I read The Time Traveler’s Wife this week as part of Amy Palko’s Summer Readalong and was transported back in time to high school.

I’ve been thinking of our protaganist in this book, Henry, and got to wondering about him as an antihero.

My first real antihero crush – back in high school – was Elric of Melniboné. The beautiful albino Emperor, Elric is one of Michael Moorcock’s many incarnations of The Eternal Champion, traveling through the multiverse across many layers of time and space, to fight for balance between Law and Chaos – the Cosmic Balance.

Too many restrictions, shoulds and oughts (too much Law) and our life is drained of creativity and wonderful free expression. When Chaos abounds, then there is no form to the beauty and crucially, no ability to – as Seth Godin would say – ship it.

I’ve been re-visiting my own past recently, traveling back through my personal timeline to receive healing and offer forgiveness. And I can recognise now that part of what I’ve been doing on this  mid life crisis beautiful journey is fighting to reconnect my own Cosmic Balance.

Like Elric, Henry is a reluctant Champion and his time traveling is chaotic. And when he’s not traveling through time, he wallows in chaos; the women, the drugs and alcohol, the punk music, the violence. But like Elric, does Henry have a sword with which to fight, or some sorcery to defeat his  Dark Lords? For if he has, and can redress his own Cosmic Balance, I expect he’d stay more firmly connected to the present.

(see more posts from the readalong contributors on Amy’s site)