Books are . . . well, they can be almost anything: amazing, enlightening, discouraging, somber, evocative, a waste of time or a breath of fresh air. It's even more fun when you get swings between one or more of these.
I have in the last several days read The Time Traveler's Wife, in between sleeping and other, less pleasant activities. It was both disappointing and rewarding. Disappointing, because it should carry an R rating on the cover. Why? Language, inappropriate scenes, much more violence than the movie, etc. Rewarding, because it allowed me to better understand certain scenes from the movie, and confirm some of my hunches! Yes, I did see the movie, and I was right! (Warning - Plot Spoiler!) It was Clare's dad that shot Henry.
Overall, am I glad I read the book? Unfortunately, no. While I enjoyed the writer's talent, and story, all the extraneous and overt, nay gratuitous scenes detracted too much from it. I would not recommend this book, even though I mostly enjoyed the movie. I am grateful that the movie producers chose to tone it down enough to make it PG-13, but it probably still deserved an R rating, even as a much watered-down version of the book. Normally, I like the book better than the movie, but in this case I will give it a tie. Each had their own pluses and minuses, neither was particularly outstanding, and my life would have been fine without spending the time on either.
One question really bugs me: If a person is traveling through time, what dictates their place in space at their destination? H.G. Wells had his time traveler confined to a machine, thereby locking said traveler into one location. Ms. Niffenegger has the protagonist popping into existence all over the place. What is to prevent him from materializing in the middle of a lake, or a wall of his apartment? Hmm? Any ideas out there amongst my sci-fi fanatic friends?
I had a similar experience a few months ago. I read this book that I really, really liked, but it was so full of garbage (mostly foul language) that I can't in good conscience recommend it to anyone. This is also the reason I tend to read older things... it seems that new fiction is so junky.
ReplyDeleteAs for the time-and-space-travel question: things like that always bug me, too. I haven't read or seen this particular book/movie, but maybe the time travel is "configured" so that--even if he doesn't realize it--he only goes to places meaningful to his life?
Yes, he goes to places that are meaningful to his life, but it still doesn't preclude him from appearing right in front of a moving bus, etc.
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