Outlander

Hey guys it's Lydia here! I finished Outlander a few days ago and I have a few views and opinions I'd like to express.

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Published: 1st June 1991
Publisher: Arrow
Pages: 864
Genre: Historical fiction, fiction, romance

Small description (from Amazon)

1946, and Claire Randall goes to the Scottish Highlands with her husband Frank. It’s a second honeymoon, a chance to learn how war has changed them and to re-establish their loving marriage.
But one afternoon, Claire walks through a circle of standing stones and vanishes into 1743, where the first person she meets is a British army officer - her husband’s six-times great-grandfather.

Unfortunately, Black Jack Randall is not the man his descendant is, and while trying to escape him, Claire falls into the hands of a gang of Scottish outlaws, and finds herself a Sassenach - an outlander - in danger from both Jacobites and Redcoats.

Marooned amid danger, passion and violence, her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.

Review

Outlander as a whole was a fantastic read, even though I'm going to discuss aspects of the book I didn't enjoy, generally it was an exciting read all the way through.

Again like in my last review, I would recommend this book to readers who are aged eighteen and above, because there's quite a lot of sexual language.

The time settings of the book (there are two) are very interesting, as at the beginning the story is set after the Second World War, a time of peace and tranquility, where society was trying to rebuild their lives after six years of horrific war. But Clair, our narrator is transported back in time to the 18th century, a completely different and perhaps brutal society. However, another view could be that Clair is transported back into a similar atmosphere of the war, and evermore reflects her 20th century life in the progress of the Battle of Culloden (16th April 1746). The time difference may have been created by Gabaldon to convey how decorum has changed over the years, and that peoples attitude towards one another became less harsh and savage.

The plot was well structured and written, keeping myself as a reader full of excitement and anticipation for what was next to come. This can also be said about the characters. While I actually read the book by listening to the audio version, I felt that I more vividly imagined and heard the characters when they spoke to one another, as through their voices and dialogue I could understand their sense of character. Like the Harry Potter series, Outlander has many characters, and all are explored and used well in the journey the reader takes with Clair into the new and scary world of the past. My favourite character is Clair, as I think she is for many readers. I enjoyed her as a character and a narrator because although she is launched into a new place, her sense of self and character doesn't change. She is still the same strong-minded, determined, passionate and kind-hearted person she was in 1946 and 1743.

My other favourite character is Jamie Fraser. Although I dislike some of the aspects the character is involved in (which I will comment on further on), he really is  brilliant. I felt that I couldn't write a review about Outlander without discussing Jamie. As a reader and writer, I have connections with characters, and I feel like he is a genuine person and very down to earth; Gabaldon has created someone unique. I won't say too much about him, as I like to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible. But my favourite aspect I like about Jamie, is that for most of the part, he treats people with respect.

That brings me into the romance of the book. The love interest in Outlander is gradual, and this make the story feel more realistic and personal, in some books the romance is really corny, like 'I saw her face and knew that I would love her forever'. However, you watch Jamie and Clair become friends, lovers and then soulmates. This is in retrospect with the TV series. Although I do love the live action version of the characters, I felt that there wasn't enough awkwardness in the TV series as there was in the book (as Clair and Jamie married for practical reasons), and that the characters on screen adapted to each other as a married couple too quickly.

On the flip side of romance, I'm going to discuss the sexual assaults and manipulations in Outlander. While reading these horrific moments, and becoming enraged and pitiful for the characters, I feel that Gabaldon, again has included these interactions and descriptions in her book because she wants to get her readers to understand the low treatment people had of each other. While it is mostly men of women, we do encounter a reversal, the reader shall also feel and understand the shame and isolation of sexual assault other from a female perspective. I just disliked the way some of the male characters spoke to women. Even when Jamie and Clair are married, he became brutish and used sadism against her, and plainly because it was how husbands disciplined their wives (I know I sound negative about Jamie, but honestly he does love Clair). I can understand the marital customs of the time, but it was hard for me to listen to as a 21st century reader. However, as I have said before, perhaps the writer has pushed the reader into hard and uncomfortable situations between people, because she is trying to mirror current treatment men and women have of each other, and perhaps it doesn't differ so much as it did almost three hundred years ago.

I hope you like my review of Outlander, and I also hope I didn't spoil any of the book for you. It was a historical and loving read.