I was writing a novel with multiple narratives... You said you liked it...

You lied. :(

I LOVE that Muppet scene. And basically anything Muppet related.

A less extreme version of this is perhaps The Da Vinci Code.

Fairly cool idea. Written poorly.

Oh, what could have been.

*ponders whether or not he can be arsed defending this book*

And another thing; the author has a stupid name. I enjoy your negative reviews almost as much as your positive ones, Phil.

You mean to say that even with the *gasp* 'uncontrolled' nature of the Time Traveller's travelling, he largely wonders off once everything has been neatly resolved?

Thanks, Phil, for saving me from a fate worse than Dan Brown, given that I found the concept interesting to pick it up.

So, in other words, it's not as good as The Girl in the Fireplace?

I was writing a novel with multiple narratives...
Well, there is no hard and fast rule for fiction, despite what I say above. I'm sure you can find a great book that breaks most of the rules I go over above...but the thing is this: if you're going to break rules, you need to know what you're doing. You need to fully understand the rule that you're breaking and you need to make the breaking of that rule worth-while.

The thing with multiple narrators is that it's too easy to do. It's so easy that you stop worrying about whether you're getting things across properly because if you aren't, hey, let's just tell it through someone else's eyes. You also don't get to work around scenes that happen off-camera...you pop into someone else's head and suddenly you've got a narrator present. It's an extremely cheap way of writing because it doesn't force the author to work for anything.

And trust me, you can always tell when an author worked at something and when he/she didn't. You might fool a passive reader, but nobody who's read a respectable amount.

You mean to say that even with the *gasp* 'uncontrolled' nature of the Time Traveller's travelling, he largely wonders off once everything has been neatly resolved?

Well, yes and no. To Niffenegger's credit, she doesn't do it quite so obviously...but "wanders off" isn't a bad way to put it as long as you don't take it literally.

Basically he "wanders into" next week's episode, where last week's episode meant nothing and will never be referred to again. Of course, toward the end of the book you actually have what seem to be equivalent to "episodes meant to salvage falling ratings" in which the two get married, have a baby, etc. Those things ARE referred to again in the way that they now have a baby and have gotten married, but absolutely NOTHING that happened in the course of those events is referred to again, by anyone!

I found the concept interesting to pick it up.

So did I. And, normally, I end up enjoying books I have good feelings about. (Blindness and The Third Policeman were both complete whims, as was Catch-22 many moons ago.) I saw it as my sacred duty to prevent as many people as I can from investing too much time in this book. And at 550 pages or so, it's WAY too much time.

>I was writing a novel with multiple narratives...

That was meant to be block-quoted in my above comment. Sorry, I'm still waking up.

> They have constant sex

With that Jjones woman?

This review reminds me of what I thought of The Lovely Bones when I read it. Because of the way the story's told, what should be a pretty emotional book just...isn't. It's like this sterile expositional storytelling with no proper connection with the characters so you're always on the outside looking in rather than getting involved. I don't know, maybe that was the whole point, what with it focussing on the girl looking on her family and her killer from heaven.

I'll give someone 10 points if they can tell me where The Lovely Bones crops up in new Who.

>*ponders whether or not he can be arsed defending this book*

Well, since you've actually read it, it might make this discussion a little more fair. It seems I'm the only other one who's commented so far who has read the book...meaning the discussion is going to be rather skewed toward my negative review. If you have something you'd like to address (either about my review or the novel itself) don't hold back.

*Wonders if it was a good idea to tell Michael Lacey not to hold back...*

Cunts are going to fly.

Ah, thank God. Everyone talks about how "lovely" and "literary" it is. Which made me certain it was going to suck.

There will be a movie, starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. What a waste.

Seb, nothing beats The Girl in the Fireplace. :P

A movie, in the right hands, could actually work. The premise of the novel isn't bad...it's just that the handling of it is atrocious. Had a truly gifted filmmaker snapped up the rights, I'd be willing to see his interpretation. (I'm thinking the only possible salvation here would be something like what Kubrick did for The Shining.)

Of course, the other--far more likely--possibility is that it's going to be exactly like every other dose of romantic sap we get spoonfed about 150 times every year by studios.

To address what you've heard about the book: no, I wouldn't call it "lovely," but there are plenty of feel-good passages that might easily fool people into mistaking it for lovely. The one thing I will not stand for is hearing it called "literary."

