There's lots of ways I can attack this book, written by AUDREY Nifennegger or something, but I'm gonna try to stay focused on the main problems with it. And before I begin, keep reminding yourself, as I did myself, that this is a book about motherfuckin' time travel. Going through time. Okay? Okay.
1) It looks like AUDREY didn't have a lot of "time" to think up good characters! The most important part of any story, fictional or otherwise, in books, TV, movies, puppet shows, etc., is the characters. If your characters are shit, people will leave because they can't relate to anyone or they don't imagine anyone actually acting like that. If you're reading or writing a story and finding yourself stopping and saying, "Why the fuck would he do that?" you're doing it wrong. Nobody apparently told AUDREY this, though.
So we have the main characters, the protagonist Clare Somethingorother, and her beau, Henry DeWhatever. The one thing that becomes clear as you read this yarn is that these two people are relentlessly, unshakably middle class. In every way, they are yuppies. They're yuppies to the bone. They are singularly focused on the lifestyle and the jobs and that townhouse, and they're not gonna let a little thing like spontaneous time travel get in the way.
Yuppies can be okay characters, though that well has been gone to a little too much lately in places like "Little Children," but you have to make them believable yuppies. It's a cliche that clueless middle class people are dealing with inner angst and turmoil, but that's infinitely more fun to deal with than these two shits who have no turmoil whatsoever.
"Bland" isn't sufficient to describe their ambitions. Clare takes Henry's (God I hate that name) time-traveling in stride, as if it were just a rash or something. Why? Oh by the way, she's a paper artist, like a certain book author. But does she do anything with her art? No. Do we get the sense that she actually enjoys what she does? I didn't.
Now I always hate to throw around the "Mary Sue" accusation, but I have to in this case. Her character only makes sense if she's a strict stand-in for the author. Nothing bad ever happens to her; either the problem is minor, or Hank overcomes it for her. Either way, she's pampered not just by her surroundings, but by the fucking author herself. Isn't that a great way to make a compelling character, by having all the challenges she faces inconsequential?
Hank is similar in his lack of ambition. He exists only to cater to her, which again makes sense if he's the kind of character that chases after comely paper artists-turned-authors. But try imagining Hank functioning on his own as an actual person. Even wit his time-traveling, he's bland as bland can be. His only desire in life seems to wait on his dumb author stand-in. More on him in a bit.
And yes, this is a book about time travel. Remember that!
As for the rest of the characters, there's hardly anything to say about them. All they do is flit about the periphery of the story, rarely meaningfully interacting with it. The daughter, Alba, strikes me as a braindead chump who similarly has no meaningful impact on the story.
Then there's Hank's father, who is like traumitized by the death of Hank's mom, but Hank somehow makes him see the BEAUTY IN LIFE or something. He's not important. Nobody else is. This book couldn't give a good goddamn about anyone other than Clare and Hank, and in that case I have to agree.
Big tip for your own book: Don't introduce a character you have no use for. So for the love of God, make my character do something cool, like save you from a pack of crazed Thais or something. Remember, I'm a righty!
2) Rule No. 1 about time-travel: Do not time-travel without rules! Time-travel is perhaps the most difficult type of story to tell. Most time-travel theories inherently make it impossible to make a 100% logical story, so it's very important that when you start on one, you have a set of ground rules, and you stick by them.
This ground has been covered before in many different ways. There's "Back to the Future," "Star Trek," "Terminator," "Evil Dead," "Quantum Leap," and "Timeline." Wait, don't use "Timeline," that one sucked. But yeah, we have plenty of templates to work with. In this case, AUDREY picks a mix of "Terminator" and "Quantum Leap." Okay, sounds good.
And then she actually has Hank start time-traveling. The most offensive "rule," and I quote that because she doesn't actually have any hard and fast rules, is that Hank cannot change the past. Or the future. Or whatever. Well, actually, that's never established. Hank thinks he can't change the past, but that's because he's a fucking lazy twat who doesn't ever put any effort into it, and then bitches that he can't save his mom or his girlfriend or the Twin Towers or anything.
But is that true? Well simple logic dictates that merely going back in time and interacting with people changes events. True, Hank's not able to make any really big changes in the past, but that's his fault. He balefully declares that he can't change anything, but in the movie, when he's a kid standing outside the wreck that just killed his mom, the future version of himself runs up to him and is like, "It's okay sonny! Nothing you can do!" But he's fully clothed, which means he had the time to materialize in the past, find clothes, then jog over to the road where the accident happens. Why doesn't he try running out into the street before the accident happens or something? Why doesn't he time-travel back a bit earlier and slash the car's tires? Since he apparently keeps traveling back to it, why doesn't he gather together a bunch of his time-travelling selves and try to from a human chain in front of the road to stop the car? Does he even try to do anything?
