Book # -1...or something

One of the books from the list which I had already read was the Time Travellers Wife - hasn't everybody? I resisted reading it for ages because it was populist, everyone was reading it, and I hate following the crowd, but then I gave in and LOVED it. So why write about it today? I wasn't planning to write about all of the books I read pre-challenge, but I've just watched the film and it reminded me of all the reasons that the book is fantastic.

The film was a good one to watch - absorbing, a little bit emotional, fairly well cast. It took a little while to adapt to the American accents...I didn't realise until the film started that I had read the book entirely in an English accent, even though it was set in Chicago! As with so many film adaptations, though, they left out almost all of the elements that made the book memorable and (at risk of sounding like a total girl) heart-rending. The period between Clare and Henry meeting in "real time" and getting married, in the film, passes in two scenes. In the book, this is one of the formative periods where you grow to understand the relationship between them, the tensions of planning for the key events of life...the true depth of relationship and passion. I remember the passion between them as being compelling, a core part of the novel, and this hardly featured in the film at all. Without this, and with much of the interaction with other characters (Clare's mother, Kimy, the women from Henry's pre-Clare life), it became difficult to truly care, and I think the emotional involvement came mainly from the understanding of the characters, and expectation of events, gained from the book.

I did genuinely love that book, and not just in comparison with the film. It's one of the few books that has made me cry (and I mean sob) on public transport, and despite the totally unrealistic concept it is based on, it is somehow very believable. It also gives an interesting take on free will, from a different angle than the usual predestination/free will debate. There is the question of cause and effect - Henry convinces Dr Kendricks to work with him on the basis that he is already working with him and therefore he must agree - and inevitability - Henry is already married to Clare when he is visiting her as a small child, and therefore does she have any choice but to marry him? It is also a brilliantly constructed, very well written, cracking good read. Definitely recommend it; try to read as much as you can in one sitting (it's really hard to follow if you read in short bursts), and don't necessarily bother with the film!