I mean, this book was a slap in the face in all sorts of ways...but I can deal with that. Hearing it called "literary" is more akin to a sucker-punch in the testicles.

>>Had a truly gifted filmmaker snapped up the rights, I'd be willing to see his interpretation. (I'm thinking the only possible salvation here would be something like what Kubrick did for The Shining.)

Well well.. I guess I should break the news about my new directing gig, then ;)

Right, here we go. I've been pissed all weekend so a fair bit of this might not make sense. I was going to address your points one by one, but after the first one I got a bit carried away and I want to go and smoke a fag now. Here goes...

"Wednesday, July 12, 1995 (Clare is 24, Henry is 32)

Which is very annoying to say the least, because it immediately robs the book of what should be a selling-point: the disorientation of time travel"

I think the disorientation of time travel is covered and gets old pretty quickly with all the stuff about pickpocketing people and stealing trousers and obviously the possibility of ending up somewhere really terrible and what might happen is a big plot point later on. The route she took instead - of listing the ages in an inobtrusive enough way as to not shoe-horn it into the prose but so that after reading the book, you can pick out for yourself the time-tangled narrative or see more clearly how their age influenced their behaviour what with things from later on in the book "already" having occurred for them - is a more interesting route. I'm glad she explored the reality of turning up naked somewhere weird in the middle of the night rather than cooking up some dogshit hamfisted technowank explanation for a "containment field" that makes sure your trousers travel with you, or something. The full exploration of the emotional and practical realities of the situation without resorting to cod-scientific explanations like a lot of fourth-rate sci-fi was appealling to me.

Not that they don't eventually resort to a mild form of cod-scientific fourth-rate sci-fi pap with the "Chrono-Displaced Person" thing, but I think the stuff about Henry being the first of a "kind" is interesting enough for me not to mind very much - I was quite taken with the idea of people turning up nude and "chrono-displaced" becoming the norm.

Having a wank-scientific explanation that happens to have a kind of poetic appropriateness doesn't make this any better intrinsically than anything else that just has a wank-scientific explanation, and I think there is a sort of snobbishness on Niffeneggers part to think that she can write what is ostensibly a sci-fi novel without bothering to check whether any of the genre conventions would make her ideas look comparitively naive and silly. I mean, at a base level, I don't disagree that the "chrono displacement person" idea is a pretty gay one, but it's just one of the more negative impacts that her naivety as a writer has on the novel. I think it's also to blame for her descriptions of love being clumsy, the dialogue a bit ropey, the narration a bit patronising and blah-blah middle class yuppy wank, and other fairly obvious "first novel" mistakes.

BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT

I don't know if it was because I was familiar with an earlier book of Niffeneggers, "The Three Incestuous Sisters" (a quite sweet, simple story with lots of pretty pictures), that I was sort of expecting that naivety and I think it has as many positive impacts on the novel. Mainly just that the central idea is so gorgeous and taps into loads of intrinsic time-travel fantasies that it's pretty hard - unless you're an EMOTIONLESS ALIEN with a HEART MADE OF FLINT who WEEPS NOT TEARS, BUT ONLY BATTERY ACID and not in SADNESS but in LAUGHTER because he is DROWNING BABY ANIMALS and FEEDING THEM TO A WOLF while he writes REALLY NEGATIVE REVIEWS of THINGS I LIKE BUT AM SLIGHTLY EMBARASSED ABOUT - unless you're that (Phillip) it's pretty hard not to get swept along by it. The relationship between Henry and his parents for example is something I'm pretty fond of, which didn't really get mentioned in your review. The naivety that makes her write like a bit of an arse also imbues those scenes with a kind of cosy familiarity that makes their emotional intensity and the fact that they drag him through time towards themselves a more realistic and compelling idea. I don't disagree that she can't write as a boy and that sort of cripples the MAIN relationship in the book BUT some of the observations in the other relationships are fine, enjoyable stuff.

I liked the episodic nature of it, too. To get me reading a "love story" with that many fucking pages, whether it's about time travel or not, I'm going to need to be convinced the narrative is actually progressing quite regularly. By isolating so many narratives into concrete sections, it builds up quite a memorable picture of this shared life which is being viewed by all angles, such that the last act of the book is pretty impossible to put down. It's a bit manipulative to just structure yourself like a season of a tv show in order to hook peoples interest, but equally the last few episodes of the season are going to be dead good if you've got that kind of investment in it.