How about that time where he manipulates the lottery to win a cool million? That's pretty blatantly altering the past, isn't it? If I recognized that right away, didn't any other character think that and call him on it? How about did any fucking editor call AUDREY on it?
There's no coherent theory in the book about how any of this shit works, anyway. The "scientific" explanation is that every moment in time already happened, which sorta works, but is a really boring frame to work in for a story. Well don't worry, AUDREY doesn't do anything existential with it. And now we reach the real problem with this time-travelling gimmick.
I'm 100% positive that AUDREY thought up the romantic frame first, and then turned to time-travel as an afterthought. Nothing in the book makes sense with it in there. Characters do not react with awe and confusion at the notion of time-travel, they just accept it. Hank himself doesn't give a shit about it. Does he try to time-travel back and save people from death or tragedy? No. He does time-travel back and teach his younger self how to do shit like pick locks so he can find clothes and stuff, but why bother if he can't change the past? Oh fuck it let's stop harping on that point because it's clear that that's just a planetoid-sized plot hole.
Hank doesn't do shit with his retarded powers, other than get himself some chrono-sex. He doesn't try to prevent calamities (like the offensively shoehorned-in 9/11). He doesn't try to visit interesting time periods or unravel old mysteries, like if Kennedy was killed by more than one shooter. He doesn't try to see what the future looks like, and if there are any huge disasters he needs to prepare for. Nope, all he does is manipulate a loopy broad into sleeping with and then marrying him.
Now look, I don't care how super awesome this broad is, even I wouldn't waste my time (HYUCK) using my powers just to woo someone. It's fucking retarded. It's absurdly myopic and banal. If I could time-travel, even as haphazardly as Hank does, I'd explore the shit out of the world as much as I could, I suppose. I sure as hell would not cling to Hank's boring-ass life trajectory, that's for damn sure.
But then, wait a second, how the fuck does that even work? The whole maintaining a job and a steady social life and, hell, even his sanity? This is a person who involuntarily travels through time. At no point does he know where or when he will wind up, and he will always wind up buck naked. He usually travels back to traumatic events. And his psyche has not unraveled?
Hank is basically unfazed by his time-travel. At most he's annoyed by it, but he doesn't seem to suffer any personality or mental defects by it. I mean he's a bit of a perv and a moody piece of shit, but that's not because of the time-travel.
I don't know about you, but if I lived my life non-linearally, I'd probably go at least a little insane. I'm not sure how I'd go crazy or to what extent, but that's the job of AUDREY to figure out and, no, she's not up to that task. So Hank goes through life fully functional and coherent.
And that's not all. Not only does he have a social life and his psyche in tact, he has a job as a boring ol' librarian. How the fuck does that work? His time-travelling can happen at any time, without warning, and he can disappear for weeks on end. How does he have steady employment anywhere? Is he covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act? Does he have a really cool or aloof boss? HOW? HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT WORK AT ALL? And how did he acquire the necessary skills to be a librarian? How did he acqure the necessary skills to do ANYTHING?
There are no answers to these questions. AUDREY doesn't give a shit, Hank's just that cool. He's a time-travelling librarian who's stuck in the dullest timeframe in the universe. Hank is like if someone took Superman and made him be Clark Kent 100% of the time, in abilities and attitude. What's the fucking point?
Perhaps the point is that Hank is some kind of metaphor? AUDREY claims that his whole situation is a metaphor for couples who are involuntarily separated by things like business or war or shit, but that's amazingly retarded because Hank does nothing but drop in on Clare. She knows that he'll keep winding up back with her, as he did on their wedding day, so there's no need to worry. And if she's not worried, why should we worry?
This book could have been 1,000% better if, instead of focusing on these two banal fucks, AUDREY thought up of an actual conflict to the story. Hey remember that word? Conflict? It's another really important part of storytelling because without it, you're wasting everyone's time. How about having Hank believe that he's actually a prophet sent from God, and that's why he time-travels, to warn people about stuff, or help people avoid bad things from happening. Or maybe Hank time-travels to the future when something really bad has happened, but he's not able to get enough information about it, so he has this sense of dread that this dumb middle-class life he's building with Clare may be completely smashed by this event that's just out of his view.
