Book 3: Voyager

[chocolatetruffle]

One thing that always bothered me though was after Claire leaves Jamie when she finds out about his remarriage and Ian goes after her to bring her back.  Jamie is hallucinating and is so happy to see her, but then finds out she's real and acts like an ass.  Anyway, I always hated his reaction there, and I seem to recall he never actually apologizes for not telling her he was married! It was really crappy of him to sleep with Claire without telling her.  I enjoy mostly everything else about this book, but Jamie's reaction here always annoyed me. Did anyone else feel the same?

 

I kinda gave him a pass on his initially not telling her because once she showed up again in the past his marriage to hosebeast was null and void.  HOWEVER, dude really should have told her before they returned to Lallybroch because her getting blindsided with the news was the worst possible way for her to find out.  

 

After he had been shot, he was still hurt and angry about her leaving him, even though she only did it so he'd come after her (I just love those two crazy kids), so that didn't bother me too much.  It led to them both recommitting to each other and I loved that.

Edited June 3, 2015 by chocolatetruffle

[GHScorpiosRule]

I kinda gave him a pass on his initially not telling her because once she showed up again in the past his marriage to hosebeast was null and void.  HOWEVER, dude really should have told her before they returned to Lallybroch because her getting blindsided with the news was the worst possible way for her to find out.  

 

After he had been shot, he was still hurt and angry about her leaving him, even though she only did it so he'd come after her (I just love those two crazy kids), so that didn't bother him too much.  It led to them both recommitting to each other and I loved that.

 

I love this post so much, because you articulated, so much better, what I wanted to say. But really because I SO love that others are also using hosebeast to describe that awful, awful character. A word, I might add, that I think I told y'all about when the show premiered.

 

And I had to roll my eyes over the fact that Claire expected Jamie to come run after her--considering she wasn't 20-something anymore, and Jamie, just letting her go, because he didn't think she'd listen to him or would return with him had he gone running after her. "Crazy Kids" is right!

 

But yeah, he SHOULD have told her before they got to Lallybroch. At the very least.

Edited June 3, 2015 by GHScorpiosRule

[WatchrTina]

 

It was really crappy of him to sleep with Claire without telling her.  I enjoy mostly everything else about this book, but Jamie's reaction here always annoyed me. Did anyone else feel the same?

I have to give Jamie a pass too -- at least at first.  What he did was so REAL.  As in every guy I have every dated who has fucked up in our relationship absolutely would not come clean about the fuck-uppery until confronted with hard evidence..  Because, you know, they didn't want to upset me.

 

And as someone has already said, the "marriage" to hosebeast (TM GHSScorpiousRule) was a complete and utter failure so it was hardly the first thing Jamie needed to say and, since Claire was back and "alive" in his time, the marriage was null and void too.  If Jamie had had a wife with whom he was living as man and wife -- well then yeah, he'd need to 'fess up to that right away.  But I don't blame him at all for wanting to wait to tell Claire about Laoghaire.  He just waited too long.  I get why a guy would say to himself "I need to tell her, but not right now, not right now -- things are so good -- I don't want to ruin it -- just a little while longer."  Yeah, totally REAL.

 

As for Jenny -- that was a full-on bitch move on her part (telling Laoghaire).  She's the one I started to resent in this book.

[lianau]

But I understand Jenny's resentment , she doesn't know about the stones so to her it looks like  Claire abandoned her brother when he needed her the most and lived perfectly healthy and fine in France , never send a letter , never showed up at Jared's place , nothing for 20 years . And then she drops back into his life and expects everything to be as it once was . 

[MsProudSooner]

As much as Claire wanted to go back through the Stones to find Jamie, she was also very insecure about what her reception would be.  She knew he was alive but nothing else.  She worried about how she looked and if he would still be attracted to her.  After she finally finds him at the print shop, she scopes out the room where he sleeps for evidence that it houses two people.  And the 'partnership' with the women who owned the bordello caused even more worry.   When she's confronted with the fact that the had married and not bothered to tell her it had to make feel that all of her worst fears had come true.  In her position, I would have thought, "I've made a huge fool of myself!"  She had to feel humiliated.  

[GHScorpiosRule]

Just read the translation of what was said in the finale, which reminded me of what else I wanted to mention about this book, and to a certain extent, Gabaldon.

