Hanging on to Time

I don't think I've ever read anything as smart and moving as The Time Traveler's Wife. This novel deserves to be read. You can be grown-up and cynical and functioning on a heart made of deadweight lead, but this book will still manage to unbind you.

Clare is married to a time-traveling man. Can you imagine the joys - meeting your soulmate at six and having him visit you ever so often as you grow up - and the insane worry - whether he will return to the adult you injured or in one piece; how does he survive every jounery in which he lands in an unknown time, arrriving naked and vulnerable, because time travel allows no objects outside of skin and hair and teeth?

Let's see now: this book has music (two violinists, a cellist, a classical singer, punk and opera, and there's even a mention of Astor Piazzolla!) and poetry (Henry was an English major and works as a librarian and quotes from Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," a very apt poem) and art (Clare is an artist), two thoroughly fleshed out characters who pull you in with their haunting, unconventional relationship, and a strong element of wonder. The two main locations in the novel also happen to be lovely Chicago and a meadow somewhere in Michigan. You can see how easy it is for me to get very involved in this novel.

Peculiar ending note: I'm suddenly reminded of another story, a movie actually. The implication of time-travel, a wonderful connection between two characters, and the mysterious workings of chance and time. I believe that movie's called My Sassy Girl. Of course, this novel is quite different, but I happen to like both movie and novel very much.