niffenegger's view, the story is primarily about Henry and Clare's relationship and the struggles they endure. She has said that she based Clare and Henry's romance on the "cerebral coupling" of Dorothy Sayers's characters Lord Peter Wimsey
Lord Peter Wimsey
Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is a bon vivant amateur sleuth in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, in which he solves mysteries; usually, but not always, murders...
and Harriet Vane
Harriet Vane
Harriet Deborah Vane, later Lady Peter Wimsey, is a fictional character in the works of British writer Dorothy L. Sayers ....
.
Time travel stories
Time travel in fiction
Time travel is a common theme in science fiction and is depicted in a variety of media. It simply means either going forward in time or backward, to experience the future, or the past.-Literature:...
to which the novel has been compared include Jack Finney's
Jack Finney
Jack Finney was an American author. His best-known works are science fiction and thrillers, including The Body Snatchers and Time and Again. The former was the basis for the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its remakes.-Biography:Finney was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and given the...
Time and Again
Time and Again (novel)
Time and Again is a 1970 illustrated novel by Jack Finney. The many illustrations in the book are real, though, as explained in an endnote, not all are from the 1882 period in which the actions of the book take place. It had long been rumored that Robert Redford would convert the book into a movie...
(1970) and the film Somewhere in Time
Somewhere in Time (film)
Somewhere in Time is a 1980 romantic science fiction film directed by Jeannot Szwarc. It is a film adaptation of the 1975 novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the screenplay...
(1980). Henry has been compared to Billy Pilgrim
Billy Pilgrim
Billy Pilgrim was an American folk rock duo based in Atlanta, Georgia, comprising Andrew Hyra and Kristian Bush. The band's name was taken from the time-traveling anti-hero of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five. The name was adopted in 1994; prior to that the duo simply billed itself as...
of Kurt Vonnegut's
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a satirical novel by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II experiences and journeys through time of a soldier called Billy Pilgrim...
(1969). Science fiction writer Terence M. Green
Terence M. Green
Terence Michael Green is a Canadian science-fiction and fantasy writer. He has published short stories and novels, among the best received of which is Children of the Rainbow . His works focus on characterization and explore the complexity of social relationships.-Early life and education:Green...
calls the novel a "timeslip romance". The Time Traveler's Wife is not as concerned with the paradoxes of time travel as is traditional science fiction. Instead, as critic Marc Mohan describes, the novel "uses time travel as a metaphor to explain how two people can feel as if they've known each other their entire lives".
Themes
Niffenegger identifies the themes of the novel as "mutants, love, death, amputation, sex, and time". Reviewers have focused on love, loss, and time. As Charlie Lee-Potter writes in The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, the novel is "an elegy to love and loss". The love between Henry and Clare is expressed in a variety of ways, including through an analysis and history of the couple's sex life.
While much of the novel shows Henry and Clare falling in love, the end is darker and "time travel becomes a means for representing arbitrariness, transience, [and] plain bad luck", according to The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
s Judith Maas. As Andrew Billen argues in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, "The book may even serve as a feminist analysis of marriage as a partnership in which only the male is conceded the privilege of absence." Several reviewers noted that time travel represents relationships in which couples cannot quite communicate with each other. Natasha Walter of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
describes the story's attention to "the sense of slippage that you get in any relationship—that you could be living through a slightly different love story from the one your partner is experiencing." She points, for example, to the section of the book which describes the first time Clare and Henry make love. She is 18 and he is 41, already married to her in his present. After this interlude, he returns to his own time and his own Clare, who says,
The novel raises questions about determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
and free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
. For example, critic Dan Falk asks, "Given that [Henry's] journey has 'already happened,' should he not simply be compelled to act precisely as he remembers seeing himself act? (Or perhaps he is compelled, and merely feels he has a choice...?)." Although Henry seemingly cannot alter the future, the characters do not become "cynical" and, according to Lee-Potter, the novel demonstrates that people can be changed through love. Walter notes that there is a "quasi-religious sense" to the inevitability of Henry's and Clare's lives and deaths. Niffenegger, however, believes that the novel does not depict destiny but rather "randomness and meaninglessness".
Reception
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
on January 1, 2004. MacAdam/Cage initiated an "extensive marketing drive", including advertising in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
and a promotional book tour by Niffenegger. As a result, the novel debuted at number nine on the New York Times bestseller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
. After popular crime writer Scott Turow
Scott Turow
Scott F. Turow is an American author and a practicing lawyer. Turow has written eight fiction and two nonfiction books, which have been translated into over 20 languages and have sold over 25 million copies...
, whose wife is a friend of Niffenegger, endorsed it on The Today Show, the first print run of 15,000 sold out and 100,000 more copies were printed. In Britain, the book received a boost from its choice as a Richard & Judy book club recommendation—nearly 45,000 copies were sold in one week. It was named the 2003 Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
Book of the Year. A December 2003 article in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
reported that although "a tiny minority of American reviewers" felt that the novel was "gimmicky", it was still "a publishing sensation". At that point, the novel had been sold to publishers in 15 countries. As of March 2009, it had sold almost 1.5 million copies in the United States and 1 million in the United Kingdom. The success of The Time Traveler's Wife prompted almost every major publishing firm to attempt to acquire Niffenegger's second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry
Her Fearful Symmetry
Her Fearful Symmetry is the second novel by author Audrey Niffenegger.The book was released on 1 October 2009 and is set in London's Highgate Cemetery where, during research for the book, Niffenegger acted as a tour guide.-The title:...