 

Now, I don't know if it was an issue of the words not translating properly from book to e-reader, if it was Gabaldon's attempt at how the word sounded from the character (and now I can't recall if it was Jamie or someone else), or that Gabaldon didn't know any better.

 

At one point, toward the end, was it Geillis? Made a remark about Hindus. Or someone did. And now I wish I'd written it down so I could ask you guys. Anyhoo, it appeared as "Hindoo" in my Kindle, which had me raising my eyebrows. Really? Even spelled correctly, Hindu, it sounds the same. It didn't piss me off or irritate me; okay maybe it irritated me a little, because this book was written in the '90s. It's not something I dwell on, but this, along with other words that Gabaldon uses to describe things, makes me feel I should have a dictionary handy so I can look up the damned words sometimes.  Or that one line where Claire says every part of her "anatomy" was in pain. She couldn't say "body"?

 

Just that the way Gabaldon has Claire speaks, makes Claire sound so pretentious, and I know she isn't that at all. While most of the time, I'm not thinking Who TALKS this way?, considering it's in the recent past, and not like, a thousand years ago.

[Athena]

At one point, toward the end, was it Geillis? Made a remark about Hindus. Or someone did. And now I wish I'd written it down so I could ask you guys. Anyhoo, it appeared as "Hindoo" in my Kindle, which had me raising my eyebrows. Really? Even spelled correctly, Hindu, it sounds the same.

 

Did Geillis say, "Hindoo" in dialogue? If so, I can believe it because even in Geillis's time, that's a derogatory way of spelling and saying Hindus. It's archaic, but even in the twentieth century, it was considered disparaging way to address Hindus even if it sounds more or less the same. I think the inflection varies depending on the prejudice and racism of the speaker.

 

Yeah, Claire actually speaks in an odd way sometimes. I've never been a big fan of how Gabaldon makes describe or talk about certain things.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Did Geillis say, "Hindoo" in dialogue? If so, I can believe it because even in Geillis's time, that's a derogatory way of spelling and saying Hindus. It's archaic, but even in the twentieth century, it was considered disparaging way to address Hindus even if it sounds more or less the same. I think the inflection varies depending on the prejudice and racism of the speaker.

 

Yeah, Claire actually speaks in an odd way sometimes. I've never been a big fan of how Gabaldon makes describe or talk about certain things.

 

Actually, no, I don't think it was said in dialogue. Hell, now I'm going to have to try and find it. I can do a search for it right?

 

I mean, I'm Hindu, but I let a LOT of stuff roll off my back; I've had to considering the social climate I grew up in, and as being a target for racists; so I don't know why this one thing irked me.

Edited June 4, 2015 by GHScorpiosRule

[MsProudSooner]

I noticed that in the finale of Season 1, Jamie didn't appear to be seasick when he and Claire were on the boat in the final scene.  If I remember the book correctly, he became violently seasick on even the smoothest sea.  I wonder if this is a hint that they will write Mr. Willoughby out of the TV series.

[AheadofStraight]

Ron addresses this in latest Q&A:

 

xxxx:  Did U intentional make Jamie's legendary seasickness LESS intense because it will get repetative in future episodes.. And S3?

Ronald D. Moore ‏@RonDMoore May 31

Just didn't want to dwell on it right there at the end.  Wanted to go out on the big emotions.

 

[GHScorpiosRule]

Ron addresses this in latest Q&A:

 

xxxx:  Did U intentional make Jamie's legendary seasickness LESS intense because it will get repetative in future episodes.. And S3?Ronald D. Moore ‏@RonDMoore May 31

Just didn't want to dwell on it right there at the end.  Wanted to go out on the big emotions.

 

 

I"m glad he did it this way. Plus, Jamie did mention how he thought he was the only one who was suffering seasickness when we see them at the end; right before Claire tells him she's with child.

