Forget the scientific problems with all this. Let's just assume that such a thing happened. Imagine the curse of being this man. If you ever saw a film from the Sixties called "The Incredible Shrinking Man," which is also a bit allegorical, he was able to find his place in the universe as he moved into nothingness. The character here is so cursed as to never be able to finish anything he starts. Not only that, he arrives almost anywhere, naked, penniless, needing to be a thief or a beggar, at the mercy of anyone who is around. How much predetermination there is is never mentioned. He occasionally returns to a kind of linear world, seeing his love at different times in her life. He is apparently immortal and dead at the same time. The book does a nice job of creating an interesting human being, aware of all these issues and trying hard to manage. Here, he is at the whims of the gods and is just moving through life. It just doesn't work. I didn't get the affection thing at all. I saw him as a hopeless, sad creature.
Review of The Time Traveler's Wife
