Review The Time Traveler's Wife: Istri Sang Penjelajah Waktu

The Time Traveler's Wife: Istri Sang Penjelajah Waktu

by Audrey Niffenegger (Goodreads Author), Ingrid Dwijani Nimpoeno (Translator)

Henry De Tamble memiliki "kemampuan" menjelajahi waktu. Ia bisa tiba - tiba menghilang dan muncul di tempat yang tak dikenalinya sepuluh tahun yang lalu atau yang akan datang.

Saat berpindah - pindah waktu inilah ia bertemu Clare Abshire, anak perempuan yang tinggal di Michigan, dan terjadilah kisah cinta yang indah hingga ajal memisahkan mereka.

Masalah timbul, karena saat usia Henry maju - mundur sesuai lokasinya di dalam waktu, usia Clare bertambah terus dengan normal.

Tapi Audrey Niffenegger menulis para tokoh dalam buku ini dengan cara yang begitu lembut dan halus sehingga buku ini bukan sekadar kisah cinta biasa. Berkat keahlian dan sensibilitasnyalah para pembaca akan bisa menangkap keindahan dan keanehan dalam hidup, bukan cuma gejolak - gejolaknya.

Gramedia Pustaka Utama 2007

Annisa: Kisah cinta yang romantis. Itu kesan yang saya dapet setelah membaca buku ini. Romantis tapi ngga berlebihan dan ngga geuleuh. Extraordinary love story. Stunning malah. OK lah.

Bercerita tentang sepasang manusia Claire dan Henry yang saling mencintai seumur hidup mereka. Henry adalah seorang manusia yang memiliki kelainan gen. Kalo diibaratkan seperti kaset hidup henry bisa di rewind dan forward kapan saja.

Dia bisa kembali ke masa lalu dan lompat ke masa depan. Namun Henry sendiri tidak bisa mengendalikan kapan dia melakukan time travel. Jadi semua perjalanannya melintasi waktu menciptakan jalinan kisah cinta yang unik antara Henry dan Claire.

Claire pertama kali bertemu Henry ketika umurnya 6 tahun, Henry 36. Henry pertama kali bertemu Claire ketika umurnya 25 tahun, Claire 20 tahun. Audrey Niffenegger juga membangun karakter Henry dan Claire dengan kuat dan dalam.

Henry dan Claire akhirnya menikah, membangun hidup dan keluarga. Bagaimanakah mereka bertahan dan menjalani kehidupan. Jelimet, dramatis tapi menarik, romantis dan orisinal. Sepanjang buku saya dibikin penasaran dengan apa yang akan terjadi berikutnya. Agak sedih sih endingnya, sedih tapi manis (halah). Dan saya suka buku yang endingnya macam gini. Sip lah. Recommended untuk dibaca.

Indah: Aku suka cerita-cerita tentang time travel seperti Back to the Future, di mana tokoh utamanya bisa jalan-jalan ke masa lalu atau masa depan dengan kendaraan keren dan tetap pake baju lengkap :D

Baca buku ini, di mana sang penjelajah waktu telanjang bulat setiap kali pindah waktu, membuatku teringat pada Terminator-nya Arnold Schwarzenegger yang sampai ngerampok baju preman, yang kebetulan baju kulit yang lumayan keren.

Ceritanya cukup menarik, karena tokoh utama cowoknya terus berlompatan masuk ke kehidupan tokoh utama cewek, sehingga cewek tersebut sudah tahu siapa suaminya kelak dari kecil.

Tapi lebih menarik punya anak dari cewek di masa lalu yang kemudian jadi bos kita di masa datang, deh! (Btw, ini review buku apa film Terminator?

Lynita: I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with this book; perhaps because of my high expectation having read/heard from sources that it's a great book & it's on the top of the list of "Book of 21st Century" by Goodreads.

The book to me is just a collection of diary entries of Henry & Claire...from beginning to end, from the time they met in the future & current time, to time they live together, then back to the future from Henry's point of view. The whole time, I was waiting and hoping that there will be a climax, a huge conflict, invention, tragedy, miracle, anything that neither the current Henry or the future Henry or Claire knows, that can make the story more exciting, but that is not the case. The book/story just didn't give me any emotional involvement & I sometimes wondering if I'm too numb because I'm not (that) touched by their love story. To me, it's hard to feel sorry/touched when they knew that what's gonna happen to them and they just re-living it.

The part I like about this book is the fact that they live in Chicago and I have lived in that city for a year, so the part where the writer mentions the street name, the El, the windy weather (which are quite often) reminds me of the beautiful city & my life then.

Lin-Lin: Baca ringkasan cerita singkat di cover belakang buku sebenarnya udah sangat jelas kalau cerita ini akan berakhir sedih (terjadilah kisah cinta yang indah hingga ajal memisahkan mereka)

Setelah sebelumnya cuman berkutat baca romance fairy tale dengan happily ever after ending ala Harlequin, saatnya baca cerita romance yang real dan lebih bermutu, walaupun banyak unsur science-fiction, ceritanya cukup mengharukan, terutama menjelang bab-bab akhir, tentang istri yang setia menunggu suaminya yang mempunyai gen yang membuatnya dapat menjelajah waktu tanpa bisa mengendalikannya. Satu hal yg unik disini, walaupun Henry dapat menjelajah waktu dan bahkan mengetahui masa depannya, dia tidak dapat mengubahnya.