[nodorothyparker]

Of all the ridiculous scenarios we're presented with over the course of the series, Jamie's complete nonhandling of the Laoghaire reveal is one of the few that doesn't really bother me or ring false.  Okay, it does in that in hindsight it looks really idiotic that he got Claire all the way back to Lollybroch seemingly without a concrete plan on when and how he planned on resolving it and didn't have everyone there on board.  That's where I do have to fanwank a bit that surely he did plan on taking her for a walk in the heather the next day and laying it all out for her because otherwise, yeah, just dumb. But as WatchrTina said up page, not that unrealistic for a man to put off and put off and put off because hey things are good right now and you're just going to be upset until well after we've passed the point of yes I'm going to be mad to the bomb actually going off in my face.  

 

Especially given that Jamie's spent the better part of 20 years grieving and pining for this woman and then suddenly there she is.  I can buy that he got so caught up in that and the ensuing French farce that it became incredibly easy for him to shrug off the unpleasantness of a marriage he was in in name only that mostly consisted of him sending a check and he of course wouldn't have considered valid anyway the moment Claire showed back up.  One of the things I appreciate most about Claire is her ruthless pragmatism once she gets beyond her initial reactions.  As such, I've always thought that Claire had the right of it in the section after everything's calmed down where she's able to rationally think it all through and acknowledge that she had months to plan and divest herself of her old life before dropping back in on Jamie.  He didn't get any warning or time to deal at all.  He also doesn't have her "luxury" of the clean break between the different parts of his life where he could neatly tie up all the loose ends and leave them behind.  So I tend to give him a bit of a pass too, even if he was a bit boneheaded about some of it.

Edited June 5, 2015 by nodorothyparker

[GHScorpiosRule]

Couple Claire's own boneheaded-ness with her running off, expecting Jamie to come after her and bring her back to Lallybroch and her thinking that Jamie "should have known!" that hosebeast was behind Claire being tried as a Witch, even though he didn't know, and she never told him...Jamie's idiocy and Claire's, cancel each other out.

 

At least for me.

[nodorothyparker]

Oh everybody's running around acting like idiots immediately after the reveal.  I'll give you that.  It once again drives home the point that all of these people could save themselves a whole lot of trouble if they'd slow down and actually talk to each other.  But Gabaldon seems to prefer that they skip that.

[basil]

And as someone has already said, the "marriage" to hosebeast (TM GHSScorpiousRule) was a complete and utter failure so it was hardly the first thing Jamie needed to say and, since Claire was back and "alive" in his time, the marriage was null and void too.  If Jamie had had a wife with whom he was living as man and wife -- well then yeah, he'd need to 'fess up to that right away.  But I don't blame him at all for wanting to wait to tell Claire about Laoghaire.

 

 

I don't blame him for wanting to wait, I blame him for waiting. I'm surprised so many seem to be giving him a pass on this. I'm not sure what the laws were then, but Claire's been gone long enough to have been declared legally dead or to have at the very least to have abandoned the marriage. Laoghaire certainly considers herself married. Jamie was in a legally binding marriage, regardless of whether he loved her or was living with her. He should have told Claire asap.

[nodorothyparker]

Did they declare people legally dead back then?  I honestly don't know.  I imagine this sort of thing was probably a lot more common at a time when correspondence was often uncertain and people could so easily be lost at sea or in battle or just disappear into the wilderness.  Ned seems to be very firmly of the opinion that Jamie and Claire's marriage supercedes any other arrangement he might have with Laoghaire, and I've never cared enough to read up on the subject beyond that.

 

Yes, he should have told her.  But I also see why he didn't.  But I'm also one who doesn't really blame Jenny for forcing the issue when they showed up at her home where her children live still with the issue completely unresolved.  That doesn't mean I have to necessarily like what she did either, but I can understand it.

Edited June 5, 2015 by nodorothyparker

[Keeta]

Oh everybody's running around acting like idiots immediately after the reveal. I'll give you that. It once again drives home the point that all of these people could save themselves a whole lot of trouble if they'd slow down and actually talk to each other. But Gabaldon seems to prefer that they skip that.

But then the books might not be as long, God forbid, lol.

[Hybiscus]

Dang, Keeta, you beat me to the snark!  :D

[GHScorpiosRule]

Didn't someone here compare that whole not telling each other anything and miscommunication to an episode of Three's Company?