, which has been called "one of the most eagerly sought-after works in recent publishing history". It garnered her an advance of US$5 million from Scribner's
Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...
.
Reviewers praised Niffenegger's characterization of Henry and Clare, particularly their emotional depth. Michelle Griffin of The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
noted that although Henry "is custom-designed for the fantasy lives of bookish ladies", his flaws, particularly his "violent, argumentative, depressive" nature, make him a strong, well-rounded character. Charles DeLint wrote in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that one of Niffenegger's "greatest accomplishments" in the novel was her ability to convey the emotional growth of Clare and Henry in character arcs while at the same time alternating their perspectives. Stephen Amidon of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, however, questioned the selfishness of the central characters.
Most reviewers were impressed with the premise of the novel, but critical of its melodramatic style. While Griffin praised the plot and concept as "clever", she complained that Niffenegger's writing is usually "pedestrian" and the story at times contrived. Heidi Darroch of the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
agreed, contending that the story has an excess of overwrought emotional moments "which never quite add up to a fully developed plot". Writing in The Chicago Tribune, Carey Harrison praised the originality of the novel, specifically the intersection of child-bearing and time travel. Despite appreciating the novel's premise, Amidon complained that the implications of Henry's time-traveling were poorly thought out. For example, Henry has foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks but does nothing to try to prevent them. Instead, on September 11, 2001, he gets up early "to listen to the world being normal for a little while longer". Amidon also criticized the novel's "overall clumsiness", writing that Niffenegger is "a ham-fisted stylist, long-winded and given to sudden eruptions of cliche". Miriam Shaviv agreed to an extent, writing in The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....
, "There are no original or even non-cliched messages here. True love, Niffenegger seems to be telling us, is timeless, and can survive even the worst yet, the book is a page-turner, delicately crafted and psychologically sound." Representative of the bulk of reviews, the Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
described the novel as "skillfully written with a blend of distinct characters and heartfelt emotions"; it recommended that public libraries purchase multiple copies of the book.
Awards and nominations
| Award | Year | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Locus Award for Best First Novel Locus Award for Best First Novel Winners of the Locus Award for Best First Novel, awarded by the Locus magazine. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year.... |
2004 | Nominated |
| Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction | 2004 | Longlisted |
| Arthur C. Clarke Award Arthur C. Clarke Award The Arthur C. Clarke Award is a British award given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The award was established with a grant from Arthur C. Clarke and the first prize was awarded in 1987... |
2005 | Shortlisted |
| John W. Campbell Memorial Award | 2005 | Third place |
| Exclusive Books Boeke Prize Exclusive Books Boeke Prize The Exclusive Books Boeke Prize is a book prize awarded in South Africa, loosely modelled on the United Kingdom's Man Booker Prize, and sponsored by Exclusive Books... |
2005 | Won |
| Geffen Award Geffen Award The Geffen Award is an annual literary award given by the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy since 1999, and presented at the Annual Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention, ICon Festival... |
2006 | Nominated |
| British Book Award for Popular Fiction | 2006 | Won |
Audio book
BBC AudioBBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
published an audio book of The Time Traveler's Wife that was narrated by William Hope and Laurel Lefkow, described as "feisty readers" in one review.Audible.co.uk produced an unabridged version in 2008, also narrated by Hope and Lefkow.
HighBridge also produced an unabridged version in 2003, which is twelve hours long and narrated by Maggi-Meg Reed and Christopher Burns; their performance has been described as "sincere and passionate".
Film
The film rights for The Time Traveler's Wife were optioned by Jennifer AnistonJennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston is an American actress, film director, and producer, best known for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Aniston has also enjoyed a successful film career,...
and Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
's production company Plan B Entertainment
Plan B Entertainment
Plan B Entertainment is a film production company founded by Brad Pitt, Brad Grey, and Jennifer Aniston. In 2006, Pitt became the sole owner; the company currently holds a release deal with Paramount Pictures, along with Warner Bros...
, in association with New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
, before the novel was even published. The adaptation was written by Bruce Joel Rubin
Bruce Joel Rubin
Bruce Joel Rubin is a screenwriter best known for the supernatural romance, Ghost for which he won the 1991 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay...
and directed by Robert Schwentke
Robert Schwentke
Robert Schwentke is a German film director best known for the films Tattoo and Flightplan.He was a graduate of Columbia College Hollywood in 1992....
, and stars Rachel McAdams
Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
and Eric Bana
Eric Bana
Eric Bana is an Australian film and television actor. He began his career as a comedian in the sketch comedy series Full Frontal before gaining critical recognition in the biopic Chopper...
. Filming began in September 2007 and the movie was released by Warner Brothers on August 14, 2009. When asked about the prospect of her novel being turned into a film, Niffenegger said, "I've got my little movie that runs in my head. And I'm kind of afraid that will be changed or wiped out by what somebody else might do with it. And it is sort of thrilling and creepy, because now the characters have an existence apart from me." In general, the film received mixed-to-negative reviews. For example, The New York Times wrote that the film was an "often ridiculous, awkward, unsatisfying and dour melodramatic adaptation".
See also
- "The Man Who Folded HimselfThe Man Who Folded HimselfThe Man Who Folded Himself is a 1973 science fiction novel by David Gerrold that deals with time travel. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1973 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1974...
" (1973), a novel by David Gerrold with contorted and finally close-looped timelines.