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The Time Travelers Wife, Which is Not At All A Romance And Here's Me Sorta-Reviewing It and Trying To Figure Out Exactly Why It's NOT a Romance. By Audrey Niffenegger.

NOTE: This is so full of SPOILERS. And I mean SOOOOOO full.


So I was talking to Snooks about this book because she read it like maybe a year ago and she said Yeah, I thought it was okay. Which is her way of saying it's nothing to get all excited about. And I agree - it's not a book that I'm all excited about and pressing on my friends or anything. But I definitely think more highly of it than Snooks does (this happens often with us) and there's a lot to be said for any novel that can not only keep me reading, but really keep me actively interested and wondering what's next. I read it in less than a week and let me tell you - that's pretty rare anymore.

(And you know I just have to say that it really was a little thrilling to me when Henry and Clare finally bought their house and it's right in my neighborhood. But also, near the end, Clare goes to eat at the Opart Thai on Western and trust me on this one: the Spoon Thai, like 2 doors down from there? Ten times better. And that's not just based on their pad thai, but also on their red curry which frankly has me a bit drooling at the moment, to say nothing of the lard nar. And I thought all this before they ever got that review in the Reader, btw. Anyway.)

Why I think this is better than just a good book: I'm still thinking about it. I'm still wondering if I like it or not. I'm still upset about some of the things in it, and I still find nagging little questions nibbling away at the edges of my conscious thought. And really - while I've read oodles of good books, I've only read a comparative handful of truly thought-provoking ones.

So here's the set-up: Henry involuntarily time-travels. He basically gets ripped from his present and finds himself naked, exhausted, and starving at some other point in time where he stays for anywhere from 5 seconds to several days, until he snaps back to his present. Entirely out of his control. It's not all ethereal and mysterious ooh I'm gathering herbs and oops I stepped into a fairy-ring and is that a passing dragoon I see? Not at all like that. It's scary and dirty and dangerous and unwanted. It's also, as you can imagine, really inconvenient.

Clare is his wife and he first meets her when he's like 43 and she's 6. In the beginning of the novel, it's kind of hard to get your bearings. There are all these non-chronological scenes, and you can't figure out quite when the Present is, and where exactly we all are on the timeline. But within a few chapters you start to get it, and I liked that it opened this way - gives you the sense of being uncertain and a little off-kilter, which is a mild dose of what Henry must always feel.

However, what I don't like - and what is my greatest upset in this story - is that Henry meets his wife when she's six. He meets her throughout her childhood. At various times in his adult life, he travels back in time and winds up with her at various stages of her childhood. There's not any creepy Eww He's Messing With A Little Girl thing going on, but it's still somehow really kinda creepy (to me, at least). He knows her life, after all. He knows what she'll be when she grows up, and that she'll be married to him, and that she can't cook for shit and that she really likes oral sex and when and how her mother will die and how her beliefs about God will change over the years. All of it.

I mean - yeah, that's pretty mindblowing just to contemplate, the idea of befriending your spouse throughout his/her childhood while you are the adult married to him/her, but what I mean really actively upset me is that she was six when they met. Six years old. I mean six. For Clare, there is hardly any such thing as a life without Henry. He necessarily defines her entire life, and huge portions of her personality. She says to him, when she's a teenager, "You're making me different" and that pretty concisely describes what's going on. In Henry's mind - and in adult Clare's, mostly - there's no way to change these things. They happen because they have already happened, in that dog-chasing-its-own-tail way of time travel cause and effect. Henry has tried (feebly, imo, but he has tried) to stop some bad things from happening, to no avail. His future self tells his past self stuff, which makes things happen - but they always happen the same way, because his various selves always made them happen. Oh, that wacky time travel.

