Not to be ungrateful to you, Hec, so: thanks! Just disappointed that I've been missing out for so long.

Just disappointed that I've been missing out for so long.

I've been hogging all the Knut. It's fun to go back and read his blog though!

Aye aye.

There was an excellent program on the Tintin comics and author Hergé on PBS the other night. Not sure when it will repeat, but it's worth checking out: [link]

Have any of you read the murder mysteries by "P. J. Tracy"? I happened on the first two (Monkeewrench and Live Bait)at my library. They are set partly in north central Wisconsin and partly in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. There were some plot holes and some tech holes, but mostly I liked them. They are a little lighter than the psychological thrillers by Sandford and Patterson, but the morbid and creepifying parts are well done. Some good twists, and here and there some very funny bits.

Alright, I just read Wicked. It was different than what I was expecting, and better, but man what a depressing book. And I'm not sure I got all the things the author was trying to say.

As a side note, why have so many of the books I've read recently had "discussion questions" in the back? Are book clubs that popular?

Raq, book clubs are the main push for most mainstream fiction.

I really didn't like Wicked much. It felt very overburdened by the author's attempt for Deep Meaning, and didn't give me enough satisfactory moments to be worth the inverstment.

I guess I also possibly just don't like his writing style much, as I also found Confessions of a Wicked Stepsister to be very underwhelming, and not for that same reason.

On the other hand, I am very much enjoying Looking for Alaska at the moment, at a bit past the halway point. I understand the comparisons to A Separate Peace.

Also, finished The Mists of Avalon this morning, and MAN what a well-done fantasy epic. Best high fantasy I've read that isn't about hobbits.

t Threadsucking for later reading (I'm still behind on the former thread, I'm sorry to say, but I insist on really catching up!)

t Skipping and ignoring any ongoing onversations and feeling bad about it, but still

So, I'm trying to not-look-at-the-news, and I remembered mentioning this book once, and so, I just tried to sit and be concentrated for a while on "Time traveler's Wife". And then I rambled, badly. I read the book quite a while ago, so things are confused and jumping-into-each-other and partial and loooooong because I can't put them into order. I'm going to white-font all the babbling, because I hadn't been here for so long, I don't even remember the spoiler rules in this thread. And I apologize for invading it like that. So, anyway.

The whole story is, in fact, in the first 3 pages or so. Later it's only details. Also, in a very early stage of the book (a few dozen pages), most of those details are already known. And in a way, it's like in life. The frame is simple, even banal (boy and girl meet, boy and girl form a relationship, boy and girl have to struggle), there are almost no surprising or exciting elements, and yet, the story itself, the soul of it, is all the rest, all that inside and outside of those details.

I loved how the book was written all in present-tense. As if it doesn't matter when you are, that is the here-and-now. And in a way, the story is like characters in a book, in and of itself. When you open a book, no matter how old you are, how much you've grown since the last time you've read it, the characters are always the same age, even if they mature by the time it ends. Am I making any sense here?

I that I once was, I that I'll manage to become in the future, I of right now - and the connection between all these different and similar and identical and far Is.

She waited for him, all the time, as a girl, in the two years they were apart, and as a wife. Even when she met him, at the "present", she had to wait for him to become that person that she knows and loves (and that's the wait that's most in the present, less in either the past or the future). He never waited. But he also didn't have what to wait. So, what is better?

Even though, when he was away from her, after they were already a couple, he missed her all the time. It's not the same as waiting, though. Especially in a book that plays so much with time.

And I loved how, despite all the looking-aheads he had to the future, he had no idea that they would be able to become parents. Some things are more difficult, more special, even than winning the lottery, I guess.

A loop inside itself - she is so happy to meet him because she waited for him for so long. And her joy and confidence make him respond to her without any barriers, holding nothing back. And that is what enables them to really become a couple. And therefore, for him - to go back in time to her, over and over again, as his focus, which makes her again to want to meet with him as an adult - lather, rinse, repeat.

Another loop is the list of dates that they have - she brought it to him on their first meeting (for him, when she was 20). He memorized it, and therefore could dictate it to her when he went back in time, for her to have in order to give him in her future. So, who created that list, in the first place?

And if I'm talking about loops, then the obvious one is his knowledge - breaking into places, picking locks, stealing, fighting - where did that knowledge come from? He knows because he had taught himself, as a kid, and then he grew up, with that knowledge, in order to pass it on to his kid-self. But what's the source of this knowledge? On the other hand, well, there are quite a few things that people can't explain how they know, without any need for time travel, so who knows.

And it's not really a loop, but still. If he tells her things, he changes her (like telling her that she likes coffee and how). But if he doesn't tell her things (like whether they're married in the future) he also changes her. His very presence changes her, no matter what he does. And again, when she wonders about her future - he makes that future real and right-there even if only by his presence, but since he can't change anything in the time that isn't his current "present", he can't change it. Making it present, changing the present, but not the future. Confusing.

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But if we take out the let-my-head-spin element - everybody we know, everybody whom we feel deeply about, changes us, right?

None of them left the other a choice, really - he was at her side for her entire childhood, so there was nothing left for her to do but fall for him. And she flooded him with such love and confidence and familiarity when they first met in the "present", that he there was nothing left for him to do but return them to her, as well. So, on the surface, it's like the "one and only" fantasy about the soulmate that waits for each of us. But actually, the thing that made either of them fall for the other, was the love itself!

