has anyone recently read (or can remember) The Time Traveller's Wife? I have a question about the end (SPOILER ALERT)

[sclubheaven]

I've just finished reading it and loved it though it took me several attempts to start it!

I am a bit confused about Henry's death though and wonder if someone a bit cleverer can explain.

This is how I understand it. He travelled back from New Years eve 2006 to 1984 (aged 43). The Henry that 13 year old Clare saw with her dad and brother in the field was aged 43 (I think?).

So which Henry was shot? Was it a different version of himself or the same 43 year old landing in 1984?

If so, how could he have seen Clare and waved to her, if he had already returned to 2006 to die?

It's really bugging me, someone please help!

I read it years and years ago, but I'm pretty sure there was only one Henry throughout, so it would have to have been the same. He could be two different ages at the same time (for other people and from an outside perspective) but he didn't change ages or bodies with respect to himself...

I think it's that he had one time-line, but it leaped around relative to normal time, so that when he died, he was dead, and no two versions of himself about it.

same henry but time travelling from 2 different places to the same date in 1986 when the oldest version got shot.
fabulous book. cry ike a loon ever time i read it.

the 43 year old died - I cant remember exactly but he saw and then went back to her present to die. In her 2006 timeline at that point, he ceased to exist, except for the few times he popped up in the future from when he was younger than 43.

yes he died finally in the field

thank god

well rid of him what a farking irritating book

what she said ^ - henry disappeared from one temporal point and fetched up in another, hence she was hanging around wondering when/ where he was going to show up next. he wasn't ever in two places at once...

i loved it though

god I would have run a mile when I met him in the library

I would have gone "oh crap, I'm not getting involved in this" and gone in the other direction

silly woman

I loved it too although it took me a while to 'get it' and get into it - someone on here told me to buy it when I was searching for good books and it made me cry abit at the end.

Note to self: do not talk to grown men who hung around you when you were 6

thanks everyone!

so in that case, 43 year old Henry visited 1984 and was shot as he arrived. But after he was shot he returned to 2006 to die (in Clare's arms at the party). There was a pool of blood in the field but no body.

So when Clare saw Henry in the field looking at the pool of blood with her father and brother, that was Henry travelling to 1984 from another time, not from 2006?

I did love it and I found it strangely totally plausible, which is probably why I'm trying too hard to make sense of the ending when the whole book is a total fantasy

yes that was it dead on

why would you have a child with this man?

RUN AWAY RUN FOR THE HILLS

cappucino it was true luuuuurve. Don't you have a heart?

it was so not true love

when he saw her the first time he didn't know who she was

I sobbed like those ladies by the rivers of Babylon when I read this, but then I was pregnant and hence very very hormonal at the time. And it is one of the very few books whose end I have read in a non-linear manner as I couldn't bear hanging around for another hundred pages waiting for doom.

I think you've got it right, sclubheaven, so I probably shouldn't be posting here!! But this book did really move me....

agree with capp, it was bloody annoying & you would have to pay me to read it again.

sorry....

the one she saw with her dad was pre losing his feet. the one that was shot was post losing feet. so there were actually two henry's ther that night in 84

I thought the sex scenes were a bit much and almost ruined it for me

Great book.

Worst book I have read in a very long time. I didn't even get as far as the end so can't help the OP.

It was just tedious repetitive drivel about a bunch of smug gits. And as for reading it when pregnant - it should come with a warning that the woman has the same gory miscarriage three times.

Horrible. Absolute classic triumph of hype and optimism over substance and good sense imo.

I've read it twice. I hated it the first time, but decided to read it again for a book club. I enjoyed it much more the second time.

I thought he was shot when she was 13 and he was 43, and because he had no feet he couldn't get away. Then he returned to the "present" to die in her arms. So sad yes I did cry the second time I read it, especially when he went ahead and saw his dd when she was 10, and there was the race for Clare to get to see him before he disappeared again... So sad!