Novelist Audrey Niffenegger

They say when you meet the person you’re meant to be with, you’ll just know. Whether you buy into this idea of soul mates and destiny, I defy you not to be drawn into Audrey Niffenegger’s award-winning debut novel.

The Time Traveler’s Wife tells the story of Clare Abshire and Henry DeTamble. Two people seemingly meant to be together and yet repeatedly ripped apart by time.

One failed relationship after another…

Niffenegger has admitted that she started writing the book because she was disillusioned with love and unavailable men. She has used time travel to explore the distance that exists between even the most devoted of lovers but says she sees the novel as “very dark indeed… I always get a little amazed when people see it primarily as a lovely love story”.

It is Clare’s voice that opens the novel’s prologue:

“It’s hard being the one left behind… I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone.”

Her husband Henry is a time traveller, plagued by a genetic disorder (later named Chrono-Impairment) which means he frequently disappears and time travels along his own lifeline, to the past or the future.

Each chapter is made up of Clare and Henry’s separate narratives and jumps between the years, although the novel is largely shaped around Clare’s chronology. In this way, the love story they’re telling is always separate. They never speak together and it is not clear who they are speaking to. This technique though does allow the reader to experience a fuller picture than either of them: unlike Clare, we get to see where Henry goes and, unlike Henry, know how Clare feels to be left behind.

Perfect Strangers

Henry explains that he is drawn to the big events in his life. He says he has seen his mother die hundreds of times in a car crash. And as Clare’s husband, he will go back to visit Clare when she is growing up. Consequently, when they first meet in real time and go on their first date (she is 20, he is 28), she has already known him for years and knows more about him than he yet knows about himself:

Audrey Niffenegger's debut novel

‘I stop eating and look at Clare. She looks back at me, serene, angelic, perfectly at ease.

“Are we going to get married?”

“I assume so,” she replied. “You’ve been telling me for years that whenever it is you’re coming from, you’re married to me.”

Too much. This is too much.’

As they form a relationship in the now, Henry, a research librarian, feels threatened by his older self that Clare knew – he has spent the last few years drinking too much, doing too many drugs and sleeping around. Clare, who at times struggles with this less mature Henry and the reality of a partner who repeatedly leaves her, later laments that she never even had a choice at all. She has loved him since she was six years-old.

This is a love affair that, as all good love affairs are, is as blissfully happy as it is excruciatingly hard. Niffenegger has created a world in which free will is an uncertain concept – particularly for Clare, and indeed her husband who is doomed to never really be present and to be torn from his wife time and time again. And yet they endure the same problems as the rest of us: problems with each other’s families, trying to have a baby, and worrying about each other when they’re not together.

On one level, the plot may sound far-fetched and reviewers have struggled to categorise it – science fiction has not traditionally sat well beside a forlorn love story – but if you can look beyond the liberties Niffenegger has taken with science this is a wonderful read that draws you in with its hidden depths. Clare and Henry’s world is one which at times palpably aches: with love, desire, and loneliness.

Making it in Hollywood

By the time the novel was released in 2003, the film rights had already been optioned by Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B Entertainment. Pitt stayed on as executive producer and the film was directed by Robert Schwentke (Tattoo, Flight Plan). Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) was brought on board to write the screenplay, which may explain the frequent tear-jerker moments. The Time Traveler’s Wife was released in cinemas in August 2009 and became available on Blu-Ray and DVD last month.

McAdams and Bana in the film

While financially successful, making over $79 million at the box office, the film received mixed reviews. Most have agreed it wasn’t as good as the book, primarily because the story has been so stripped down. As with all movie adaptations, there is much less room and time here for the character depth and subtleties created in the novel by Niffenegger. With a book as complicated as this one, those time constraints have undoubtedly led to holes in the plot.

Star treatment

Aside from this, the film has been perfectly cast, starring Eric Bana (Star Trek, Troy) as Henry and Rachel McAdams (The Notebook, Sherlock Holmes) as Clare. Both beautiful and talented, they’re delicious to watch together and their chemistry pulls the viewer over the screenplay’s pitfalls.

McAdams in interviews has described Clare’s greatest flaw being that “she’s such a romantic and seeks out the extraordinary… while also struggling to find something normal.”

For Bana, he found Henry to be “a very confronting role to play”, particularly as the story is coming to an end (sorry, no spoilers to be found here).

Fans of the book may worry that after going through the Hollywood production machine, the plot will be glossy and shiny, without any of the darkness Niffenegger was so proud of. And while it may be cheesy in parts, much of the darkness was still there for me. Yes it may be a less intense relationship than the one Niffenegger painted, but every time Henry leaves Clare’s disappointment and despair flashes across her face.

And the time travelling stuff? Don’t think about it too hard.