[chocolatetruffle]

Especially given that Jamie's spent the better part of 20 years grieving and pining for this woman and then suddenly there she is.  I can buy that he got so caught up in that and the ensuing French farce that it became incredibly easy for him to shrug off the unpleasantness of a marriage he was in in name only that mostly consisted of him sending a check and he of course wouldn't have considered valid anyway the moment Claire showed back up.  One of the things I appreciate most about Claire is her ruthless pragmatism once she gets beyond her initial reactions.  As such, I've always thought that Claire had the right of it in the section after everything's calmed down where she's able to rationally think it all through and acknowledge that she had months to plan and divest herself of her old life before dropping back in on Jamie.  He didn't get any warning or time to deal at all.  He also doesn't have her "luxury" of the clean break between the different parts of his life where he could neatly tie up all the loose ends and leave them behind.  So I tend to give him a bit of a pass too, even if he was a bit boneheaded about some of it.

 

THIS. Absolutely.  Jamie says at some point that he was so afraid she would leave him again that he knew he wouldn't survive it (or words to that effect).

 

Now I did have a major problem with him not telling her about Willie.  Secrets but no lies aside, he had plenty of opportunity to tell her while they were on the ship - especially since she couldn't leave at that point.  And although jealous, possessive Claire would have been angry, eventually she would have calmed down and understood.  I suppose he was thinking he'd never see the boy again, but nevertheless that was something she needed to hear from him.  And of course, she finds out in the worst possible way.

[nodorothyparker]

I HATE that Lord John was the one to drop that bomb on her and I hate how casually he does it.  

 

I get that Jamie had compartmentalized that part of his life pretty thoroughly, because really what other choice did he have?  It was painful to the point that he hadn't told anybody about Willie, not even Jenny or Ian who were the closest to him with Claire gone.  And as he says, he never expected to see the kid again.  So as long as they were in Scotland and John and Willie were supposed to be in England and unlikely to ever run into each other, he probably thought it best to just leave it alone.  I can actually see this line of thought.  I've never believed we're obligated to tell even the people we love every last detail about ourselves if it's not likely to affect them.  But at the point that he made the decision to go to the governor's ball or whatever the event was for the specific purpose of seeing Lord John again and introduced John into her life, he needed to tell her if for no other reason than to prevent exactly what did happen.

 

I will say I do enjoy some of the weird competitive verbal tussling Claire and John do over Jamie in this and subsequent books as a result though.

Edited June 5, 2015 by nodorothyparker

[lianau]

Couple Claire's own boneheaded-ness with her running off, expecting Jamie to come after her and bring her back to Lallybroch and her thinking that Jamie "should have known!" that hosebeast was behind Claire being tried as a Witch, even though he didn't know, and she never told him...Jamie's idiocy and Claire's, cancel each other out.

 

At least for me.

Thank god for young Ian .

 

 

 

[GHScorpiosRule]

Thank god for young Ian .

 

 

 

 

Oh yes! I especially loved how all his sentences to Claire, were prefaced with "Auntie Claire!" or "But Auntie Claire!" or "Uncle!"

 

And I'm peeved that Ian wasn't told in the book, that he hadn't killed that sailor after all.

[Athena]

Young Ian was one of my favourite things about this book and continued to be after this book.

[nodorothyparker]

Didn't someone here compare that whole not telling each other anything and miscommunication to an episode of Three's Company?

 

I know I've made that comparison to Drums in Autumn.  The misunderstandings in that book simply from not conveying basic information to each other made me want to slap pretty much every character at some point.  Or at least keep an eye out for Mr. Furley to come strolling up the mountain path.

[AD55]

I don't blame him for wanting to wait, I blame him for waiting. I'm surprised so many seem to be giving him a pass on this. I'm not sure what the laws were then, but Claire's been gone long enough to have been declared legally dead or to have at the very least to have abandoned the marriage. Laoghaire certainly considers herself married. Jamie was in a legally binding marriage, regardless of whether he loved her or was living with her. He should have told Claire asap.

 

Yeah, I don't think you bring your 20-years absent wife to Lollybrach without saying, "oh, by the way, I'm married to Laoghaire," and then explaining the situation. How far is Edinburgh from Lollybrach? Was it a one-day journey? I don't buy that Jamie would set Claire up for the humiliation of learning about this from Jenny or one of the kids ("Uncle Jamie, I thought you were married to 'Aunt Laoghaire.'") It's a trope of romance novels and soap operas to have couples withhold information from each other in order to create drama, draw out the story, etc., as though any of Gabaldon's novels need to be longer. She is often unimaginative when it comes to creating tension, which IMO is why she keeps returning to the bag of rape stories she evidently keeps in the spare bedroom.