I don't want to say that anything you mentioned in your review is entirely untrue, because it's not. I think it's just a question of how much you're willing to forgive in a novel based on how many other bits of it you actually enjoyed - I enjoyed parts of it enough to brave through other parts (that Gomez character, for instance, really irritated me) even though I was sort of trying to ignore the main narrative voice and just focus on the thematic elements underneath them. It was like being explained something really interesting by someone with a really annoying voice. Like you'd missed an episode of Lost, and were having the plot explained to you in song by Su Pollard. And apparently that's what I like, because I've read it twice.

Before I go and have that fag, I've just realised I can boil that entire post down to one sentence and one comparison, probably.

TTTW is like the early Douglas Coupland novels for me in that I'll read them and like what he's *trying* to achieve JUST ENOUGH to not mind that he's clearly a bit of a hack wanker.

I don't apply that to his newer novels though, cos I'm bang into them. They're boss.

And what have we all learned from this, folks?

That's right! Female authors are talentless hacks and should stop trying to write and go back into the kitchen where they belong and make me my fucking dinner!

(I'm a massive wanker.)

Michael Lacey woke up! Yay!

Allow me to be somewhat brutal in my reply, just because I know you, of all people, can handle it. Also, I think this actually has the potential to be a valuable discussion...so let me just say at once that I appreciate your opinions...and anything I don't respond to below...well, it's because I pretty much agree with you on them outright. So don't take what follows to be a complete dismissal of anything you've said.

The route she took instead - of listing the ages in an inobtrusive enough way as to not shoe-horn it into the prose

See, I see this as the very definition of a shoehorn...it's NOT integrated into the story in any skillful or imaginative way...it's plopped like a glob of toothpaste over each section. And besides, if you re-read it, take note of how many sections have obvious enough clues as to when they're happening. (As I discussed above, it's frequently a newspaper or a passerby who gives Henry the exact information we already have.) She could easily delete them, which would make for a more comfortable reading experience, and it would also, lo and behold, allow the audience some credit in figuring things out for themselves.

I draw your attention to either Catch-22 or Slaughterhouse-Five...both novels used a similar "random displacement in time" motif, neither of which were difficult to understand or place events in sequence, and neither of which resorted to the slap across the face that is chronological data as a section heading. They present their situations, deposit the necessary details of orientation, and keep us gliding along. They don't pull away from the prose for the sake of reminding the reader that they're holding a novel in their hands, which is what Niffenegger's constant and unnecessary intrusions are doing.

And I'm not saying that she CAN'T use those section headings if that's her thing...just that if she does choose to use them, I do NOT want to follow Henry around as he assembles the clues of his location in time. I already know it. Everyone already knows it. So unless she's going to do something interesting in the course of his finding out (which she never does, even once), she's got to rethink her strategy.

rather than cooking up some dogshit hamfisted technowank explanation for a "containment field" that makes sure your trousers travel with you

This is one of the things that Niffenegger does right. Why? Because she lets the logic of the situation dictate itself. Would your clothes travel with you? Of course not, if Henry's problem is indeed a biological one. So she lets the logic of the situation continue naturally. Good move. Now why on earth didn't she do that more often?

The relationship between Henry and his parents for example is something I'm pretty fond of, which didn't really get mentioned in your review.

I did almost mention that in my review, but not in a positive light. The stuff with his dad is fine. The needlessly gory death of his mother (her head flies off, through the windshield, through the rear window of the driver in front of her, and lands in the front of that car? Are you kidding me, Niffenegger?) was something I intended to slap her around about, but I found it more useful to dwell on the generalities of the book...if only because I didn't expect too many people to have read it.

BUT some of the observations in the other relationships are fine, enjoyable stuff.

Absolutely. It'd be foolish to say that Niffenegger misses all of her marks. She does indeed hit a few. But a few over the course of 500+ pages is an extremely poor ratio.

By isolating so many narratives into concrete sections, it builds up quite a memorable picture of this shared life

I absolutely disagree with this. The novels that have legitimately moved me have all worked as one clear, fluid piece. I'll even meet you halfway and mention two of them that CAN be considered episodic in a strict sense of the word: The Catcher in the Rye, and Ulysses. Each of those is broken up into shorter sequences. The difference is that you feel the compounded impact of these sequences as they apply to Holden Caulfield or Leopold Bloom (as the case may be), but for Niffenegger's "characters," they never amount to anything. Once a scene ends, it's over, and you really can't say that any emotional weight from a previous scene carries over into the next. That's what makes it poor writing.

