Gabaldon, Diana: Outlander
Outlander
Writer: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Romance/Historical
Pages: 850
I can't say when for sure I first became interested/aware of this book. I suspect it was back in 1998/1999, during my first bookstore job. I could be wrong. What I do remember is putting this book off because of its length and the fact that every book after it in the series was also insanely long. Then, over the years, I somehow accumulated other reasons to avoid this book, one of which being that the narrator, a married woman who time travels into 18th century Scotland, has an affair with a man in the past.*** I wasn't sure I was cool with that, so it gave me a good reason to ignore the book and all its praises. Then I started hearing good stuff from readers I know and trust. People who not only discussed how wonderfully built these characters are, but who also put my mind at ease at my somewhat misconception about the narrator's activities in the past.
Yet still, I put it off, for a completely asinine reason: I decided I wanted the trade paperback, not the mass market. I'm a trade paperback whore, remember? But every copy I found on the shelf was always either damaged or not quite printed properly, and since I'm anal about imperfect books BEFORE I get my hands on them, I kept putting this purchase off. Finally, though, curiosity got the better of me, and I bought the mass market.
And now that I've read the first one, I spent half my day plotting ways to get to a bookstore to purchase the rest of the series, and now that I've discovered that it takes TWO years after the release of the hardcover for the mass market (the trade comes one year after) and rumor has it there's at least two more books in the series, I even debating which format to buy them in.
But first thing's first. You want to hear about this one, don't you? Be warned, there be spoilers behind the cut.
Once you get past the hiccup of an opening (it's an immediate and unnecessary flashback that should have been told in narrative order, IMHO), it's actually a smooth read. Told entirely from the first person perspective of Claire, we learn that despite the time she and her husband have been married, they've been together very little due to the Second World War. She's a nurse, he's a historian, and they're on a second honeymoon in Scotland. Frank's researching great grandfather (four times removed? Six? I can't remember) and Claire picks up a few details, and while enjoying the Scottish countryside, she touches a stone and is sucked 200 years into the past.
That's about as fantastic/SF-ish as it gets, let me just say. The time travel works as a mere device to get our protagonist from the present to the past, and with the exception of Claire wondering if it'll take her home and trying to do so, that's all there is in terms of the SF/F genre, unless you count a sighting of the Loch Ness monster, but that's just pure fun. :)
I had a moment of weirdness when I thought that perhaps the man Claire fell in love with would BE Frank's ancestor, but thankfully, that turns out not to be the case. And even more interestingly, not only does the man become the villain of the tale, but he's the most obvious plot reversal in the whole thing: usually, the villain wants the woman BADLY, kidnaps her and rapes her, etc. Only Frank's ancestor isn't even roused by a woman unless she screams, because he's a sadist. And it turns out, not only does he have a grudge against the man who will become Claire's 18th century husband, Randall is also in love with him, after a fashion.
So you can guess, then, that it's Jamie--Claire's husband--who gets kidnapped and raped and tortured, and it's up to Claire to save him.
But more on that later.
Claire's relationship with Jamie evolves gradually and believably. First she fixes his arm, then she ends up mending his wounds, and during the course of the book, they become comfortable friends, and while she acknowledges an attraction to him, she still considers herself a married woman, even though she has to tell everyone she's a widow (which is true, because her husband hasn't even been BORN yet). But due to the fact that everyone thinks she's a spy for someone else, and Jack Randall is determined to lock her in a prison to find out where her allegiances really lie, the Scots arrange to have her married to one of their own for protection: Jamie.
All of this is well-played. Everything from Claire's reactions to Jamie's careful handling of her. In fact, as they became husband and wife and then lovers, it was hard to root for Claire to go back to her own time, even though there's nothing about Frank that was bad.
The world-building is solid and detailed. Granted, as I know nothing of this particularly history or culture, I wouldn't know if she got something wrong, but sometimes, it just feels right, and I've heard Gabaldon praised for her accuracy. There's a LOT in this book that, to some readers, may not feel like a part of the plot, but overall, fit in just right, and if they don't yet, I suspect they will in later books. I was thrilled to figure out, before it was revealed, that Geilie was also a time traveler, and I really loved how Claire finally revealed to Jamie who and what she was. I about CRIED when he made the decision to take her to the stone circle and let her go, and I was THRILLED when she chose to stay with him (though I worried, the whole time, whether or not Frank would suddenly show up in the past and look for her. Thankfully, that did not happen).
The sex scenes were fantastic. And even though the scenes of Jamie's rape and torture were told somewhat distantly (Claire did not witness this), this was also well done and disturbing. So disturbing that I'm questioning the fact that Randall did SO MUCH to Jamie in such little time, that he was broken SO quickly. But hey, it led to some solid conflict and forced Claire to make yet another choice: to save the man who loves her but can no longer touch her, or to go back home as he asks.
Claire's a solid character, though there's times she makes some stupid decisions. I wish she'd struggled a bit more about fleeing to the circle, because she had no reason to go back to Frank other than love and duty, but she was also clearly in love with Jamie as well. And I wish she'd considered Randall's forces, but she didn't, and she got caught. I also am still wrapping my head around her "cure" for Jamie's fear of touching her, other than by impersonating Randall using the hallucinatory effects of opium, she gave Jamie a chance to fight back and gave him something to live for. There were also some scenes where the characters clearly knew what was happening, but it wasn't really explained on the page, making my brain work a bit harder than it wanted, since it wanted to keep turning pages.
But there's so many things to love: Frank's encounter with a ghost (Jamie, obviously), Claire's inability to separate Frank from Randall in her mind, which raises some great questions as to whether or not she could ever physically love Frank again, should she go back to her own time. The palm reading. :)
I do really love, though, the consideration of the past effecting the future. Claire knows what'll happen in history, and she's also concerned about Frank even being born if something happens to Randall too soon. I also liked wondering if Jamie would've gone through the same hell had Claire chosen to go home instead of stay with him. All of these are interesting questions, and I can't help but wonder how much the future has been effected by her decisions already.
Overall though, it's a fantastic read in a fantastically developed world. Solid characters, solid conflict, and a solid set-up for the novels to come, which I'm still chomping at the bit to get, even though if I really were to sit down and read them all at once, I'd get nothing done for a month.
It's an easy book to recommend. It's definitely a romance, it's definitely historical, and the little touches of fantastic make it that much better. I'm really glad I picked this one up, and now I'm really chomping at the bit for the rest.
*** = This turns out to be not entirely true.
Next up: Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell