The Time Traveler's Wife

I was first introduced to this book by Taqiness. However he gave me an e-book. Haih. I am still a good ol fashioned bookworm. Reading e-book tend to give me headache.

I loved reading book before going to sleep, with a mug of steaming Milo or very mild Nescafe (to help me to a better sleep) , in my hand. I loved reading book right after waking up, curled in my blanket, with little ray of sunshine shining down on my bed. Flipping the pages. Feeling the paper on my smudged fingers. I am way off point here.

Anyhow, I had finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife. My thought after I had finish reading it. C'est magnifique! Marvellous! Fabuloso! Tres bien incredible! Okay. I think I had just managed to butcher and offend the French language.

Before going on further , I will just give a brief summary of the book.

The book is about the life and love of both the Time Traveler, Henry and the love of his life and wife, Clare. Henry is suffering from some genetic disorder which caused him to time travel involuntarily. Exciting? Not if you would appear somewhere sometime stark naked and chased by a dog. All he wish was a normal life with Clare. The ever waiting patient wife.

Clare first meet Henry when she was 6 and Henry was 36. Henry first met Clare when he was 28 and Clare was 20. Complicated? Yes at first. And so this book tells of their complicated life and their great love. On the painful humilliation and experience he have to undergone whenever he time travel. And of the anxiety and agonizing wait Clare have to endure.

The plot is simple enough. At first you are trying to figure out the time they are together. As you get used to the storyline and the idea of a genetic disorder that can caused people to dissapear and appear in another time (freaky? yeah. Highly illogical? yeah too), however as you read on, this are push aside. Then you are lost in their world , wishing them well even though their life and future seems bleak, screaming at them to find a way to change their fate and their curse.

I love how the author depicts the story so vividly.You can almost see them in colors. Their early love and life in the Meadow where Henry always appear meeting past Clare, almost as green and colorful with all the colors of the nature. The childhood and early life of Henry before meeting Clare. Depicted as cold and dark, which makes me think of a dark grey drizzling rainy night and hearing a soft sad piece of classical music. Their tumultuous years, where passion and emotion run high, giving it a bask of red.

This is one of the few most poignant and beautiful book I had read (Probably my taste is more bloody and gory). The author, Audrey Niffenegger do not go into much detail into explaining on how does the genetic disorder comes upon, or how its happening and the science of it. Which I find pretty vague, but this give Henry problem more an aura of mystery. Its story among of all things tell of a love story. There is the all enduring, great love that they have with each other. But it also tells of the many other faces of love, the destructive love that destroyed a person so completely. The all consuming love which left a person broken up. Love which are filled with longing that stands for years showing the great chemistry it invoked, giving sparks and fireworks . The desolate convenient love. And the ever hopeful love. Love of a lover, of friends and family.

I found in IMDB that Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt had bought the rights to this book for filming. Can't imagine Jennifer Aniston as Clare. But since their marriage went belly up, I wonder if not them, who would be brave enought to attempt to bring this to the big screen?

If one sentence can sum it all? A haunting, poignant beautiful story that tells of love all enduring.

p/s: wow wheee~ update lagi.