The Time Travellers Wife

The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (UK/US) is a love story of a man and a woman, where the man is a time traveller.

I must admit that I was very sceptical before reading this book. It had been marketed as a mainstream novel, it had even been recommended by Richard and Judy. Yet it was clearly SF, one of the protaganists is a time traveller! So I had pretty well set myself up to hate it and moan about mainstream novellists doing SF without knowing what they were doing and saying how everyone should read Slaughterhouse Five instead. But there was a doubt to this, the book had been nominated for an Arthur C Clarke award in 2005. And after reading it I agree. It is indeed a wonderful book. But aside your preconceptions and dive in.

The book starts in a fantastic disorientating swathe of diary style entries, switching times and viewpoints. The entire book is written in first person point of view, diary style, alternating between Henry and Clare. Each new chapter has dates to help you get orientated on the time frame quickly. The technical aspect of the time travelling story telling is very well done, mixing it up, yet staying consistent, foreshadowing, teasing and finally revealing.

However what won me over most of all was the characters and their realism and the way I came to love them despite their failures. The writing is wonderful, sucking you into Henry and Clare's lives and making you care.

My only criticism is that the third quarter of the book seemed a bit slow and the novel wouldn't have been less without it. However it recovered in the last quarter and finished in a wonderfully satisfying way.

Is it Science Fiction? I would say yes. The time travelling is essential to the story. There is no technobabble and paradoxes are dismissed in a wonderfully offhand manner, but it is a story based on a great SF cliche. And one that succeeds. I recommend it.