Reading Group Guide questions from the back of the book #13

Both Gomez and Celia warn Clare about Henry. "This guy would chew you up and spit you out . . . He's not at all what you need," says Gomez (p.436). Can we simply chalk those warnings up to jealousy, or might the observers be correct? Is Henry more ruthless and amoral than he appears to Clare? How do you interpret Henry's statement: "I'm not exactly the man she's known from earliest childhood. I'm a close approximation she is guiding surreptitiously toward a me that exists in her mind's eye" (pp. 152-153)?

These comments were certainly not made out of jealousy. Yes, Gomez was secretly in love with Clare, and yes, Celia wanted Henry's ex-girlfriend Ingrid to be happy, but they each had valid reasons for warning Clare about Henry. Gomez knew Henry before Henry met Clare (but after Clare met Henry). Henry's condition forced him to live a life of crime, but besides that he had an inherently violent nature. He would suddenly find himself in a different time and a different place, completely naked and with no belongings. His only options, he felt, were to steal from and mug people. When Clare met Henry, he was already married to the future Clare, and his younger days of womanizing and drinking were over. She met the mature, solid Henry, who of course still had to deal with the time traveling, but was slightly less turbulent. So when Clare met Henry again when they were both in their twenties, that's the Henry she was expecting. Instead she met the more immature Henry, into drugs and alcohol and women. This is the Henry that Gomez and Celia knew, so their warnings to Clare were perfectly valid. However, Clare had the gift of foresight, and knew that Henry wouldn't be like this forever. She knew that eventually he would be the self-controlled, good Henry she knew when she was a girl.

Reading Group Guide questions from the back of the book #12

What is the List that Henry makes for Clare, and how does it give the book dramatic momentum? Does Niffenegger employ other devices to similar effect? One of the things that makes a story suspenseful is the reader's sense that events are reaching a climax, that time is running out. How is Niffenegger able to impart this sense to her readers, given Henry's seemingly inexhaustible supply of time?

When older Henry goes back in time to visit Clare as a young girl, he gives her a list of the dates he knows he will visit her. It gives the book dramatic momentum because Clare sees that they see each other often until she turns eighteen, and then there is a two year break. She knows that time is running out until his two year long absence, and she knows that she can't do anything about it. Niffenegger unveils the fact that Henry dies at the age of forty three early on in the book. At first I was surprised and thought that it was a poor choice on her part to take away all of the surprise and let us know so early, but then I realized that what she was doing was building tension until the end. We knew when Henry was going to die, so every chapter we knew we were getting a little bit closer until the end. Henry, Clare, nor us could do anything about it. Henry, of all people, understands the impossibility of changing what he knows will happen. He even saw how he would die. This sort of hopelessness drives the book. Henry gets to see glimpses of how the future will be, and he knows he can't do anything about it.

Reading Group Guide questions from the back of the book #9

In theory Henry's time traveling should make him omniscient--at least as far as his own timeline is concerned--but Clare knows things about him that he does not. What accounts for this? What role does the characters' knowledge--and the gaps in their knowledge--play in the novel?

When Clare first met Henry, she was six and he was around thirty six. When Henry first met Clare, she was twenty and he was twenty eight. Because of this, they never got to meet each other for a first time. They never got to meet each other without one of them already knowing the other. When Clare met Henry when she was six, he was coming from the future where he and grown up Clare were already married. When Henry met Clare for the first time, he had never seen her before, even though she had known him for years, they had been friends and then lovers. It's almost as if they had to have multiple relationships with different versions of themselves. Henry would go from Clare his wife, to Clare the six year old. He of course couldn't talk about the same things with Clare as a six year old as he could with Clare his wife, or do the same things, because that would be horribly inappropriate and illegal. It also posed difficulties for them in Clare's teenage years, because Henry would visit her one day as a 40 year old, and then the next day as a 30 year old, and Clare would have to try her best to keep track of what this Henry knew about her. They couldn't really carry a conversation from one day to the next because she might be talking to a Henry who hadn't had that conversation with her yet. If it were me, I would have been extremely frustrated with the situation.

Reading Group Guide questions from the back of the book #3

Niffenegger portrays Henry's time traveling as the result of a genetic disorder, which is explained at some length later on. How plausible is this explanation--not from a scientific point of view, but from a dramatic or literary one? Do you think that Henry's condition requires an explanation?

I think that from a literary perspective, the reader has to sort of look past any discrepancies in the explanation of Henry's condition because, obviously, time travel doesn't make scientific sense. Nothing Niffenegger could have said would have made the reader believe that it was possible, but she effectively convinces the reader that it's not necessary to know the intricacies of Henry's disorder. From a literary perspective, Niffenegger gives us just enough information for it to be plausible in our minds, as long as we didn't think too hard about it. I think Henry's condition definitely requires an explanation for the story to have depth and substance. It would be very difficult for Henry's character to be believable if we never saw him ask questions and wonder about why he is the way he is. From that perspective, Henry's condition needs a scientific explanation. In order for the audience to recognize Henry as a real person, he needs to go through steps that a real person would. If a real person realized they time traveled uncontrollably, they would also want to go to a doctor, research the reasons behind it, try to find a way to stop it. The explanation of Henry's condition doesn't serve to convince the reader that time travel is plausible, it serves to provide depth to Henry's character.

Reading Group Guide questions from the back of the book #1

On the novel's first page Clare declares, "I wait for Henry." In what way does this define her character, and how is the theme of waiting developed throughout the book?

