***Spoiler Alert***
Do not read further if you have not finished reading THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE

My reading list is fairly dated. I have just recently finished reading THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE by Audrey Niffenegger.

I was thoroughly intrigued by the book and Henry and Clare's unusual love story. The ending, however, was devastating. Watching Henry being slowly destroyed by both time travel and the efforts to understand his condition was heartbreaking.

At the conclusion of the book, Henry aged 43 visits Clare who is an old woman. The scene appears to be the fulfillment of the time travel episode described by Henry in the letter that he left for Clare, to be read after his death. IMO, Henry and Claire are not really united again because Henry must return to his "present". The visit is just that, a visit. Therefore, no happy ending. I have wondered if the ending was in fact Clare seeing and being reunited forever with Henry at the moment of her death.

I'm in search of a happy ending for THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. Is my search futile? Did Clare wait for almost 50 years to be with Henry for only a few moments, a few hours, a few days?

I agree there was no happy ending in this book. I don't even know if the author alluded to them being together in death. My understanding is that "Henry" in some form will continue to travel through time even though he is dead in the present. That leads me to believe he will continue to appear to Alba in her life. That was the only thought that gave me any peace of mind with regard to the ending.

I definitely think that Henry only appeared for a brief visit all those years later and there was no long-term togetherness for a happy ending. He did have several visits with Alba, so that part was good. But, no typical happy ending for him and Claire.

arabellafrasermurray wrote:

Maybe it's not a happy ending, but peace of mind that I am searching for in regards to THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. There appears to be no hope for a lasting reunion for Henry and Clare either in the here and now or the hereafter.

Perhaps Henry's letter was not a promise of reunion in the future. Perhaps it was only meant to give Clare something to hope for, to hold on to, as she moved through a life without him. Which leads one to wonder whether or not Henry did Clare more harm than good by telling her about a future encounter. Would it have been better to let Clare grieve and move on with her life rather than hold on to the hope of seeing Henry again?

I think it may have been easier for Claire to move on if she didn't know she'd see Henry again and I think Henry was concerned about that too. But, since he knew he'd be seeing Alba, maybe he felt that he had to let Claire know that there would be one more chance for her to see him too. It must have been frustrating to know he was around and seeing Alba, but that she could never see him herself. So, he did give her that bit of hope. Not sure if that was a good thing or not, though.

It was definitely a difficult book to follow. I remember constantly having to look back and forth at the chapter dates, etc. When his life was deteriorating, I really feared for Alba. A female child traveling naked and to God knows where, it got a little creepy for me at this point. I know that they started getting some control of it at this point. Some people who only saw the movie thought it was creepy when Henry started appearing naked to a young Claire. Then the whole time that Claire kept losing the babies and they realized that they would be time traveling.

That's when I thought about our Claire in OL and wondered if this may be an explanation of her constant miscarriages. Just a thought.

TTTW was a difficult book to read and a bit hard to swallow. I can't tell you how much I cried at the end of the book. But one thing is clear, Claire and Henry were soul mates and would wait for each other until the end of time. I shudder to think that Henry is time traveling in perpetuity. There has to be an end to his suffering. The one silver lining is that he gets to visit Alba and is able to make peace with his father.

Pauline, I wondered about OL Claire's miscarriages, but don't think the time traveling was a factor. Otherwise, Bree would have encountered the same problem, and she managed to deliver both babies without any mishaps. Same goes for Geillis.

I liked the book better than the movie, but it was a heartbreaker either way

I don't think he did. I think he did a certain about of time traveling into the future while he was alive and saw Alba, and in the last one Claire, when he did. Claire had a list of dates when he'd see Alba because I remember Alba asking about the next date at some point after Henry's death and someone thought she was confused about what it meant for Henry to be dead. After that finite number of future travel episodes is done (in terms of Claire's timeline, which just goes the normal way in one direction forward), that will be it for Henry. Basically, all of Henry's experiences happened by the time he was 43 and died in regular time, and some of those will be experienced by others later, but there can't be more than Henry would have experienced/remembered by the time of his death. [Did that make sense?]

I really struggled to read and enjoy this book - I wanted to love it -but I didn't.....I had to constantly back track which for me made the narrative a bit clumsy - I must admit I liked the movie a bit better !

Oh I thought that I'm the only one feeling like this about this book. Twice I've tried to read it and twice I've failed to go through it.
Although has been said that the movie doesnt do justice to the book ( ) I am thinking of giving it a try...

DO give the movie a try -imo it's better than expected.

Audrey Niffenegger's second book Her Fearful Symmetry is much much better -imo ! Set against the wonderfully atmospheric Highgate cemetery in London is Gothic gloom personified !

Lady Jayne wrote:

Me, too!

When Henry's feet had to be amputated because of frostbite, I knew he was doomed. Without feet, he would no longer be able to escape (run away from) the dangers he faced when time traveling. I was overwhelmed by Henry's horrific death at the end of the book. I had hoped that Henry would somehow be able to hold on to the happiness he had with Clare.


I felt the same way.

Pauline wrote:

I could have used the notebook of dates that Henry had Clare write down!

I feared for Alba as well. I did feel, however, that she saw time traveling more positively than Henry. It seemed to be something she looked forward to, a wonderful adventure. I did take some comfort from the fact that she had both her older self and Henry to teach her how to survive when she time traveled. I can only hope that time travel doesn't ultimately destroy Alba as it did her father.

I listened to this one last spring and liked it, but not as much as Time Traveler's Wife. I thought it was pretty strange at times, actually.


And, getting back to TTW, I worried a lot about Alba traveling and ending up naked in strange places. A child/teenage girl/young woman? That could definitely lead to danger and problems. I think we are to assume that she's been managing OK, but it definitely worries me. I haven't seen the movie, but I heard it was pretty good.

Yes, that made sense. Thank you for explaining how his time traveling would eventually come to an end.

I am trying to remember the details of when Henry is shot. Claire is about 15 or 17 and is sleeping when she hears a gunshot on the property. She runs out and finds her father and brother, who were out hunting, looking over something on the ground. Was anyone else present at that time? I don't know why I keep thinking that the other Henry was also there telling Claire that everything was fine. Does anyone recall else this scene?