Anyway, the thing is: There WAS a Henry without Clare - he didn't meet her until he was 28. He had a whole 28 years of zipping through time and apparently fucking anything that moved before he ever laid eyes on her. And when he did - she knew him and was in love with him and had known him for years, and he knew (and was quite content) that this woman was his future. Fait accompli. We don't get to hear much about Henry's twenties, except that the implication that he went to library school, loved the punk music scene, screwed lots of women, and was kind of flailing. But he had a life and a self before Clare. When he dies at the end and leaves Clare the letter in which he asks her to be free - to enjoy living without any knowledge of what might come, to live not in expectation of his coming or going? All I could think was: Yeah, nice. I'll get right on that. Because you couldn't have tried to give that to me thirty fuckin years ago, chief.

And every time I get annoyed at that, I remember that it's not like it was a choice he made. That either of them made. It's this neverending infernal loop in which they're trapped. It happened that way because it did. And I'm really, really disgusted that it did. But it's not like anyone is really to blame for it.

Which goes to show one of the really great accomplishments of this book: the characters are very well drawn. I don't even like them all that much, but it doesn't matter; I don't like a lot of people much. The characters and their relationships are very real, and their actions and reactions and thoughts and feelings, how the random time travel and all the things that come from it shape them and inform their lives and how it effects them in lifelong, non-superficial ways - all very real. Which is funny, seeing as how, ya know, who the hell knows how all this stuff would affect a person? And yet somehow it rings very true.

Other little things:
The genetic "explanation" of time-travel was ever so weak, and I was annoyed it wasn't either explored more or dropped all together.
Also, the genetic thing implied (or even outright stated, I think) that there are other involuntary time-travelers out there, but this was never ever addressed. Never. WHY???
I got so fed up with Clare for getting so twisted up about having a baby (her saying that adoption would just be pretending made me want to bitch-slap her).
The scene from the future where he sees Alba the first time at the Art Institute and then Clare comes and he's whisked back to the present? I got all weepy at that, and it's when I realized that I was SO caught up in these characters.
Hated that whole thing with Henry witnessing Ingrid's suicide. Didn't really serve a purpose at all. Just seemed like cheap sensationalism in storytelling.
The mention of a not-too-distant future where Wrigley Field is torn down? Made me very aware of the author and completely pulled me out of the story, in addition to kinda pissing me off.

Now note, please, that as I mentioned earlier, this is not a Romance. It is, however, an anatomy of a romantic relationship, one which is pretty well thoroughly fucked up because of the whole uncontrollable time-travel business. It's not just the non-HEA that makes it non-Romance. It's not just that their romantic relationship is a foregone conclusion. I don't know if I can actually articulate what it is that keeps it from falling into the genre, but I know that it has a lot to do with the lack of answers. Love isn't the answer to anything here, and the relationship is no kind of resolution. There is much that is gained by love, and it changes how they live and who they are. But it's not the goal, and it doesn't solve a damn thing.

Seeing the lack of a happy ending (though I have to say that it's not an entirely unhappy ending; it's just wistful and melancholy and, basically, simply the place where the story ends) made me think much more about why the HEA is so essential in Romance. It's not just that it's an affirmation, though that's a big part of it. But it's also a kind of resting place. We all know that when the couple finally overcomes their obstacles and decide to stay together, that it won't all be wine and roses from there on out. Intellectually, we know they'll have problems and all sorts of these to struggle through and they'll fight over how he leaves his dirty socks on the living room floor EVERY DAY and just ONCE can you PLEASE pick them up because OH MY GOD YOU AREN'T EVEN LISTENING TO ME, you PIG. But we have no doubt about them belonging together, and their ability to work through whatever may come. (Or at least, we should believe this at the end of a Romance; if not, then the writer hasn't done the job.)

I think Romance doesn't ever write beyond the HEA not because we don't want to see that less-than-rosy picture, but because it's entirely beside the point. The HEA gives us not just the resolution of the romantic conflict, but a kind of marker that this stage of the relationship is over. The first major hurdle is officially behind them. Whatever comes next, they're in it together - unless they choose to opt out at some future date (but hey, even break-ups involve two people on the most fundamental level). What makes the HEA satisfying and necessary and the place to which the story is going, is that there were very distinctly two people with separate lives who choose, after much push and pull, to not go it alone anymore. That choice is where the Romance ends.