I think it's just a question of how much you're willing to forgive in a novel based on how many other bits of it you actually enjoyed

Agreed. But, again, the hit/miss ratio is completely bottom-heavy. Niffenegger is doing so much WRONG that I can't credit her for doing any right before she perpetrates her next crime against literature, making me realize I don't owe her any slack whatsoever.

that Gomez character, for instance, really irritated me

There is one reason and one reason only that I didn't mention him in my review: I'd never be able to stop talking about just how poorly that character was handled. It's like Niffenegger wanted the "shock" of Clare boning him to have as much impact as possible, so she makes him so unappealing and inhuman that no reader in the world could possibly understand why Clare DOES bone him.

I once boned a guy named Gomez...

As you can imagine that wasn't one of my better choices.

"Allow me to be somewhat brutal in my reply, just because I know you, of all people, can handle it."

Naturally, that entire paragraph goes the same for me. I might call you gay a bit if I get over-excited but it's only because I secretly want you to be. Also, I've just been reading about the pills I'm currently taking and periods of heightened violence and anger seem to be a fairly common side-effect not mentioned on any vaguely official-looking webpages about the pills. Good old witholding of information by pharmaceutical companies! *smashes up a priceless vase with a chair leg.* Anyway, on with the debate...

"See, I see this as the very definition of a shoehorn...it's NOT integrated into the story in any skillful or imaginative way...it's plopped like a glob of toothpaste over each section."

Well, see, I kind of take it as the opposite of a shoehorn - a shoehorn is something that's not really meant to be in a shoe, so it's an unusual thing to have one in there. The dates aren't really in the "shoe" of prose, I'd say in the analogy, they're more like the holes on a brogue, or maybe the plastic bits on the tip of the laces. Although that would imply they were "skilfully integrated" by the shoe-maker/author, so perhaps they're more like the chewing gum on the sole of the novel.

Anyway, I take your point that they are an un-necessary addition when the narration will also follow Henry around while he's going "WHAT YEAR IS THIS? WHOOOO'S THE PRESIDENT? AAAARGH!". It's a good point, well made. You FAGGOT. All I can honestly say in the novels defence is that I didn't really mind when I was reading it, or very often, notice - the dates barely registered with me on my first reading (because I couldn't be arsed going "right, he's 33, so that means it's before x but after etc") whereas on the second when I had more of an idea of the overall story, they cast certain passages in a more interesting light. It seemed to me a deliberate structural decision to reward re-reading, which I found quite appealling. And obviously, the logic of the situation dictates that Henry will have to put some effort into finding out how old Claire is wherever he happens to be, and it wouldn't be like Niffenegger to not detail it, as she seems to HATE ambiguity of any kind. I think again it just boils down to how much you're going to let her get away with - in my case, it seems, a fair bit.

Being forced to think in such detail about the novel has meant it's slipped rather a lot of rungs in my mind in comparitive/literary terms, but I still have a little candle of love flickering away for it. Let's see how long that lasts!

"The needlessly gory death of his mother (her head flies off, through the windshield, through the rear window of the driver in front of her, and lands in the front of that car? Are you kidding me, Niffenegger?)"

Ha, yes! That INCREDIBLY GORY scene certainly surprised me, but I think it needed to be quite surprising in order to force you to sort of, build up quite a detailed mental picture of it so that the revelation later on that there's LOADS of Henrys there, hiding behind bushes and lamposts, would have it's full effect. If you're too busy criticising the mechanics of the scene (which you're perfectly welcome and entitled to do, of course, that's not meant as a dig at you) then obviously you're not really going to feel any of its emotional impact. All the poor writing in a funny way lends a certain credence to the "innocence" of the novel, for me - it's a big stupid love story, after all - but if you don't start from a point of kind of already wanting to like the novel (it's about time travel so I didn't actually need to even read it to know how much I'd like it) I can see that the poor writing could render that central romance less affecting than say, a scene in a muppets film. This process of debate isn't making me love the book any less, but it is certainly making me question my own sanity. Do I really have no better reasons than this for liking it? It seems not (sorry).

"The novels that have legitimately moved me have all worked as one clear, fluid piece. I'll even meet you halfway and mention two of them that CAN be considered episodic in a strict sense of the word: The Catcher in the Rye, and Ulysses."