[GHScorpiosRule]

It's a trope of romance novels and soap operas to have couples withhold information from each other in order to create drama, draw out the story, etc., as though any of Gabaldon's novels need to be longer. She is often unimaginative when it comes to creating tension, which IMO is why she keeps returning to the bag of rape stories she evidently keeps in the spare bedroom.

 

It may be a trope for soap operas, but definitely not one in any of the historical romances I've read over the past 30 odd years. Yes, I started verra young with my romance reading.

[AD55]

It may be a trope for soap operas, but definitely not one in any of the historical romances I've read over the past 30 odd years. Yes, I started verra young with my romance reading.

I must have read the wrong ones, but I recall that the heroine often fears telling the hero something key such as she's already lost her virginity or had an out-of-wedlock child. It interferes with the course of true love for upwards of 200 pages at which point the hero reveals that he doesn't give a damn.

 

Sorry to stray OT.

Edited June 5, 2015 by AD55

[GHScorpiosRule]

Well, here's a bit of good news for me. Since WatchrTina hasn't been able to say enough about Brotherhood of the Blade and The Scottish Prisoner, I've checked them out from my library in eformat. I thought Scottish Prisoner wasn't available, but it is. I thought for sure I'd end up having to buy the darned thing.  I'll see if they're worth buying after I read them; meaning, if I think I'll ever re-read them.

[WatchrTina]

I just finished my re-read of The Scottish Prisoner and It affected me the same way it did the first time.  On the one hand, the plot is dependent on a seriously implausible coincidence that I find hard to overlook.  But I do overlook it because that novel switches back and forth between Lord John Grey and Jamie as narrator and I LOVE that. Unless I'm mistaken this is the only novel that uses those two exclusively as POV narrators and since I love both those characters, it makes this novel very special for me.  I think their complicated relationship is fascinating and I really enjoy watching the two of them find a way to deal with their conflicting emotions toward one another.  Parts of it are also laugh out loud funny.  Now I'm going back and re-reading the Jamie/John chapters in Voyager and enjoying them all over again, on a different level.

Edited June 6, 2015 by WatchrTina

[lianau]

I love the Jamie John interaction but I also feel so sorry for John at times . I hope at the end of all the books he won't be alone

( I still like Percy for him ) 

[Petunia846]

Well, here's a bit of good news for me. Since WatchrTina hasn't been able to say enough about Brotherhood of the Blade and The Scottish Prisoner, I've checked them out from my library in eformat. I thought Scottish Prisoner wasn't available, but it is. I thought for sure I'd end up having to buy the darned thing.  I'll see if they're worth buying after I read them; meaning, if I think I'll ever re-read them.

If you do end up wanting to buy it, check used book stores and discount stores. I never see the main Outlander books at my favorite used book store, but they always have one or two of the Lord John books. And I got The Scottish Prisoner at a place called Ollies for like $2. Sometimes where stores order too many copies of a book and they don't sell, they get handed over to discount places like that, and I've seen The Scottish Prisoner at a lot of them. I'm glad you could get it from the library first though, it's not really a book I plan to read again. (And how awesome are ebooks from the library? I love that system!)

[basil]

Just that the way Gabaldon has Claire speaks, makes Claire sound so pretentious, and I know she isn't that at all.

 

 

I find Claire pretentious as they come. Very full of herself and superior. YMMV.

 

I don't buy that Jamie would set Claire up for the humiliation of learning about this from Jenny or one of the kids ("Uncle Jamie, I thought you were married to 'Aunt Laoghaire.'")

 

 

When Ian first meets Claire as a very young man, doesn't he thinks she's a "hoor"?

