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FiggyStars t1_iyc9gn1 wrote

Reply to comment by ThrowingSomeBruddahs in The Time Traveler's Wife and the State of Romance in 2003 by ThrowingSomeBruddahs

If that’s the case, you’re doing yourself a major disservice by having this one as your “romance” introduction. Personally I loved the book when I first read it, though it has been a long time.

A lot of romance readers would also argue with you that it’s not romance within the conventions of the genre, which sets you on the back foot immediately, because instead you’ve chosen a popular title that is more contemporary romantic fiction, not romance per say (though for me this is contentious, since I think romance = romance, and it’s the only genre that is so strict on its conventions). Despite its billion dollar empire, romance novels are often excluded from “best of” lists, or “true” romance novels are overlooked instead for books like TTW which are not conventional within the genre but instead are traditionally published for wider market appeal so people can be like, “it’s romance, but it’s not romance and not feel ashamed they’re reading something that is a “guilty pleasure” read.

Also in saying that, with a list so…long? You’re bound to encounter genres that you wouldn’t necessarily read and/or already have confirmation bias against, which I’m assuming from the sounds of this post, you already for anything that borders between romance and the dreaded term “women’s fiction” (which most would label TTW as). For reference, 2,093 true-to-genre romance books were traditionally published in 2003.. TTW wouldn’t even be included in that stat, since it was not published as a “romance” book.

I know this has turned into an extremely long…diatribe, but if you’re goal is to read from a list of what someone has considered best literature, maybe read more than the prologue before inadvertently disparaging the (not quite) genre the book is from.

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ThrowingSomeBruddahs OP t1_iycacou wrote

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I really appreciate the opportunity to have a discussion.

First, my intention with this post was not to disparage the romance genre, but rather to give a close reading of four paragraphs to argue:

1.) because nobody actually time travels, time traveling stands in for a kind of labor, where Henry is taken away from Clare for extended periods of time while she waits at home

And

2.) the figure of Henry is a woman’s fantasy of what a man might be, who thinks of the woman he loves constantly, even when he’s literally being chaotically displaced through space and time

I admit that I don’t read a lot of romance, but it seems like these claims aren’t inherently offensive? At least I didn’t intend them to be. I think a lot of literature is a fantasy of one form or another: a fantasy of romance, a fantasy of intellectualism, a fantasy of violence, what have you.

It seems like people believe that I’m trying to make sweeping claims about TTW, when my only purpose with this post was to jot down some preliminary observations about romance based on the language used in the prologue to the book.

I hear you that many readers don’t consider this a pure romance. I think I consider it a hybrid between the romance genre and the science fiction genre (specifically HG Wells). I still think it’s interesting to think about how the science fiction elements in the book affect the romantic entanglement described in the prologue.

Anyway, thanks again for the conversation in good faith. I really appreciate it.

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