Bacanya sih ngga sampe ketagihan tapi juga ngga membosankan, ada 2 POV,yaitu Henry dan istrinya Clare. Inti utama cerita ini tentang kesetiaan dalam penantian.

Joyzi:

Awesome book in my opinion especially that I have a thing for time traveling. I love it the story is interesting even though it's confusing at first because the story is not chronological and the author would just arrange each story by any timeline (past, future, present).

I also love the characters Henry (librarian, time traveler) and Clare (artist) and of course their daughter Alba (also time traveler). It's just sad though and I'm not expecting it that in the end the story became depressing.

I also love the part wherein Henry saw Clare writing the date in one of her work and Henry says that I saw in the future that it has no date in it, so you should not write the date. And Clare wanted to somehow break the rules of what should happen and still write the date on it and say that, "What is the big deal if I write the date or not?" Henry kind of scares her that maybe something terrible happen like a war or something if they kind of change something even if it's a small thing. So when Henry goes in the future again he looks for the drawing and was surprise that it does not have a date on it and he asks Clare since he knows that in the past they decided to put a date on it, then what the heck happen and Clare says that she was kind of scared about the war thing so when he left she decided to chipped off the date.

It just felt clever to me that somehow the past, present and future are interrelated in ways that you can't even change it, even the future. It's just whatever happens you can't change it anymore.

And also the part wherein he time travels and he went to Ingrid's apartment and when he asks Ingrid the date and he knows that this is the day wherein Ingrid killed herself and he thought that maybe he can change that, but the inevitable happens and Ingrid killed herself in front of him.

This is just a great book if you love time traveling and dejavu.

Anne: This book is a debut for Audrey Niffenegger. And being a first-timer herself, i think she made the complex timelines with ease. The Time Traveler's Wife is a love story concealed inside a suspense novel but is far from a science fiction exploration of the space-time continuum. The book is about the two characters - Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire whose passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures themselves in an impossibly romantic trap. Henry is a time-traveller; a genetic mutation which causes him to spontaneously travel through time, disappearing from view, leaving behind his clothes and possessions, and arriving naked in another time and another place. While Clare is leaving a chronologically normal life, Henry isn't. After their first meeting (Clare was 6 and Henry would be 36) Clare will always wait for his arrival. She has known him all her life. He visits her numerous times during her childhood and adolescence, and inadvertently reveals that they will be married in the future. His last visit is on her 18th birthday in 1989, and will be separated for two years. Finally, they meet in 1991, a real time for both of them, Clare is 20 and Henry is 28. Henry does not know anything about Clare and Clare has to show Henry the diary she made as a testament of Henry's existence in Clare's past, which is still in Henry's future. Henry begins to experience the events in Clare's childhood and at the same time experiencing life with the adult Clare in the present. In the novel, the future cannot be changed, and many tragic events are foreshadowed in the past.

When they soon get married, Clare and Henry have to struggle to survive and maintain their love, and at the same time fighting a complex disorder that constantly threatens their existence. They yearn for the domestic drudgery and the homely comforts of marriage without the constant fear of separation. He longs to be able to live only in the present and he and Clare desperately search for a medical treatment for the disorder but to no avail.

Although the love in the story is very much appalling and intense, a part of it I find ultimately depressing: Henry's father never recovers and continues to mourn for years when his mother died, and Ingrid (Henry's ex-girlfriend) committed suicide after losing Henry to Clare. The love in the story has such a passion with no middle ground, no growth from the experience.

But my most favorite part is the way Henry describes love through his letter to Clare. This is how it goes:

Clare, I want to tell you, again, I love you. Our love has been the thread through a labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust. Tonight I feel that my love for you has more density in this world than I do: as though I could linger on after me and surround you, keep you, hold you.

Review Pilte's Wife

Pilate's Wife - Istri Pilatus

by Antoinette May, Ingrid Dwijani Nimpoeno (Translator)

Sejarah hanya mencatatnya sebagai istri Pontius Pilatus. Kini ia akan menceritakan kisahnya.
Penglihatan-penglihatannya.

Claudia tak pernah menginginkan mimpi-mimpi itu muncul. Namun ia tak dapat mengelak. Melalui talenta istimewanya itu ia dapat mengetahui banyak hal yang akan terjadi.

Ramalan mengenai kedatangan seseorang. Kemenangan yang kelak mempertemukannya dengan kekasihnya. Hingga kematian.

Melalui “penglihatannya”, Claudia melihat nasib orang-orang yang ia cintai. Sekeras apa pun ia berusaha mencegah, akhirnya ia harus menyerah pada takdir.

Satu per satu, orang yang muncul dalam penglihatannya pergi meninggalkannya. Akan tetapi, gambaran mengerikan tentang nasib seorang pria menghantui Claudia sejak lama. Tatapan pria itu penuh permohonan dan penderitaan. Mahkota duri menyayat alisnya.