Edited June 6, 2015 by basil

[WatchrTina]

So I continued to re-read the Jamie/John scenes in Voyager last night and found myself bewildered when the Helwater chapter came to an end.  Where was the scene where Jamie offers himself to John as "payment" for John saying that he'll look after Willie?  The one where he says he is going to marry Isobel and retire from the army to ensure that, as step-father, he'll be in a position to actually raise the lad.  It's such a complicated scene

(and all the more complicated when it is revealed in a later book that Jamie plans to kill John if he accepts the offer of his (Jamie's) body)

and it seemed to be missing.  So then I found it -- the story is told by John to Claire in flashback after they meet for the second time -- at the reception for the new Governor (John.)  I found myself thinking, "Really? John, who has so carefully hidden his sexual orientation his whole life just spills his guts to Claire about his love for Jamie, the offer Jamie makes, and his own (John's) refusal of the offer, and that one semi-chaste kiss between the two men?"  I have to slip into willful suspension of disbelief for that scene.  But I do it.  I love that scene and all the tense, conflicting emotions portrayed both in the present between John and Claire and in the past between John and Jamie.  But good luck to the show in pulling THAT one off.  So much of that scene hinges on Claire seeing (in an earlier scene) the look of longing in John's face when he looks at Jamie while Jamie is looking at Willie's portrait.  You can have those moments of startling insight in a novel when you (the reader) are in the mind of a 1st-person POV narrator.  Getting all that across on the screen is much more difficult.  Still, I look forward to seeing them rise to the challenge. 

 

The big question for me from that scene involves the spoiler above.  We do not know what Jamie is thinking and feeling in the scene where he offers himself to John.  I have always wondered if Diana knew what he was thinking all along

that it was his way of testing John to see if Willie would be safe in his care

 or if she changed her mind later on in reaction to a hue and cry from Jamie fans who thought that action was out-of-character.  The fact that she put that scene in a flash-back and not in Jamie's POV was, I think, deliberate -- to hide from us, the readers, what Jamie is thinking.  There is a fair amount of that in this book -- we're misled by Jamie as he tells incomplete "truths" to John about the box of gemstones "resting in the ocean" so it would be completely in keeping with Diana's long-term story arc for her to have had Jamie's true motivation for that scene in her mind the whole time.

Edited June 6, 2015 by WatchrTina

[chocolatetruffle]

So I continued to re-read the Jamie/John scenes in Voyager last night and found myself bewildered when the Helwater chapter came to an end.  Where was the scene where Jamie offers himself to John as "payment" for John saying that he'll look after Willie?  The one where he says he is going to marry Isobel and retire from the army to ensure that, as step-father, he'll be in a position to actually raise the lad.  It's such a complicated scene

(and all the more complicated when it is revealed in a later book that Jamie plans to kill John if he accepts the offer of his (Jamie's) body)

and it seemed to be missing.  So then I found it -- the story is told by John to Claire in flashback after they meet for the second time -- at the reception for the new Governor (John.)  I found myself thinking, "Really? John, who has so carefully hidden his sexual orientation his whole life just spills his guts to Claire about his love for Jamie, the offer Jamie makes, and his own (John's) refusal of the offer, and that one semi-chaste kiss between the two men?"  I have to slip into willful suspension of disbelief for that scene.  But I do it.  I love that scene and all the tense, conflicting emotions portrayed both in the present between John and Claire and in the past between John and Jamie.  But good luck to the show in pulling THAT one off.  So much of that scene hinges on Claire seeing (in an earlier scene) the look of longing in John's face when he looks at Jamie while Jamie is looking at Willie's portrait.  You can have those moments of startling insight in a novel when you (the reader) are in the mind of a 1st-person POV narrator.  Getting all that across on the screen is much more difficult.  Still, I look forward to seeing them rise to the challenge. 

 

It wouldn't surprise me if they skipped the flashback.  It doesn't move the story forward and as you say, Claire knows all she needs to know about John when she sees the longing look on his face - and this show is very fond of communicating with looks rather than dialogue.  Besides, if they can skip Claire's killing of 2 soldiers during Wentworth and it's aftermath, I figure they can eliminate some backstory of a secondary character.

[Dejana]

When Ian first meets Claire as a very young man, doesn't he thinks she's a "hoor"?

 

IIRC, he first sees Claire at the brothel, in bed with Jamie the next morning. Since "Uncle Jamie" is married to Laoghaire, as far as Young Ian knows, it's not a completely illogical conclusion on his part.

[lianau]

 I found myself thinking, "Really? John, who has so carefully hidden his sexual orientation his whole life just spills his guts to Claire about his love for Jamie, the offer Jamie makes, and his own (John's) refusal of the offer, and that one semi-chaste kiss between the two men?"  