And in Time Traveler's Wife, there was barely a Clare by herself, and there was hardly a choice in much of it at all, for either of them, and frankly there just wasn't much romantic conflict. From beginning to end, it's about them together - figuring it out together. And that's maybe why it makes me think a lot more than the average Romance novel. There's a lot more doubt and uncertainty here, and questions without answers, and broken things that won't ever get fixed.

And that's enough rambling for one night.

So I was hunting through old blog entries, trying to find a link I posted like 2 years ago to some double-salt salty licorice and I found these mentions in my blog (back when my blog was elsewhere, and purple, anddifferently titled) and here they are because hahaaahahaaaaaaaaa.

Recounting the first time I ever tasted it:
Double Salt Licorice things from Holland made me cry, tears in eyes, "OMG Mikey what the hell is happening in my mouth????" To which he responded, "Wecome to Holland."

I remember it distinctly, as it was very traumatic. I remember looking at him with this appalled, uncomprehending look, my eyes practically screaming Why would you hurt me like this? And his perfectly rendered, wry Welcome to Holland, which any other fag would've ended with a sweetheart, but Sinjun isn't just any other fag.


At a later date, a phone call to my Mikey-Sinjun:
- In the middle of the convo, right about the time my face was going numb (the sign that Beth Is Toasted), he cried out, "Oh, God, I just put a double salt licorice in my mouth. Oh GOD. The Dutch are fucking insane!" To which I responded, laughing hysterically: "Why would you DO that to yourself?!" His answer: "Because I'm talking to you. I do these things for you. OH MY CHRIST OH HOLY POOP THE SECOND WAVE OF REPULSIVE HAS BEGUN!"

That stuff is torturous and evil and malicious and unnatural and vomitous and God I want some.

Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with
Suisan!
and
Bookseller Chick!
and
jmc!

I can't decide on a topic. Instead there are romance-related things floating about in my head and here you go.

1.
Bring Cake

Chas tells me that I should make a formal announcement about the apparently little-known requirement of the hero-rescues-damsel scenario. Namely that the hero should bring some frikken cake, okay? A pink one. Perhaps decorated with a My Little Pony motif. Chas is a very heroic type, all about savin' the maiden, that guy, and he had NO IDEA about the cake.

But I mean cmon, it's so obvious. After a hard day/week/month/entire adulthood or what have you of being imprisoned in a thorn-riddled fortress, atop the tallest tower or deepest darkest woods or wherever the hell else the dragon or evil lord or wicked witch or Rumplestilskin takes you, a body gets hungry. Duh. Plus after being rescued, one should celebrate with some celebratory cake. Clearly. And when in doubt, I always say, bring baked goods. I guarantee she'll kiss your frog, okay?

Gah, such a no-brainer.

2.
The Definitive Laura Kinsale Interview

I conducted the best most interesting interview with Laura Freaking Kinsale ever. But I forgot to copy-paste. Sorry.

However, I do remember that if we go out to lunch, she's paying. And then when we go out to lunch a second time, she'll let me pay. She also agree to carb-load during this hypothetical lunch. Then I asked her why she hangs around a yahoo like me and she just gave me a look. Ya know. That LFKinsale look. It's notorious. One might even say vicious. Or perhaps savage. Or perhaps simmering? Or perhaps something that has to have juuuust the right rhythm, EK, and the proper amount of non-sibiliant consonants to balance out that other phrase in the first half of the sentence and she will fuss at the word for like ever as it eludes her and drives her mad until she pulls her hair out and claws the walls of her garret because Art is Suffering and No One Understands The Plight Of The Wri oooh are those scones?

But maybe I made some of that up. I have a faulty memory.

