what happens at the end of time travellers wife - dont read if you dont want to know!!!!!!

[debs26]

can someone please tell me? im too stoopid to work it out for certain. or any theories if ur not sure

[KatieMac]

I didn't understand it either

[emmatmg]

this is how I understood it......

when claire heard henry shouting her name and she ran to the meadow to find her brother and father standing over something talking to an older henry they had shot the younger henry who had time travelled from wherever. She returnes to the meadow later i the day to find a blood stain.

Henry agreed to the party at the end of the book as he knew that he would be time travelling to that scene and so would die when he returned becuase of the gun shot wound, all their friends would be there for claire.

He is able to visit Alba in the future because he travels from before he dies. claire can't see him because to her he is dead, to Alba he is not.


Hope this is what you want, I loved this book.

[Clarinet60]

Clare can't see him because he disappears before he gets to her. Alba also knows full well he is dead (he died in front of her), but has time-travelled to him a number of times.
A crucial point is that Alba can choose where/when she travels too - Henry never could. If he could, he would have chosen to visit Clare in the future. as it was, he did have one accidental visit to her when she is 80, which is beautifully written, as is the whole book.
Please note - this Clare doesn't have an i - this is very, very, very important!

[Clarinet60]

Also, Clare's father and brother knew they had shot something and saw the blood, but he time-travelled back to the party in 2006 and died there, so there was no body in the time he actually died. There was nothing he could do to prevent his death, even though he knew it was going to happen, and the crux of this rests on the fact that he couldn't control when & where he travelled to.
I just finished reading it yesterday and it's one of the best books I've ever read. I didn't want it to end. Like some others here, I was also irritated with it at first, but on going back and re-reading the first few chapters, I can't find the source of my irritation. It's all beautiful.

[debs26]

so the henry she saw waving was one who travelled back before he dies and sort of saw his future but in the past then? think i will reread it but its so sad, especially when he sees her right at the end and she has been waiting for so long. fantastic book tho. why is the i so important droile? totally missed anything that could make that important

[Clarinet60]

I was being daft, Debs. Emmatmg spelled Clare with an i in one of her posts and the Clare in the book is absolutely without one.

[Clarinet60]

I should explain - it's not important in the book, but it's very important to Clares everywhere.

[sorrel]

Oh I loved this book so much.I wept while I was reading it on the train.The part when Henry sees Alba in the museum was brilliant.I am really envious of anyone who hasn't read this yet as they are in for such a treat.
I hope Audrey Niffegegger writes a new book about the 50 years Clare and Alba have without Henry.

[debs26]

sorry droile, told you i was stoopid was hoping it would be something really exciting like he had seen their grandaughter or something. i read the book so fast im sure i missed loads of bits, i just couldnt put it down. totally agree sorrel, that would be fab

[stitch]

i loved this book, their relationship was so beautifully portrayed.
does love like that really exist in the world?
also, can alba really control where she travels too?
and how far back in time has henry been?

[sorrel]

I have yo admit I found the ending a bit confusing too.I dont think it was just you debs.Did henry go back and watch himself die. I think he was there at a younger age watching it- a bit like when he watched his mother die over and over from different vantage points( just awful; but compelling)

[debs26]

i have to say that altho their relationship was beautiful, i think it was equally as tragic. the thought of waiting around for someone all that time is awful, almost like a large part of clare (without an i ) dies along with him .

when he got confused at the end i was starting to wonder if her brother and father meant to kill him, all seemes a bit gruesome for him to have just been shot

[Clarinet60]

They mistook him for an animal. It was definitely an accident, as I don't think they were in the habit of shooting human beings. When you think about it, he was falling through the air towards the ground, so they probably mistook him for a pheasant (!) or a leaping deer.
Yes, he did go back at a younger age and watched himself die.
He says at one point in the book that so far, he has travelled approx. 50 years each way (past or future), but the future is usually hard to exist in (thin air, etc).
I'll look up the page where Alba says she can controll when & where later. I remember her helling Henry, when she is 10, that she's a progidy.

[anchovies]

Oh I sobbed at the end of this book, uncontrollably for about 2 hours!

[Clarinet60]

Or even prodigy!
p.376, Alba tells him that sometimes she can go when and where she wants. This is in the chapter where he travels forward to 2011, when Clare is 40. Henry is 38 in real time. He tries to meet up with Clare and she drives to where she is, but he disappears just as she is getting out of the car.

I, too, would have liked to have known what happened to Clare between his death and them meeting again at 80, but I suspect that her publishers wanted things to be kept succinct. I think the number of pages we did get following his death, and the level of explanation, were pretty generous really, for the genre.

[beckymumof3]

Best book of all time (that I have read so far). Fantastically written, beautiful, moving, heartbreaking. Like you others, I wish I could read it again for the first time God doesn't that sound gushing!

The fact that she waited for him is the thing I still cry about now - 3 or 4 months after finishing reading it.

I understood that he saw himself shot and dying (he says that he knows how he dies after one of his visits) and that is why Clare's dad & brother recognise him years later when Clare introduces him to them (they met him the day they also shot him - that sounds confusing!!!)

In our book club a few people thought that the Clare died in the final scene where she saw Henry for the last time - and think that is what the final poem is about. What do others think?

Have to stop before I start crying again!

[Clarinet60]

I didn't feel that Clare had died Becky, but it's an intersting idea. It's nice when people can take so many different things from a book and yes, I can't wait till she writes another.