I think it's the need to talk about Jamie with somebody that drives this conversation . Claire talks about that need as another motivating factor in telling Bree about her biological father and John can't talk with anyone about Jamie because it would lead to discovery . 

[basil]

IIRC, he first sees Claire at the brothel, in bed with Jamie the next morning. Since "Uncle Jamie" is married to Laoghaire, as far as Young Ian knows, it's not a completely illogical conclusion on his part.

 

 

Oh, I know (and yes you are correct, though for some reason I think it was his father who was in the room, though not in bed, with Claire). I was merely responding to another poster's mentioning how screwed up it would be that Claire would learn about Jamie's second marriage via one of the kids.

[Dejana]

Oh, I know (and yes you are correct, though for some reason I think it was his father who was in the room, though not in bed, with Claire). I was merely responding to another poster's mentioning how screwed up it would be that Claire would learn about Jamie's second marriage via one of the kids.

 

I went back and looked up the scene, and see that I blended a couple of things together. First, Ian, Sr. is embarrassed to find Jamie in bed with a woman at the brothel. Jamie says it's his wife, but Claire's hiding under the covers and Ian thinks Jamie's saying he eloped with a prostitute. When Claire shows her face, he's naturally quite shocked to see her after so much time. Ian and Jamie leave to find Young Ian, who's run away from home. Young Ian then shows up at the brothel and goes to the bedroom, looking for Jamie. Claire thinks it's someone bringing breakfast and tells the person to come in, not terribly concerned about her state of dress. She, of course, soon realizes that it's Jamie's runaway nephew. He, however, is quite disconcerted by the naked woman in the bed who indicates that she's familiar with his father and bolts in embarrassment.

[nodorothyparker]

I've always found the Jamie-Lord John flashback implausible in both tellings, given Jamie's own nature and his history with Black Jack.  

And the later version doesn't even make sense when you consider that Willie would have likely ended up the ward of a complete stranger who wouldn't have felt any obligation to Jamie at all had Jamie killed John, which Jamie not being a dummy surely would have considered.

 It's possible she decided to change it, but I tend to chalk up the conflicting versions to Gabaldon maybe not remembering what she wrote and not having a good editor because there are lots of occurrences especially in the later books of versions of events not matching up.  As someone who's done some editing for a living, Echo in the Bone is especially maddening for that reason.

 

I think it's the need to talk about Jamie with somebody that drives this conversation . Claire talks about that need as another motivating factor in telling Bree about her biological father and John can't talk with anyone about Jamie because it would lead to discovery.

 

I think this too.  Whatever his other motives and feelings of jealousy where Claire is concerned, John does recognize Claire as the one other person in the world who loves Jamie like he does.  He's never been able to talk about that with anyone and here's his chance.  Disgustingly enough, Claire has a very similar experience with Black Jack in Dragonfly when he wants to wax poetic on what it's like to have to sex with Jamie and she recognizes it for the same thing.

[Geillis]

While the rest of you are discussing deeper aspects of Voyager, I have to be a bit nitpicky and bring up something that bugs me from my rereading of it.

As Claire gets ready to go back through the stones, she goes to the trouble of having a tailor make her a cloak with a hood but then she turns around and goes and buys an eighteenth century "throwback" fad dress off the rack at a department store.  I remember the "granny dresses" from the sixties and I felt like this dress was akin to that.  DG even goes on to describe how most of the colors are garish and the lace is tacky, and the dress is a bit lower cut than Claire would like, and it also has a zipper.

 

Now having lived in the eighteenth century, Claire knows how a respectable woman should dress. She also would know that without the appropriate foundation garments, stays and petticoats, etc, she will not have the proper silhouette and look.  So why not have the tailor make her the proper clothing? Certainly there were historical reenactment groups in Scotland in the 60's just like there were and are in the States, and folks in these groups pride themselves on having an historically accurate kit.

 

For the eighteenth century Scots, the difference would have been the same as it is for us when we see the difference between a costume and clothes.

Think of the difference when someone dresses as a soldier, police officer, or nurse for Halloween and the way a real soldier, police officer and nurse dresses.