I've never read Catcher Of The Rye in more than one sitting, so it plays out like a film in my head. However on about thirty six million sittings I've failed to get beyond about four pages of Ulysses, so I can't really comment on that. It seems that given the length of the novel and it's topsy turvy structure, it's only ever going to be at least fairly episodic, though? I also think it's completely valid to represent a shared life in these episodic flashes - that's certainly how my memory works. Emotional content doesn't carry over from one memory to another, mostly cos I can't remember the order anything happened in. It's similar to Toto The Hero I suppose in that individually, these scenes do seem fairly disparate and unrelated, but the "shoe" that they form a part of appeals to me.

Also re the bottom heavy ratio of bad bits to good bits - I agree, and I must just be thick. I'm sure there's a bit more I can say about this but someones on their way round to take me to an Electrelane gig so I'll pass the baton back to you for now...

> There will be a movie, starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling. What a waste.

I thought it was Eric Bana? Anyway, there's a chance they'll make the film better than the book

>I'll pass the baton back to you for now...

Actually I think we've done a pretty good job establishing how we feel about the book, and why...to press it any further we'd probably end up insulting each other's haircuts. (But seriously, Michael, how long has your barber had Parkinson's?)

You did raise an interesting point about how looking too closely at something can oftentimes render it less enjoyable...you lose the ability to step back again...once you find the faults that's all you'll ever see...

And there's a lot more to be said about that...but maybe not here. Or, at least, not by me.

This is a terribel review!

This mandoes not understand the visceral nature of a set piece and has confused sentementality and romance and over intellectualised a story that deals with organic metanarratives.

"Literature is not meant to be suffused with flavor-of-the-day components. Literature has been one of mankind's most timeless art forms. Don't devote 40 pages to a concert event nobody will remember,"
- this perhaps your biggest mistake (and there are many immature observations that expose this man as a careful and pessimistic reader but not a literature fan or creative type).
Are you sure that "Literature is not meant to be suffused with flavor-of-the-day components" - do you want to ask Dickens or Satre, or Dostoyevski or Chekov, or Shakespeare, or auteurs such as Mike Leigh or Murakami if its wrong to "suffused with flavor-of-the-day components". You are so wrong. Literature is a pure form of journalism, an important historical barometer. If its good it won't date. Just because somethings contemporary it DOESN'T DATE. You have to be joking. Silly Charles Dickens "suffusing" his work with contemporaneous descriptions of Victorian London, name checking places, and plays, and concertos of the time...he's immediately dated it the doughnut.

Mr whateveryourname is - I can't even be bothered to scroll up and read your title - please please PLEASE stop reviewing books you grimey little nay-sayer. You're playing devils advocate to appear creative and informed but I have taken one slice of this work and poo-pooed your efforts. You have written a poorly constructed review and Im embarassed by 90 percent of your points. Im actually too angered by your stupidity to rip the rest of your review to shreds, but needless to say it was despicable!
I suggest you bury your head in your sands of pretention until you've grown up. Poor little tyke.

>If its good it won't date.

Which...erm...it isn't.

> (and there are many immature observations that expose this man as a careful and pessimistic reader but not a literature fan or creative type)

Hahaha!

Yes, yes, yes to the Girl in the Fireplace reference above! And also Blink. When I first heard a summary of this book, the first thing I thought of was the good Doctor. The second thing I thought was, well what’s wrong with a surreal and literary version of the Doctor? Your review has saved me hours of my life, sir. I thank you. Now, on to find a time traveling novel with the complexities of “House of Leaves…”

Yeah, I did think as I was reading it: do’h - genius concept, brilliant story even, ruined by clumsy, lumpen writing.

The main fault is that both Henry and Clare are both basically “Mary Sue”s: unflinchingly brave when this is called for, immaculately careful to avoid hurting others, never spiteful, never greedy… etc. Morally, the characters are one-dimensional to the point where the whole novel sometimes seems like a series of smug lessons as to how Ms Niffenegger would respond to various challenges without compromising her integrity :

“#72: If Christmas dinner is being ruined a snobbish mother and a brat-ish sister, someone like *Clare* (you know, the one you are rooting for!) would carefully steer a course between the two and avert a disaster …” “#12: If you find that you have been transported back in time, and have no clothes, its OK to steal some from a cupboard, but *Henry* (and he’s like us, dear reader!) would never beat someone up to get dressed…”

After reading it, I can’t say I got to really KNOW Henry or Clare, even after I’ve seen the story through their eyes. Their story’s great, but it might as well have happened to a couple of dogs… or muppets.

In spite of everything, though, I really like it.