Maybe.

3.
That Can't Be Sanitary

Snook: "So I'm on this Lisa Kleypas kick and how are we pronouncing her name?"
Me: "I say KLAY-pas."
Snook: "Hmm, I've been saying KLEE-pas. Anyway, Lisa, if she doesn't mind me calling her Lisa, is really pretty damn good. I actually don't skim her books. A romance novel that I don't skim. That says a lot."
Me: "High praise indeed. The one I read by her was great. I've been meaning to read more."
Snook: "You should, but anyway, I was reading this one the other day and I immediately thought Man, Longshanks needs to know about this. Now if only I can find the words to describe..."
Me: "This means it's especially bad or especally good. Spill."
Snook: "Well it's just that this one had... um... anal..."
Me: "snickersnicker"
Snook: "Anal... oh, help me out here."
Me: "Penetration?"
Snook: "Yeah, but that seems the wrong word since it was just a... teehee... finger."
Me: "That counts. Wow. That's unexpected. I mean it's not an erotica, right? And somehow there are just certain vanilla-flavored lines that don't get crossed in Romance proper. Like in Shadowheart when the whips and chains came out and I was all like ahh Laura, what're you DOING, omigosh, eeep!" Even if it's technically somewhat tame-ish, it's kinda shocking."
Snook: "Yeah, and I didn't even tell you about how he um. Put a raspberry. Um. In her um."
Me: "In her love grotto?! How the hell did he get it out? Tongue of the gods or something?"
Snook: "I dunno, but it was obviously meant to be sexy but all I could think when reading it was Hm, ya know... that can't be sanitary."
Me: "Yeah but now I'm gonna have nightmares about decomposing coochiefruit, how did he get it OUT of her? Was she especially capacious?"
Snook: "Coochiefruit haaahahahahahaaa"

LAUGHTER INTERLUDE

Me: "Coochiefruit. That'll be the title of my anthology of erotica short stories. Anyway, maybe he had a sundae spoon?
Snook: "I don't remember. I think I blocked it out."
Me: "You're a smart woman. Survivalist instinct."
Snook: "Hey, whatever works for ya, go on and invite the whole produce section in for a ride, but my only reaction is to wonder if it's sanitary conditions. Kinda kills the mood."

4.
The Duke and I

I read this Julia Quinn book a couple of years ago and completely forgot it. So I read it again this weekend. And I'm already forgetting it. Ergo it is forgettable. I think Julia Quinn is the one they're always calling "a modern Jane Austen." Let me tell ya something: They are wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

Not that it's a bad romance. It's just utterly predictable and nothing but a string of clichés. Um, okay, which does in fact make it bad. I mean here's an example from page 348, the hero reflecting on his Deep-Seated Issues:

He was coming to realize that he needed to hold on to something in life, and maybe she was right--maybe anger wasn't the solution. Maybe--just maybe he could learn to hold on to love instead.

Yeah. All righty then.

Ayup.

Hooookay.

(Side note to friends: please promise to barf on me and explain why, if ever I write something like that. Okay? Please? thanks.)

But I mean this book is the literary equivalent of those reduced fat chips that are hanging around and you wind up eating the whole bag even though they're not really good at all but they're salty and they're right there so okay just a couple more, and before you know it you're like Why did I just eat those? Why? I don't even like them. I wasn't even hungry. My god, I've just lost all respect for myself.

On the up side, the heroine's name was Daphne and I like that name. If I ever have a daughter, I think I might like to name her that.

On the down side, this Daphne had 3 older brothers and as the sister of four older brothers, I call shenanigans. It's SUCH a bullshit fake relationship between all the Bridgertons. It's the kind of family that an only-child orphan would invent. And I'll feel like the world's biggest asshole if Julia Quinn turns out to be an only-child orphan. I'd look it up to see, but I gotta get goin. Need to work on the next chapter of Coochiefruit. I call this one Dreams of the Pumelo.