Just completed reading this exquisite book by Audrey Niffenegger. It has been a while since i cried reading a book (14 years to be exact - cried reading the Catcher in the Rye at 14).
The Time Traveler's Wife, what can i say. What an imagination, what depth and originality. It swallows you with the play of vastly varying emotions in its characters. It draws you in and hypnotizes you - i finished it in more or less 7 hours in two sitting. I just could not put it down. Even with the obvious fantasy of time travelling as the core of the story, this book is truly an old-fashioned love story at heart. I just love it. I feel for and empathize with Henry and Clare. I want to have what they have with each other. I'm getting dramatic! hehe
Anyways, here is an excerpt from the prologue of the book. Just in case it'll whet your appetite to actually read the whole thing!
Clare: It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays.
I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.
I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?
Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?
- from the Time Traveler's Wife by A.Niffenegger