If he hadn't traveled through time, hadn't tied her to him so strongly since her childhood, would she have been able to choose Gomez, ho is so deeply in love with her? Is there really a "no choice" element here? Henry chose Claire because Claire chose Henry because Henry chose Claire?

Each one of them, in the present, made the choice of being with the other. But she, as a child, presented with that man who knew her and made her feel so special - did she have a choice, could she deny him those deep emotions? And him, when they met for the first time for him, in his present - that radiating joyous convinced and convincing girl, standing in front of him as if he's the answers to all her dreams - is there a way to really refuse such a deep emotion? Especially since she was already affected, already on her path to fit him so well. So each one of them made a choice, but did they really could do anything else?

She was lonely before she met him, in those two years in which she stopped seeing the traveling-to-the-past him, but not yet the in-the-present him. And right when she meets him, she feels like his very presence - even though he doesn't know her yet, even though he has no emotions towards her yet! - is already a cure to her loneliness, already ending it.

And it works for him, too - he deals much better with Christmas, the date of his mother's death, when he with Claire, than when he's alone at that year. Even if it's only a teenager-version of the woman she'd become, even if she can't really understand his pain and his needs. Sometimes, the very presence of a person helps, you know?

All throughout their lives, he was the one who knew the future, who wouldn't tell, who couldn't share. And when they first met as adults, she was the one who knew everything. For the first time, she was in that "power" position, she reversed the roles.

Something I liked less were the "larger than life" bits - how her parents were millionaires, how she looked like a model or something out of a painting, the abuse of her first date football player guy, the beating-up that followed, his mom being such an artist and so forth. I guess that for me, since the book dealt so much with experiences in relationships and people that were familiar and spoke to me, I would have preferred the book to be more of "amazing things happen to ordinary people", in a way. It didn't need, for me, all these components in order to be strong and effective, and for me they even weakened it a bit.

Oh, and I didn't like the torture that came upon them in the end of the book. I understood why the story demanded it, in a way - the constant final wait had to be Henry's death, the one travel from which he can't return, no matter what. And I understood, especially after all the emphasis on it all throughout the book, the helplessness in his situation, the importance of legs and movement and being-able to be away, for him.

And yet. He knew that he was going to die, that he would never see his daughter grow up, that he has the burden of his former girlfriend's suicide on his chest, he had to face the one thing he was most afraid of, all throughout life? And never be even given a proper chance to deal with it, because right when he started returning to life, he was killed? It felt like "let's make the readers weep", for me. Not that it didn't work, but still. I didn't feel the story needed that.

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And I think that one of the things I liked most about the book was the way the relationships about him mirrored and reflected relationships in real life, without the fantastic element of time travel. How all that complicated dance of getting to know a person, falling in love, sticking to a relationship, choosing the difficult aspects of everyday life over a fantasy, all that, so familiar, yet in this story, lit in such a new way.

When she first enters his apartment, for example, he tells her "had I known you'd come, I would have cleaned up the place a bit more". And it fits both his apartment, and, well, his whole life, which were pretty much a mess at the time. And again, this is true for so many relationships - we can't always live in a constant state of anticipation, (and, well, he really had no idea she was coming), but on the other hand, we should, I think, always be ready that something may actually happen, that somebody may enter our lives. And that's a trick balance to maintain.

When she meets him as a teenager, it's like all the dreams and the fantasies that many girls in this age hold dear and close to their hearts - a big man, who knows everything, including the future, who is old enough to lean on, who is understanding and considerate, an experienced lover, who teaches her gently. A wonderful secret to keep, and be special. And when the dream, the marriage, the actual life together, comes true - there's also a lot of sadness, disappointment and a lot to try and deal with. In real life, not a dream - pretty much the way it is with everybody, right?

When she's a kid, their meetings are pretty much like dates. She even describes them as "concentrated, dramatic, confusing". And then, when they meet in the "present", it's like living together or even marriage, from before either of those happen - it keeps going on, not abrupt breaks, with all the downsides and the considerations that are required from both of them, all the difficulties and less of the glamour. And yet - it's real, and real life.

And he loves Claire the girl, because of herself, but also because of the woman she'd grow up to become, his wife. And their marriage, with all the pain, the dealings, the failure. And he may like and enjoy the girl-version's innocence and ignorance and lack of experience, and, yes, lack of demands and hardships, but only for a short while. In the end, he always returns to the woman. Always goes back to the "real life" relationship, over the fantasy-one.

He goes to where she can't follow him - and sometimes it's to her, to a younger herself, to create this connection, that now makes her miss him. She can't follow him, even when she is the one he goes to. Almost like the lack of ability to really connect, in total openness, in full understanding, that exists between every two people trying to be in a relationship.

Even with all the preparations, since she was 6 years old, you can't know in advance when and where you're going to bump into the people who are going to be so important for you.

When she meets him for the first time, as two adults, her response is like "love at first sight", she's already in love with him. He, however, still has to learn to get to know her. There are different ways to know people and to develop love to them, and that doesn't mean anything regarding the depth and scope of that love.

She already knows him inside out - but not him the-way-he-is-now, but rather, the person he would one day become, with her help. He had never met her. They both have to learn to get to know the each other of the present. No fantasies, no decorations. There are, in real life, different ways to get to know people - "from the inside out", with the few people whom, upon first sight, you can feel that you already know them and how the relationship will end up being, and all that is required is the "technical details" all around that. And the "from the outside inward", which is the usual way of aquaintance, though the details, the everyday, you get to penetrate deeper into an individual's personality and get to know them better.

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