The Time Traveler's Wife

So I recently finished "The Time Traveler's Wife", which is a very good book. But it has me thinking about things in sort of weird terms. I have two main points to address:

Firstly, this woman, most of her life is spent waiting. All of the Odessey analogies are perfect, of course. Very little of her life is actually spent in the present. And that kinda makes me sad. Because, if anything, I've learned that this is not a good way to be. It's common to be thinking about the past all the time or day dreaming and fantasizing about the future. But it's not the recipe for happiness, you know. It's a habit I am trying very very hard to break, and I know many others who are similarly struggling with this problem. But this woman, Clare, she actively participates in this and claims that she has no choice.

She meets this strange old man when she is 6, and befriends him and looks forward to his visits. Somewhere in her teens she starts to long for him in a romantic way. And that's really when all this waiting starts. She then proceeds to wait until she is 20 and she actually meets him in real time. They proceed to spend 15 years together, the first few years of which she seems to want him to be a more evolved version of himself, but she puts up with him in anyway with the expectation that he will change. This also strikes me as a bad idea. But lo and behold, he does. After a few years of good times, they then proceed into a protracted period of torture for about 7 years. That torture is caused by a.) her stubbornness at a very narrow idea of happiness, and b.) him being the way he is. And while the cause of that suffering is not entirely within their control, they don't seem to do a lot to ameliorate the situation either. She just continues on, to her own peril.

And during this decade and a half of "togetherness", she continues to wait for him during various disappearances while he is time traveling. Naturally, she worries about him. But she finds herself in turmoil because of the waiting, which I don't understand because it's not like she didn't know what she was in for.

I should mention that the characters are spared many of the difficulties regular people suffer with regards to finances or ambition or work-related issues. Because Henry has a nice job that doesn't change at a very supportive work place. So that's nice. And Clare is able to make art in her home studio and they have no other worries because they can play the lotto and the stock market with tips from the future. How nice.

But the inevitable tragedy befalls them, and she then waits another 45 years for him to return, for one day. 45 years!!!! That's 3 times longer than they were together. That's beyond dedication. That's insane. Throughout this book I kept finding myself going: this is all very romantic and Henry's a very cool guy, but seriously. Basically, this woman's entire life is suffering. Her entire life. And this is what we call love. I kind of wanted to smack Henry. Like give the girl a break. You know this isn't going to end well. Act like an asshole for a few months and dump her so maybe she can have some happiness in this life that lasts for longer than 5 minutes.

Ah, but this brings us to item #2.

Charisse and Gomez provide an interesting foil couple to Clare and Henry. Charisse and Gomez intrigue me because they strike me as very much like most couples. They have a lifetime of mediocrity to share. Maybe that's too harsh. Because they actually do strike me as 2 people with a lot in common, who have a lot of fun together. So maybe they are better than the average couple. But they don't have this overwhelming sense of love and destiny that Clare and Henry seem to have. They also don't appear to be completely happy or fulfilled by each other. Yet, they work very well as a couple. They are supportive of each other, they have a good laugh. They are both decent people, but they also both know that their relationship isn't everything they maybe wish it could be. Yet they hang on and make the most of it. Which, in my experience, is how most people are.

Aside: I think it's easy to paint Gomez as a shithead. But I get where he's coming from, and I think he actually handles most things with dignity. If I thought someone was the perfect person for me, I dunno if I could be best friends with their spouse. And that's the thing. He is a good friend. And usually, he does the right thing. As for Cherisse, I think girl has some self-esteem problems, because I don't think I could sit through 2 decades of doubting the other person.

The difference between these two relationships makes me wonder about the choices we make. At the end of the equation of Clare's life, will she have been happier for having spent it mostly waiting for Henry? Or would she have been happier, ultimately, spending it with someone like Gomez in a relationship that is perhaps less intense but more lasting.

Perhaps this is the question most people ask themselves: do you stick with the tolerable but not terrific thing you have, or do you risk losing something decent for something great? And what if that great thing never comes? Or what if you thought was great, isn't actually? And how long does it stay great for?

I wonder if Clare's love for Henry is real or is just the product of all of those visits. Conversely, I think that Henry's love of Clare was real. But even then, fairly selfish. Having witnessed his father's suffering with the loss of his mother, he condemned Clare to this same fate almost thoughtlessly. Perhaps by the time he realised how things were gonna go, it was too late, he was too far in. Perhaps that explains his apparent lack of mercy for the person he loves most. Perhaps it never occured to him that things would end badly. Perhaps.

Aside: this brings me to the major plot hole in the book. Unless Henry's mother was also a chrono-displaced person (which we never find out but is doubtful), Henry's existence would not have been possible. Just as normal Clare kept miscarrying thier genetically bizarre children because they were too different for her body to accept as a part of her, Henry's mother arguably would similarly have miscarried him for this reason.

I actually think that the worst thing they did was to have a child. Because, although Henry's time travelling was in one way a wonderful gift, it ultimately destroyed him and destroyed Clare. Again, to force his daughter to go through that same suffering is kinda cruel. I suppose it could be argued that maybe things would be different for her. But let's face it, she doesn't have an easy life ahead. And poor Clare, having to spend a lifetime worrying about her child time travelling alone. I kept wondering how things would go once Alba started to go through puberty. I don't imagine showing up naked god knows where at age 13 would be so fun.

I didn't grow up with romantic concepts of marriage and romance and forever. Similarly, Clare's family did not provide good role models, but Henry's ongoing appearances seem to have embeded these ideas into her, so that no one else would do. Conversely, Henry's family demonstrated the destructive power of love and he seemed to have simply filled his life with pointless sexual encounters until he met Ingrid. And even though that relationship was clearly disatisfying and destructive, he stuck with it. It was the best thing he had known, even if it wasn't great. It was only when faced with Clare's "we belong together and get married in the future" did he leave Ingrid. And even that wasn't right away. But I ask myself: what if he wasn't a time traveller? What if she didn't know about their future and they just met like normal people, would anything have happened? Would they themselves have settled into greater or lesser relationships with others. Would they have known what they missed on some level, or would they have continued on ambivalently?

But they didn't. It's a nice story. It's a very sad story, but it's very true to people and this era. And it's extremely romantic and wistful. Which is a nice change.

So why did Clare decide to wait until infinity for Henry? Was it worth it? Why did Cherisse stay with Gomez despite knowing that he wanted someone else? Why did Gomez stay in a relationship he was clearly disatisfied with? Why did none of this bother Henry? What would you choose? What would I choose?