The Time Traveler's Wife
By Audrey Niffenegger
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
How did Audrey Niffenegger manage to do it? No, I am not asking
how she managed to write such a fine novel (although The Time
Traveler's Wife is a fine novel). Rather, how did she manage to write
a story about time travel and keep it out of the black hole that passes
for the science fiction section of your local book store? Why does
she get to pass as an author of literary fiction, while the rest of the
grunts are stuck in genre hell? And, most of all, how did she get the
publisher to package the book with a tasteful, low-key cover, instead
of the pulp fiction monstrosities that make all the other speculative
fiction authors, from Asimov to Zelazny, look like cretins?
And she did it with a first novel! When Cormac McCarthy or
Margaret Atwood write a sci-fi novel, I can understand the publisher
trying to disguise the fact – after all, these authors have reputations
to protect. But a first novelist writing about time travel, and showing
up on the shelf between Nabokov and Ondaatje . . . Well, there is
always a first time for everything.
Of course, Kurt Vonnegut showed decades ago, in Slaughterhouse
Five, that time travel could be a useful concept in structuring a work
of experimental fiction. Disruptions in chronology are a cherished
tool of modernist writing. (Remember the Alain Robbe-Grillet novel
where the character dies, and then shows up again in a later chapter?
What, you haven’t read Robbe-Grillet? Ah, to be so lucky.)
Niffenegger takes full advantage of the freedom given her by this
structural device, telling the life story of Henry DeTamble in bits and
piece that make a mockery of the usual start-to-finish framework of
story-telling. Effects happen before their causes. Dead characters
reappear (but much more smoothly than in Robbe-Grillet). The old
becomes new and the new becomes old.
With a less skilled writer manning the keyboard, this intricate plan for
sequencing and pacing the story might merely confuse and disrupt the
flow of the work. But Niffenegger never forgets the human element in
her tale. The Time Traveler’s Wife is, above all, a love story. At
times, a strange and unprecedented love story – how often does the
male lead, age 36, first meet his future wife, age 6, while standing
stark naked in a meadow? This usually leads to an arrest, not
romance. But Niffenegger pulls it off with a delicate touch. The
romance of DeTamble and Clare Abshire is beautifully rendered –
indeed, this is one of the most moving love stories I have read in
recent years. Moreover, the unexpected sequencing imparts a
wistful, nostalgic ambiance to their encounters that very much sui
generis.
No, you won’t find it in the sci-fi section, but track it down anyway.
By all means, pick up something by Nabokov and Ondaatje while you’
re browsing, but also pick up this exceptional effort by Niffenegger.
And who knows? Maybe her next book will be about aliens or
androids.
By Audrey Niffenegger
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
How did Audrey Niffenegger manage to do it? No, I am not asking
how she managed to write such a fine novel (although The Time
Traveler's Wife is a fine novel). Rather, how did she manage to write
a story about time travel and keep it out of the black hole that passes
for the science fiction section of your local book store? Why does
she get to pass as an author of literary fiction, while the rest of the
grunts are stuck in genre hell? And, most of all, how did she get the
publisher to package the book with a tasteful, low-key cover, instead
of the pulp fiction monstrosities that make all the other speculative
fiction authors, from Asimov to Zelazny, look like cretins?
And she did it with a first novel! When Cormac McCarthy or
Margaret Atwood write a sci-fi novel, I can understand the publisher
trying to disguise the fact – after all, these authors have reputations
to protect. But a first novelist writing about time travel, and showing
up on the shelf between Nabokov and Ondaatje . . . Well, there is
always a first time for everything.
Of course, Kurt Vonnegut showed decades ago, in Slaughterhouse
Five, that time travel could be a useful concept in structuring a work
of experimental fiction. Disruptions in chronology are a cherished
tool of modernist writing. (Remember the Alain Robbe-Grillet novel
where the character dies, and then shows up again in a later chapter?
What, you haven’t read Robbe-Grillet? Ah, to be so lucky.)
Niffenegger takes full advantage of the freedom given her by this
structural device, telling the life story of Henry DeTamble in bits and
piece that make a mockery of the usual start-to-finish framework of
story-telling. Effects happen before their causes. Dead characters
reappear (but much more smoothly than in Robbe-Grillet). The old
becomes new and the new becomes old.
With a less skilled writer manning the keyboard, this intricate plan for
sequencing and pacing the story might merely confuse and disrupt the
flow of the work. But Niffenegger never forgets the human element in
her tale. The Time Traveler’s Wife is, above all, a love story. At
times, a strange and unprecedented love story – how often does the
male lead, age 36, first meet his future wife, age 6, while standing
stark naked in a meadow? This usually leads to an arrest, not
romance. But Niffenegger pulls it off with a delicate touch. The
romance of DeTamble and Clare Abshire is beautifully rendered –
indeed, this is one of the most moving love stories I have read in
recent years. Moreover, the unexpected sequencing imparts a
wistful, nostalgic ambiance to their encounters that very much sui
generis.
No, you won’t find it in the sci-fi section, but track it down anyway.
By all means, pick up something by Nabokov and Ondaatje while you’
re browsing, but also pick up this exceptional effort by Niffenegger.
And who knows? Maybe her next book will be about aliens or
androids.
conceptual fiction