Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Diana GabaldonEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1992-07-01
ISBN: 0440212561
Number of pages: 850
Publisher: Dell
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780440212560
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Outlander
Book Review: I agree with the good AND the bad reviews, and still loved it!
Summary: 4 Stars
Okay, here is the thing. I have very eclectic taste in reading. I do NOT like romance novels per se, but a good book with some great sex scenes (or even lots of good ones), well, why not? I loved The Time Travelers wife so I like sci-fi, good historic fiction can be a great way to learn about the past without it feeling too much like a history lesson and enjoy well written non fiction books. Mysteries can be great fun as well; I've read all types of books and liked some and not others. This is a book that is not easily categorized and if you are okay with that, then this might be a book for you.
I actually DID believe in the passion and pull between Claire and Jamie. I've personally been in a relationship like that and found it believable. Also, after married almost 20 years and with children, I know that relationships usually don't stay like that so I enjoyed getting a little hot by reading the sex scenes in this book. I also thought that the author set it up convincingly to allow the reader to understand why Claire might submit to this marriage and why, with no opportunity at that point to return home and in danger of her life, she might be able to have a physical relationship with a hot hunky younger man in a skirt while still loving her husband Frank who she believed she most likely would never see again. I didn't feel she had much choice in the matter anyway...
I enjoyed learning about life in Scotland in the mid 1700's and felt it was convincingly portrayed and easy to imagine. As for the beating Jamie gives Claire, well, while I would not have missed it if it had been left out of the book, I too, like many of the reviewers, could believe that this could happen in that time and place. Jamie had many conversations with Claire to explain why he truly believed being beaten could be done with love and perhaps in a semi lawless world filled with danger and violence, one could believe it. Certainly, it did happen back then. After all, it's hard to believe that women could smoke while pregnant and not think it could harm a baby but they did and like believing in witchcraft, it probably was a real part of daily life back then. Also, don't forget that Claire isn't a woman of our generation - she came from 1945. And she also gave as good as she got so I think Jamie did learn it was wrong to do so. maybe I didn't have as big a problem as many people with this because I've never ever had a man raise even a finger to me and I took this as one more foreign thing about life back then - not as a parable about women of today letting a man beat them... I think having Jamie decide at the last minute not to do what felt so normal to him and so a part of his rough and misogynistic life would have felt too PC. Whitewashing things from the past because we now know them to be wrong wouldn't make the story feel more believable. However, as I said, this could have been left out and I wouldn't have missed it and obviously many readers would have been happier..
The negatives to me was that, like other reviewers have said, I do feel the book should have discussed more of the hardship someone from the 20th century would have faced going back in time. I would have loved to read more about that. Yes, the book says Claire has spent many years traveling with her uncle in undeveloped countries as a youth and therefore this rough life wasn't as big a shock to her as it might have been to, say, my grandmother who had lived her whole life in NYC, but I would have loved to read about the little things that a time traveler would find hard to live without. How did Claire feel about living without flush toilets and brushing teeth (did they do that in the 1700's?) and showering (I don't think they bathed much back then) and then big things like seeing people get sick or die of diseases easily cured today or girls not going to school, or the lack of hygiene - hearing Clair's reaction to living without simple amenities of life were things I felt would have made the story more convincing.
That said - I NEVER thought of this book as a scholarly tome of political and social mores in Scotland in the 1700's, but rather as an entertaining novel about a time traveling woman from 1945who unexpectedly finds herself in Scotland in 1743, and in love with two men. Big difference. I got just what I had hoped for - a story that entertained, captivated me, arroused me, repulsed me, amused me and even taught me a little bit about those times in Scotland.
I did NOT like Pillars of the Earth, a similar book in some ways. Why? Because Pillar of the Earth took itself way too seriously while I felt Outlanders' author knew she had written a historical romantic fantasy sci fi book that was a damn good read and didn't try to be more, and she - and therefore I - were okay with that.
Summary of Outlander
Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another...In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach?an "outlander"?in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life ...and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
In Outlander, a 600-page time-travel romance, strong-willed and sensual Claire Randall leads a double life with a husband in one century, and a lover in another. Torn between fidelity and desire, she struggles to understand the pure intent of her heart. But don't let the number of pages and the Scottish dialect scare you. It's one of the fastest reads you'll have in your library.
While on her second honeymoon in the British Isles, Claire touches a boulder that hurls her back in time to the forbidden Castle Leoch with the MacKenzie clan. Not understanding the forces that brought her there, she becomes ensnared in life-threatening situations with a Scots warrior named James Fraser. But it isn't all spies and drudgery that she must endure. For amid her new surroundings and the terrors she faces, she is lured into love and passion like she's never known before.
I was lame and sore in every muscle when I woke next morning. I shuffled to the privy closet, then to the wash basin. My innards felt like churned butter. It felt as though I had been beaten with a blunt object, I reflected, then thought that that was very near the truth. The blunt object in question was visible as I came back to bed, looking now relatively harmless. Its possessor [Jamie] woke as I sat next to him, and examined me with something that looked very much like male smugness."Gabaldon creates characters that you'll remember, laugh with, cry with, and cheer for long after you've finished the book. --Candy Paape
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