Throughout the book, Clare waits. She waits for Henry, she waits for a child, she waits for inspiration for her art. Most prominently, however, she waits for Henry. Henry uncontrollably time travels, and he can be gone anywhere from minutes to days. When Clare was a girl, in between the ages of six and eighteen, Henry gave her a list of the dates he would return and meet her in the meadow (he knew the dates because he was travelling into the past and already knew). Clare waits in between times, which can be months apart. While he is gone, Clare can do nothing but wait with clothes for him for when he returns. He might return happy and healthy, or scared, bloody and beaten. She has no way of knowing what awaits her with Henry's return. Waiting is a prominent theme in the novel, and many characters wait. Besides Clare, there is Gomez, who is in love with Clare and waiting until something happens to Henry, until Henry is out of the picture. Henry waits, as well. He waits in between time travels to go back in time to see his mother before her death and to see his father before he succumbed to depression and alcoholism. Henry waits until his demise at the age of 43. He witnessed his death by travelling into the future, and he knew it would come. The theme of waiting is so prominent in this novel because that is all its characters can do. There is no free will, as Henry says, "there is only free will when you are in time, in the present." For Henry, much of his time is spent in the past, and he knows from experience that he cannot change what has already happened. No matter what he tries, the outcome will always be the same. Therefore, the characters can't change anything; all they can do is wait for the predetermined outcome.

Comment on the perspective from which the book is told and how the author's choice affects your relationship with the book's content.

I finished An Unspoken Hunger by Terry Tempest Williams and am now reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

The Time Traveler's Wife is the story of Henry DeTamble, a time traveler, and his wife Clare Abshire. The story follows their relationship from the time they met until the present. While in reality the two were born only eight years apart, due to the fact that Henry can time travel, or rather, he randomly and uncontrollably time travels, they sometimes are in each other's presence when there are around thirty years between them. When they first met, Clare was six and Henry was around 35. Throughout Clare's life, Henry time travels to her era and the two become friends and later on lovers. The story is told from both Clare and Henry's perspectives throughout. Thee story begins and is told from Clare's six year old self, and as she ages the perspective changes. Henry sometimes time travels back to when he was a young boy, so in the same chapter we get the same scene being told by both 30 year old Henry and 9 year old Henry. This change of perspectives and ages and times is confusing at first; it is hard to grasp what has already happened to the characters and what the reader knows will happen but has not in actuality happened yet. However, the perspective does provide the reader with the differences between the same character as an adult and as a child. Niffenegger successfully creates these differences in character to strengthen their personalities.

If the purpose is implicit, tell what you think the purpose of the book is and why.

Terry Tempest Williams' purpose is to share her intimate relationship with nature with her audience and perhaps remind them of their possible relationship with nature. I think that she wants her audience to glimpse something of what they could feel towards nature. The back of the book reads: "Through the grace of her stories we come to see how a lack of intimacy with the natural world has initiated a lack of intimacy with each other." I think that that hints at her purpose as well. Through her essays, Williams wants her readers to understand that being close with nature opens the door to be close with human beings on a deeper level. I also think she's sort of trying to guilt trip her readers, or maybe just make them jealous of her profound link to all things wild. She wants them to recognize all that they take for granted in the world. She wants them to want to have the same connection she does with the earth. She writes about not just appreciation and respect for nature, but about deep and profound love and intimacy for it. Her purpose is to convey the importance of that type of intimate relationship to her readers, and if possible convince them to have a connection like it with nature. She wants to start of flood of naturalists who care as deeply as she does.

Pay attention to word choice--how is the author shaping your judgement by the words he/she chooses

I finished Peace Like a River by Leif Enger and am now reading An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field by Terry Tempest Williams.

In her book, Terry Tempest Williams writes about her experiences and intimacy with the natural world. Her book is a celebration of everything in nature, and she chooses her words very carefully to convey her purpose to her readers.

"It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas--whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers and bureaucrats--and admit we are lovers, engaged in an erotics of place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place--there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true."

Williams paid very careful attention to her word choice in this particular passage. The phrase "erotics of place" stands out to the reader because the words are ones that we hear often, but not in that context. They make the reader ponder what Williams wants him or her to grasp out of that phrase. I'm still not positive what she means by that, but I think she just wants the reader to understand the intimacy and sensuality of her relationship with nature. In this passage, I also noticed her usage of the word "legitimate." The definition of legitimate in this context is "not spurious or unjustified; genuine." Through her choice of "legitimate" instead of another word, Williams tells us that there is nothing more justified or authentic than loving the land. This conveys an image of justification and truth for the reader.

What is the author's dominant method of communication--dialogue, description, narration, exposition, inclusion of others' texts--?

Leif Enger uses mostly dialogue, description and narration in Peace Like a River. Everything is from the perspective of Reuben Land, who is an adult looking back at the time he was eleven years old. The story is a narrative, obviously, so most of what Reuben says is simple description of what happened, who said what, and how he felt about it. It is interesting, I think, to see how Leif Enger creates Reuben as an eleven year old boy throughout the story, but it is written in past tense and at the end of the book the audience truly comes to recognize that Reuben is an adult writing about his life at eleven years old. Everything Reuben experienced Enger relates to the audience through a much younger perspective. It is almost like Enger takes on an entirely different persona than his own, and then through that persona tries to figure out how that person would be like as a young boy. It seems quite complicated.

Enger's most convincing passages, I think, were the ones in which Reuben related both facts and emotions, not just one or the other, such as when he described the miracles he witnessed his father perform. If Reuben provided just facts about seeing his father walk on air, the audience would draw their own conclusions without necessarily the depth that Enger wished them to. If Reuben didn't describe the scene with lots of details and only provided how the incident made him feel, the audience would have nothing to base their opinions on and find him incredible. Enger found the right ratio of facts to emotion. He provided, step-by-step, what Reuben witnessed, and then he described how compelled Reuben was through that incident. It was almost as if Enger led us to draw our own conclusions, but based on what we were given, we had to believe Reuben.