I think this will be in my top ten books of all time.
The idea of involuntary time travel by the main character Henry in this novel is simple, and brilliantly executed. Not much time is spent dwelling on the mechanics or fake science of why/how this is possible, the real focus is the love story between Henry and Clare, and their struggle to have a semi-normal life together.
The plot follows Clare's (normal) chronology, which succeeds brilliantly at binding together all of Henry's jumping around in time. The voices of Henry and Clare are very similar - I often found myself checking back to the start of the paragraph to see whose thoughts I was reading. Some reviewers have criticised this as a character development flaw, but I don't agree, I think the characters are well developed and individual even if their voices sound similar. One sentence jarred for me, I simply could not believe that Clare would think this:
My breasts hurt. My c**t hurts. Everything hurts.
I'm not denying childbirth hurts, but I just can't believe that Clare would use the 'c-word' in her own thoughts.
I didn't really buy Henry's supposed 'bad-ass' persona before he met Clare, and I wasn't 100% convinced by the 'intelligentsia' Rilke-quoting name-dropping acts from Henry and Gomez either.
Having said all that, they are literally the only criticisms I can think of. The story is beautiful and incredibly emotional, don't read the ending on the bus!
5 stars!
Don't you think that there is something a little icky about him going to see her so much when she was a child?
ReplyDeleteHow much choice would she have choosing her partner or her life when he was showing up influencing her since she was small? Clare just seems to spend all her time waiting round for Henry - what type of life is that for her? But of course, it wouldn't make a good story if Henry decided that it was wrong to make any significant changes or talk to anyone when he turned up at different times.
I have never read a book that satisfactorily deals with time travel and I don't think this one does either - though it is very readable. We did it for a book group about five years ago. Lots of people loved it.
And have you ever read Sunshine by Robin McKinley? Its a vampire book, my favourite. I would argue that it has the best use of c**t by a female character.
ReplyDeleteYeah 6 yr old Claire with naked 37 yr old Henry is pretty wrong, but it was *involuntary* time travel so that makes it OK right? right?
ReplyDeleteYeah the whole issue of fate ran pretty strong through the book and was probably necessary to write the love story she was after. Her approach was that Henry couldn't help interacting with Claire because everything was following a set path. Obviously Henry would have tried to save his Mum or stop Ingrid from killing herself if it was possible.
Sounds like you didn't like it that much :)
I'll add the vampire book to my list although I'm not sure 'best use of c**t by a female character' is a book selection criteria that will meet with success :)
All the same though, Lic is right about that line in Sunshine :-)
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