Claudia tahu, kali ini ia tak boleh tinggal diam.

Ia harus mencoba menyelamatkan pria itu…

Gramedia Pustaka Utama 2011

Joseph: Wonderfully written and engrossing novel.

Pilate's wife narrates in the first person the story of Claudia, member of the Claudian family of newly imperial Rome. Claudia is gifted with "the sight". She can get glimpses and feelings about things that are going to occur. I must say that at times it is difficult to sympathize with Claudia, who commits many actions on a whim (which I won't get into here, lest I spoil it for future readers), not thinking things through to the end, always eager to please herself. At times, she can have no consideration for other people's desires, like Pilate when she first encounters him. And yet, I think this is what makes this book. We expect main characters, as presented in a story, to be the "good ones", making the right decisions as they get through their obstacles.

But what about a character who throughout the course of the story is forced to learn how to make the right decisions the hard way. Claudia is not the same person at the end of the book as she was in the beginning. Her life experiences teach her the virtues of temperance, forgiveness, and love.

I will spoil one part of you so don't continue reading if you don't want that. Her relation to the events surrounding Jesus' crucifixion is not presented until the very end so don't expect to read chapters about this. Nevertheless, this works because this gives Claudia the chance to be shown well as a main character, and not just like another person present at the most important event in Christian history.

Ellen: I enjoyed learning all that I did about life in the Roman Empire during the time of Jesus and for this I liked this book very much. I thought Pilate's wife was very self absorbed and shallow and had a hard time really liking her very much. This was disappointing as she seemed to have so much potential in the beginning. The middle of the book gets tedious for a bit it gets interesting again in the end when Jesus comes into the story. I would really wanted to give this book 3.5 stars but this is not an option.

Leslia: I enjoy a classic romance novel as much as the next reader (laughter), which is precisely why Pilate’s Wife was so shockingly disappointing. Maybe the let down stems from the fact that this novel is marketed as historical fiction. True there are historical events sprinkled here and there. It’s also true that the people depicted in this novel are historical figures. Certainly, the filler is a bunch of fiction…wait, so it is historical fiction! Then why am I left feeling yucky? I’ve actually thought about this question and come up with a few good reasons. First, there really is no stand out character. Claudia is not an appealing heroin even though the events surrounding her were dramatic. In fact, I was more interested in the fate of Claudia’s older sister Marcella. But she hadn’t married the future Governor of Judea, the man who would forever be linked to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (I’ll just have to get over it). Second, Pilate’s role is miniscule. There is still much about him that I don’t know. Finally, the steamiest most overwrought part of the book is Claudia’s relationship with Holtan the gladiator. Out of nowhere this book shifted from an historical fiction to a harlequin romance!

With all of that being said, don’t regret picking it up. The cover is beautiful (always a plus) and I’m glad, like with most books, that I read it. It wasn’t the worst book I’ve read by far but let's face it, as a follow up to the Prodigal Summer, it never really had a chance.

Kelly: An interesting book, but a few gratuitously placed political statements and sketchy musings about Christianity dropped my rating to a 3. Nothing annoys me more than authors who place political and/or religous jabs in the narrative that have no relevance to the story. If you are writing fiction, stay true to the story...if you need to voice your opinion - write a piece of non-fiction!

Ironically, though, the storyline that probably rubs most Christians the wrong way, did not bother me at all...rings true to me actually..

Karyl: It's not surprising that this is the author's first novel. The plot, as well as the writing, is quite trite. The story itself is somewhat slow-moving and is far too long. One would expect a book referencing Pilate to have mostly to do with the crucifixion of Jesus, but that seminal event takes place only at the very end, almost as an afterthought. I really didn't like the bit where Mary Magdalene becomes Jesus's wife, as there is no evidence that he was ever married. It's a shame; this book could have been a very interesting look at the Roman era at the time of Christ

Alice: I enjoyed this book...not the best I've ever read, but a good first novel. Claudia is a rebel. She is also clairvoyant, which tends to cause her more pain than pleasure. She faces many trials and tribulations after she marries Pontious Pilate, culminating with the crucifixtion of Jesus Christ. Some interesting ideas about Jesus' relationship with Mary (Miriam?) Magdelene....

I learned a lot about Roman life during Tiberius Ceasar's reign (things have not changed much...desperate housewives!) The book also made for lively discussion at one of my book clubs J

Jenn: I was hoping to really like Claudia (Pilate's wife) and her telling of this story. I enjoyed the fresh perspective on biblical events and the story of the roman empire from a woman's perspective which you don't often get. But I felt that Claudia was at best immature and self absorbed. She made it very hard for me to sympathize with her through out her story and struggles and I really wanted to. I felt that Pilate really loved her and she never really gave him the chance he gave her. I enjoyed all of the secondary characters, they were well developed, interesting, and showed the diversity that was in the empire at that time. May does a great job of capturing the culture, lifestyle and historical events in a way that exciting and realistic. Overall a very good book, especially if you like this time period and/or new perspectives on biblical events