See? Just off the top of my mind I thought of two ways AUDREY could've actually put the time-travelling gimmick to use. And she could STILL have her romantic story with either one of them. But no, she plays it straighter than me (no-homo). So what's the conflict of the book then? It boils down to this: Hank has to make it home in time for supper. Will his wacky time-travelling ability get in the way? Turn the page and find out!!
2b) Oh by the way, don't show this story to Focus on the Family A quick side-note: Since Hank's condition is apparently genetic, that means that it's passed onto his kids. Most of them don't make it through gestation, though, because they literally time-travelled out of the womb. Yup. This book as chrono abortions.
Aside from being gross and pointless, it's a stupid plot point. It doesn't add anything but faux drama and, surprise surprise, the miscarriages aren't handled with any gravity by the story. I'm not even sure how it works with time-travelling fetuses; did his parents also have a lot of miscarriages? I don't know if the book addressed that but I have a feeling it didn't.
At any rate, this little point doesn't even fit in with the rest of the narrative. It turns out that time-travel can be induced by stress (sometimes, sometimes not, it doesn't really matter). So the previous chrono-abortions were caused by, I guess, stress or something. In order to solve this, Clare decides that, with Alba, she's going to have a completely stress-free gestation. Oh okay, easy enough to just say, "For the next nine months, nothing even remotely emotionally stressful's gonna happen to me!" And guess what, it works!! apparently. Are you really surprised? Once again, the middle-classness of the book rears its ugly head.
And yes, I know what you're thinking. If it's stress that causes the time-travel, shouldn't her stupid little anti-stress shell shatter the moment the baby is actually born? And is slapped just to make sure it starts crying? Oh yeah never mind that.
Hey AUDREY, next time just make it so that the condition is like some other genetic conditions and just have it manifest itself later on in life or something. Oh wait, that would entail actually knowing a fucking damn about anything.
Here's another little tip: Always research what you write. Not only will you not sound like a retard, it'll actually open up new and perhaps better ways to work with the plot!
3) Apparently time-travel is a pre-existing condition Okay so you have time-travel. There are two ways you can handle it: You can keep it on the down-low (no, not that down-low), maybe don't tell anyone about it, try to work it out in the shadows lest you draw anyone into your insane causality-defying vortex.
But what if you don't like it, and you're desperate to stop it? Or at least get more control over it? You have to consult someone, so who do you turn to? If you said "A doctor," congratufuckinglations: You're dumb. You are dumb dumb stupid dumb idiotic. You are Henry DeTamble. Wow, that really is an awful name.
Hey let's think about this a second. You have a condition that is unlike anything else in human history. It's not like you have a rash or polyps or a tumor. You TRAVEL THROUGH FUCKING TIME. Clearly that is not a medical problem but a scientific one. It's like if I had a condition that caused me to shrink to the size of an atom. I don't care if it's caused by bad genes or the sniffles, that is clearly not within the normal parameters of a mere illness.
But no, Hank goes to see a geneticist. Why he goes to see a geneticist is beyond me, but yeah, the doctor confirms that his condition is indeed genetic. And... and? So what?? HE TRAVELS THROUGH TIME!
This is once again the book's middle-class tone seeping in and fucking up everything it encounters. Hank is so bereft of imagination that he doesn't think to consult, oh, I dunno, a scientist? If I were in his shoes, I'd call up DARPA or CERN or Stephen Hawking. I would not fuck around with my GP, even though he's an okay guy.
And this braindead doctor doesn't think to consult any scientists either. If I were him, I'd be like, "Hey, Dr. Hawking, I got this guy in my office who says he can time-travel. Now I don't know if he actually can, but I've seen him disappear into air. I am not insane. No, really, you have to check this guy out. You better hurry, though. He's reading a Newsweek but I think he's losing interest. So come and check him out."
Instead, this doc comes up with a cute name for it (Time displacement disorder. Oh cool, you have TDD? I have Involuntary Firing Lasers Out of My Eyes Syndrome!!) and, I dunno, prescribes downers or something? Good work, doc, you tackled the issue of time-travel with such stunning banality, I didn't think it was possible.
To AUDREY, time-travel is not a serious issue to be explored in the framework of two people trying to have a relationship. No, it's a nuisance, addressed with some aspirin and staying away from carbs. It's a gimmick, something used to lure the suckers in. So then, if the book isn't really about time-travel, I guess it's about the romance, right? Right?
4) You're a creep and you should stay away from me. Okay okay, man, so the story sucks. The characters suck. The writing is bad and everything. But where this book succeeds is its ROMANCE. It's a lovely story how they perservere over everything! Why can't you just feel this book with your heart??