[Dejana]

While the rest of you are discussing deeper aspects of Voyager, I have to be a bit nitpicky and bring up something that bugs me from my rereading of it.

As Claire gets ready to go back through the stones, she goes to the trouble of having a tailor make her a cloak with a hood but then she turns around and goes and buys an eighteenth century "throwback" fad dress off the rack at a department store.  I remember the "granny dresses" from the sixties and I felt like this dress was akin to that.  DG even goes on to describe how most of the colors are garish and the lace is tacky, and the dress is a bit lower cut than Claire would like, and it also has a zipper.

 

Now having lived in the eighteenth century, Claire knows how a respectable woman should dress. She also would know that without the appropriate foundation garments, stays and petticoats, etc, she will not have the proper silhouette and look.  So why not have the tailor make her the proper clothing? Certainly there were historical reenactment groups in Scotland in the 60's just like there were and are in the States, and folks in these groups pride themselves on having an historically accurate kit.

 

For the eighteenth century Scots, the difference would have been the same as it is for us when we see the difference between a costume and clothes.

Think of the difference when someone dresses as a soldier, police officer, or nurse for Halloween and the way a real soldier, police officer and nurse dresses.

 

Maybe she thought having a tailor make a perfect replica of an 18th century outfit would arouse too much suspicion (not sure why, if the person is getting paid, what would he/she care)? It was only going to be one outfit and if she was going to put herself through the ordeal of traveling through the stones again, she wasn't going to do it in restrictive undergarments? Because then we'd miss out on the fun of Jamie discovering zippers?

Edited June 15, 2015 by Dejana

[lianau]

Time? Money ? It's early October when Roger and Brianna find Jamie and I have no idea how long it would take to have an entire outfit made and how expensive it would be .

[Geillis]

Time? Money ? It's early October when Roger and Brianna find Jamie and I have no idea how long it would take to have an entire outfit made and how expensive it would be .

No, she had money, and she had the time. She went back to the states to take care of her estate an resign her position.  Nope, I think DG dropped the ball on this one and depended on the readers' suspension of belief.

[Glaze Crazy]

I knocked out a RenFaire costume in a couple of days but that was with a sewing machine.  If she was to go completely authentic, it would need to be hand sewn.  I guess she was willing to give up on that, since the cloak probably wouldn't be hand sewn either. And yes, the Gunne Sax dresses I had (and wore to threads, lol) back in the day would probably be a bit too modern for a real time travel adventure.  I added it to the saran wrap PB&J sammie.  Anachronistic but minor, IMO.

[chocolatetruffle]

Yeah, I just figured it looked enough like 18th century clothing to not arouse suspicion as long as no one looked too close.  Also it would have been covered up by the cloak, so no one would have been able to see it up close anyway, unless she wanted them to.

[auntlada]

Didn't she refuse to wear corsets even in the first book anyway? I wonder what undergarments she wore when she went back.

[WatchrTina]

No, she wears a corset (or "stays").  Book!Claire is a full-figure gal and running around with no support was simply not an option.  She does try something different in a later book

when she fashions a make-shift bra to wear during a long horse-back ride where, for some reason her usual stays were not an option.

[auntlada]

In Outlander, when Jenny and Mrs. Crook make Claire a dress for Quarter Day at Lallybroch, they have to reinforce the upper bodice with whalebone stays ripped from an old corset because Claire won't wear a corset. I've never thought that a dressed reinforced that way is going to be all that much more comfortable than a corset, but perhaps it is. I've worn a corset, although only for a few hours (for a period play) and likely not pulled as tight as they did then, but never worn a dress reinforced with stays and meant to be worn without a bra.

[nodorothyparker]

It did seem like she pretty much half-assed the clothing part of preparing to go back.  Maybe she figured once she got there she could replace the dress with something authentic?  But then this is the same woman who apparently went back without any sort of plan about what she would do if the first person she asked on the street hadn't heard of "Mr. Malcolm" or couldn't tell her where to find him, so who knows.

 

The dress is taken by someone who works at the brothel for repair her first night back and then we just never hear of it again.  I kept expecting someone to see the zipper and construction and ask WTH this was, but it seemed to be lost in the shuffle with the French farce that ensued and they never went back to the brothel after a day or so anyway.