Her Fearful Symmetry

After her global success with _The Time Traveller’s Wife_, Audrey Niffenegger’s latest installment has a lot to live up to, but does not disappoint.

The story revolves around a London appartment, left to American twin girls, Julia and Valentina, after the death of their aunt. The novel contains her trademark themes of the achings of love and loss that almost override its supernatural elements. Niffenegger draws the reader in, inspiring curiosity through the haunting morbidity of the novel, assisted only somewhat by it being set in an apartment neighbouring a cemetery.

{{ quote The central love story is brilliantly atypical }}

The title of the novel is taken from William Blake’s _The Tyger_. While on one level the title is a simple comment on the girls being mirror-twins, and the emerging difficulty in their relationship in terms of power balance and clashing personalities and aspirations.

But the reference to Blake’s poem brings attention to other subtler aspects of the story. Many of the characters are likened to animals and this is reflected by Blake’s poem about wild animals in this addition to the _Songs of Experience_ with one twin embodying the nature of the ‘tyger’, but this also asks questions about its _Songs of Innocence_ counterpart: ‘The Lamb’ and how this relates to the other, meeker twin.

Animals aside, _The Tyger_ also comments on God as the awe inspiring creator of nature, and this is the most illuminating of Niffenegger’s reference, as the characters meddle with divine creation and control as they take life and death into their own hands. In relation to the _Songs of Innocence and Experience_, Niffenegger asks the same question as Blake: how could the same person have made the tyger and the lamb? How could the same god create Julia and Valentina?

The perspective of the story is slightly unusual: it stands externally, yet switches between the inner thoughts of the different characters involved.

This may seem a little too objective for some, not allowing the reader to delve into the mind of the narrator, however in _Her Fearful Symmetry_, it works beautifully as the intricacies of the characters and how they relate to one another is one of its most captivating features.

Niffenegger’s originality and creativity manifest themselves not only in the uniqueness of the story itself, but in the highly unusual and concerningly developed characters, one being Martin: a man with progessively severe OCD, and in the acknowledgements, Niffenegger shows the extent of research that went in to the novel, illustrated in the wonderful character of Martin, and the historically accurate depiction of Highgate Cemetery.

_Her Fearful Symmetry_ does not fall foul of predictability as the plot twists and contorts itself around the different characters, oscillating between long and short chapters, leaving the reader in a perpetual state of curiosity about what will happen next.

Similarly, the characters are not black and white: they are constructed with care and detail.The central characters evolve and Niffenegger leads you to gradually change your perception of them throughout the course of the novel.

The central love story is brilliantly atypical and Niffenegger manages to enchant the reader with a love story that simply fades, they are not the star crossed lovers of Shakespeare: they have flaws, they deceive each other, and they simply fall out of love, while the ‘true love’ stories are those that rest in the background, and may not be those shared between lovers.

_Her Fearful Symmetry_ is an articulation the moral ‘be careful what you wish for’ as each of the central characters are left with devastating circumstances after reality does not match up with their fantasies. It begs the question of what you really want and the extent to which you will go to get it.

The only criticism I can find for _Her Fearful Symmetry_, is that Niffenegger’s American background seeps into the novel, which is set in London, as the characters are buck-toothed and well spoken, while the children play croquet and have afternoon tea.

It would seem that Niffenegger is working from the American stereotype of English people and fails to get a grasp of modern Londoners. This is made more disappointing considering how much research went into other more intricate and specialist aspects of the novel, yet left this obvious element glaring. However, this may have been a result of marketing the novel towards American readers who may fail to see the misjudgements.

All things considered, if you were captivated by _The Time Traveller’s Wife_ then _Her Fearful Symmetry_ will undoubtedly have the same effect, as you become engrossed in the strange goings on of the Vautravers appartment block. The exquisiteness of her writing invites you in, and the rollercoaster structure keeps you on your toes until the very end.