Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

The most significant objection I have to modernity and especially to modern literature is the refusal to devote oneself to principle, choosing instead arbitrary, dogmatic sentiment. Perhaps I am expecting too much of the literature of my decadent and effete era or maybe I am just too old-fashioned, too Greek or Medieval. Who knows.

Niffenegger's book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was an engaging read. It would have been as disappointing as The Sinner of Saint Ambrose had I been as invested in it, but I bought it (probably a poor choice, but it was really cheap, after all) on a friend's recommendation, and after he introduced me to The Stars My Destination I was prepared to believe him. Time Traveler is far more about telling a story than disclosing topical references or even allegory. Naturally, since a  committed modern wrote it, its intellectual foundations are laced in modernity; for example, whenever it discusses love I see late 20th Century thought at work. Perhaps the author recognized this tendency, or perhaps not, for it does not seem to be much of a self-aware book on that level.

That was the reason I wound up enjoying it; I was able to identify Proust and the new contemporary sentiment, and was quite surprised how far we have come since the Middle Ages, which were strong on reason and weak on sentiment; now we doubt reason's claim to truth and live for sentiment. Feeling is more important than insight, etc. Almost more than a rollicking good tale I love the exciting treatment of ideas, and this is where the book fell short. I bought it because Ty told me it was a magnificent tragedy and a wonderful love story. Since love is a mystery to me, I thought Time Traveler might teach me something. In the end, much of what I learned from the book was that the ideal is more real than the materially existing individual, and that what we love is an ideal we see in another, not the 'individual-itself'. Perhaps this is not quite right, but it almost sounds a bit like Plato, a distinction I shall retain when I return to Greece. So maybe I am completely wrong and Niffenegger is an ancient, not a modern. But I wouldn't hold my breath to find out.

"I'm a close approximation she is guiding surreptitiously toward a me that exists in her mind's eye. What would I be without her?"