Well first of all, I have a dark heart. A black heart, even, made of pure coal. I am not moved even by the cutest baby. But even beyond that, in my cold robot-like logic, I can see that this romantic story is a bunch of shit and shouldn't impress even the sappiest of women. AND YET...
Okay let's start at this romance's beginning. So Hank time-travels back to when Clare was a little girl. Why he does this in the first place goes unexplained because AUDREY doesn't understand how time-travel works, but never mind. So Clare's very first interaction with Hank is him being stark naked in a bush in a field she's randomly picknicking in.
Hold up. If you knew nothing about this scene other than what you could see with your own eyes, would this look like the start of a romantic story, or a horror story?
Yeah look, I don't think a 36-year-old man sitting naked in the bushes stalking a six-year-old is the best way to kick this relationship off. But it just gets worse. When Clare hears him in the bushes, she not only approaches him (even after he's announced that he's naked), she hands him a blanket to cover himself in. And then she stays around to listen to him talk.
Is any of this sinking in? THIS IS FUCKING WEIRD AND A LITTLE BIT CREEPY. I understand that little kids tend not to know much about anything, but I'm pretty sure they understand when someone is acting weird and I'd think they'd be more inclined to run away rather than deal with this strange naked man sitting in a bush claiming he's a fucking time-traveller. The mere fact that young Clare stays around at all is a testament to how clueless AUDREY is, or perhaps how insane she is.
Maybe when the editors were reading this, they were like, "Oh I see, this is some kind of parody. I mean, it's not a good parody, but she's not serious with this story, right? Yeah okay, we can publish this then." And then afterwards they were quietly alarmed to see that, no, she was serious. She was a serious person writing a serious book about a naked time-traveller hitting on a kid with such wonderfully
The logic Hank uses to even think of doing this is literally no different than if some Indian guy in an arranged marriage with a six-year-old showed up naked at her house for some preliminary flirting. And if the parents protest, he's all like, "Shit, we're gonna be married in like 10 years so what's the problem!!"
And that's not all!! So in order to prove that he's a time-traveller, he tells li'l Clare the exact times and locations of when he'll next appear. So we have a naked guy telling a kid the times and places where he'll appear next, oh and please bring clothes because he's gonna be naked those times too. Is any of this shit sinking in?
This is not romantic. I refuse to believe anyone is so stupid that they read this and were thinking, "Awwww! What A SWEETIE!!!!" How could that be? Who thinks this? WHO? ANSWER ME. I DEMAND ANSWERS.
Maybe in the hands of a very skilled author, this situation could be rendered in a plausibly romantic way. Maybe. But AUDREY isn't up to the task. The situation is icky beyond words. It's not played up for laughs, its absurdity is not realized by any character at any time. This is played straight as a legitimately romantic situation.
Even beyond that, not only is Clare not repulsed by this, she's intrigued by it. She sticks with Hank even though their interactions are based solely on him randomly dropping in with not explanation as to where the fuck he came from and what he's doing there. But he's so interesting because he time-travels! Never fucking mind that he doesn't go anywhere interesting in his travels. He can't tell her what it's like to see World War II happen, or that he watched the Mona Lisa be painted, or that he sailed with Columbus. No, it's as if he has an interstellar starship, but he only goes to Sheboygan.
So what does he really have to offer her? What part of his personality is so interesting? Is he funny? Is he resilient? Is he creative? What? The only thing we can say is that he has a rockin' bod, I guess.
Maybe I'm wrong to expect the romance in a romance novel to be not shallow. I don't read these books often at all, so I guess there's a little bullshit that goes with the territory. That doesn't mean that this isn't crap, though, and it's crap of the rankest order.
There are many other parts of this book that are just trash, but I'm afraid that going over them would just bring us back, like a wayward time-traveller, to the beginning, which is that this is a book about a guy who motherfucking time-travels, and nothing remotely interesting happens. It's a tour-de-force of boredom, 500+ pages of nothing.
There's a lot of things wrong with AUDREY's manuscript, but the chief problem is a complete lack of imagination. That this book was successful anyway baffles me.
Maybe the populace is so devoid of creativity that a book like this sells. I'm not sure. I'm not the one this book is marketed to, though. I sincerely hope that the world of fiction has much more to offer than this, but somehow I really doubt it. I feel it in my bones.
So in conclusion, and I really hate to have to admit this, but I give you credit. You are right. This "books" does indeed "blows""."
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