There’s something about the politically correct labels of modern times that inevitably makes me a little uncomfortable. I think it’s all a tad bit silly. “Vertically challenged” rather than “short.” “Waste disposal technician” rather than “trash collector.” “Paris Hilton” rather than “vapid.”

I’m not sure if this is a global phenomenon or whether it’s just something that we silly Yanks have decided to waste our time and efforts on, but it irritates me. So when I first heard about Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, I must admit that I cringed a little when I learned that the main character, Henry DeTamble was labeled as suffering from “Chrono Displacement Disorder.”

Er, huh? He’s a Time Traveler, dammit.

Regardless, I had heard positive things about both the movie and the book, so I decided to tuck away my irrational irritation and give them both a try. I started with the movie, which stars Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams as Henry and his wife Clare. I like Bana enough as an actor that I’m not only willing to give anything starring him a go (yep, even that Big Angry Green Dude movie) but I even forgive him for being in the recent crapacious Star Trek movie (poke, poke, poke). As for McAdams, I recognize the name and I’m sure that I’ve seen her in other movies, but I do believe that she’s from that gaggle of young starlets that hit the cinematic scene a few years ago and all just blend together in my brain like the empty promises of every modern politician.

Ahem.

All that aside, the movie is quite enjoyable. True, I’m a raging sci-fi geek, so stories about time travel are going to definitely be my cup of replicated tea (Earl Grey, hot). However, this succeeds in being more than just a for-the-geeks time travel tale. It’s ultimately the story of the difficulties and triumphs of life-long love in the face of several rather overwhelming adversities. Of course, this is a highly oversimplified explanation of this story, but for the benefit of brevity (which shows up so infrequently here at the lair), we’ll leave it at that. Bottom line is that this is a clever enough cinematic adaptation that I decided I definitely wanted to give the book a try.

What an entrancing first novel! Niffenegger takes on a rather lofty concept and ultimately delivers a unique and engaging novel. At its core, this is definitely a love story wrapped in the trappings of a science fiction trope, but told in a way that is different and moving enough that it compels you to fall deeper and deeper in love with the story the further along you travel. I’d hate to say too much here about the story itself other than that it examines the aspects of time travel that mostly go unexamined, such as what happens to those who are left behind while you’re off gallivanting through the space-time continuum? How can a relationship survive on the ever-shifting sands of such an existence? How meta can one’s life truly become? How long can you think about these things before you go cross-eyed?

Oops, too late.

Admittedly, The Time Traveler’s Wife does become a bit circuitous at times, and (as I am always belaboring here) everyone needs an editor. I think this story would greatly benefit from losing at least 50 pages of bulk to get it down to a more suitable literary weight. As lovely as Niffenegger’s prose is to read, there came a point when I began to wonder if she was perhaps on a Dickensian “paid by the page” pay scale. Also, there was always a lingering “no” feeling regarding the way that Henry introduces himself to his future wife that I couldn’t shake regardless of how benign Niffenegger obviously tried to make it.

Final Verdict: I don’t anticipate revisiting this book any time soon, so it shall return to the library (possibly even stored in a section that Henry DeTamble might one day find himself wandering aimlessly…and naked). However, it was a worthwhile and worthy tale, and one that I’m very glad I took the time to experience both in its printed and cinematic forms.

Reading Harrison Solow’s book, Felicity & Barbara Pym, has brought me to a personally disturbing realization: I have become a lazy reader.

As many denizens know, I have a degree in English. More than this, I loved being an English major. I loved the hours of reading, the piecing together of analytical puzzles, the solving of previously unseen riddles. Therefore, the world that Solow’s characters inhabit in this skillfully crafted hybrid of academic and artistic reflection is a world with which I was once intimately familiar. It was a world in which there was time enough at last to dissect Aunt Jennifer’s tigers or to contemplate the feminist victory hidden within The War of the Worlds. Literature was sacrosanct and scrutable in one broad stroke and authors were gods to be questioned with delicious impunity.

Since my undergraduate days, my opportunities to read with such analytical fervor have all but disappeared. Life has reduced my reading time to the moments right before Wynken, Blynken, and Nod swing by to pick me up in their little wooden boat, with bonus time added for beach and rainy day reading. However, there are moments, such as those I felt while reading this book, in which I long for my English major days.

Solow has captured with laudable precision both what makes this course of study delightful and exasperating. She acknowledges the nadir that many English majors reach during their studies in which they begin to question the worth of their efforts. “Why should I study _____?” She also addresses the sometimes questionable approaches and attitudes of those responsible for guiding students through their studies.

I very much applaud this aspect of Solow’s narrative. While I encountered far more within my collegiate experience who were exemplary teachers (including the extraordinary English professor who inspired me so much that I chose English as my own undergraduate path), I encountered quite a few who resided at the far opposite end of this spectrum. This included one professor whose terminal disinterest and megalomaniacal self-promotion caused me to call into question everything pertaining to my field of study.

Plus, Solow does all of this while utilizing a form of writing that delights me when I find it being utilized by modern authors: the epistolary approach. I suppose it would be more appropriate to label Solow’s work “e-pistolary,” since the entire effort transpires through e-mail. This particular e-pistolary novel is monologic in approach. The only voice we ever read is provided by protagonist Mallory Cooper, who has taken on tutoring the eponymous Felicity as she prepares for an upcoming seminar on English author Barbara Pym.

I suspect that I would have both revered and feared a professor like Mallory Cooper, the former for her enviable knowledge of literature as well as her analytical and linguistic prowess, and the latter for the boldness of her critiques and expectations. She strikes me as the professor most inclined to learn the limits of her students’ comfort zones, and then to proceed to require performance that pushes well beyond those limits. She also strikes me as the kind of professor every student should encounter, even if only once during their studies, as she will leave you exhausted but inevitably improved.

Final Verdict: One of my favorite quotes from My Fair Lady comes from Professor Henry Higgins as he explains to Eliza Dolittle why it is so important that she succeed in her efforts to speak properly: “The majesty and grandeur of the English language, it’s the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative, and musical mixtures of sounds. And that’s what you’ve set yourself out to conquer, Eliza. And conquer it you will.”

I think this is an appropriate summary of Mallory Cooper’s (and ultimately Harrison Solow’s) message to Felicity. Literature encompasses some of the noblest thoughts, the most glorious imagery, and the most contentious arguments to ever flow from the minds of those who dare put pen to paper (or fingers to keys in this modern age). Whether it is a work from a scion of the literary canon or from a lesser known voice like Barbara Pym, there is worth to be found, meaning to be examined. And while the ultimate goal to literary analysis is not conquering but rather understanding, it is still a field deserving of a conqueror’s focus and drive.

With Felicity & Barbara Pym, Solow has written both a love letter and an admonishment to those within her field of literary analysis, and she has done so with grace, accuracy, and honesty. I will happily be placing this one on my shelf right where it belongs: among the classics that I discovered while earning my degree in English.