I picked this up at a library book sale last Saturday. I'd seen the movie a few months ago, and had heard good reviews of the book. Despite the length (over 500 pages), it was a quick read.
Henry DeTamble is an involuntarily time-traveling librarian with serious substance abuse problems. Clare Abshire is a beautiful paper artist with a sizable trust fund. They meet in the present and during Henry's sporadic voyages through time. They fall in love. They marry. They live. I enjoyed considering the fascinating and disturbing question of free will and fate in Henry and Clare's lives. But though I like a good love story, I wasn't terribly impressed by The Time Traveler's Wife.
Perhaps I've been spoiled by classic literature - it's hard to find a well-written love story to equal that of Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester. Maybe I am also spoiled by the good hearts and lives of my friends and family - it's hard to fall in love with characters who seem so selfish and shallow by comparison. This book left me dissatisfied, thinking, This is it? I may be young, but I know that there is more to life, and love, than this. There are also better-developed characters, more cogent plots, and better overall examples of writing in the literary universe. It's entertaining, but not great.
I think I'll go read some Dickens.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell
After reading North and South, I decided I'd like to read more of Elizabeth Gaskell's works. I found Cranford at a church sale in early June, right after I finished reading Emma. And while it wasn't the most riveting book, it presented a lot of interesting themes and sweet old lady characters.
Cranford was originally published as a series of eight sketches in the weekly journal Household Words (which was edited by a certain Mr. Dickens). The sketches were later integrated into book form, but together comprise a series of amusing stories rather than a coherent plot. Through the narration of Mary Smith, a frequent visitor to Cranford, we meet the Miss Jenkynses, Miss Pole, Mrs. Jamieson, and many other inhabitants of the female-dominated town. While the stories are set primarily in the 1830s and 40s, Cranford’s inhabitants seem to be stuck in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Their old-fashioned customs, representative of old aristocratic England, conflict with the increasingly global and industrial world. All in all, the satire is pretty funny – I caught myself laughing many a time – but in a character-driven way rather than a plot-driven way.
Cranford was originally published as a series of eight sketches in the weekly journal Household Words (which was edited by a certain Mr. Dickens). The sketches were later integrated into book form, but together comprise a series of amusing stories rather than a coherent plot. Through the narration of Mary Smith, a frequent visitor to Cranford, we meet the Miss Jenkynses, Miss Pole, Mrs. Jamieson, and many other inhabitants of the female-dominated town. While the stories are set primarily in the 1830s and 40s, Cranford’s inhabitants seem to be stuck in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Their old-fashioned customs, representative of old aristocratic England, conflict with the increasingly global and industrial world. All in all, the satire is pretty funny – I caught myself laughing many a time – but in a character-driven way rather than a plot-driven way.
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