Book 1: Outlander / Cross Stitch

[GHScorpiosRule]

All of the chapters written from Claire's point of view are in 1st person throughout the series.  Everyone else is in 3rd person.   It's a clever trick Diana played because you can always tell when you are back in Claire's head and it keeps the story anchored on her but it allows Diana to roam freely across time and geography as needed throughout books 3 and onward.  It's also good news for Cait -- she won't be quite so exhausted making seasons 3 and onward.

 

Okay, I can deal with different points of view in the same book. It's what Anne Stuart, under Kristina Douglass does in her Fallen Series. Well, the first book, both POV's from the hero and heroine are in First Person; but the rest? All the POV of the heroine is in First Person, but in Third Person from the hero and other characters from previous books. Even though the first book hero/heroine were in First Person. Errr...does that make sense? 

[sosmitten]

 

It's also good news for Cait -- she won't be quite so exhausted making seasons 3 and onward.

 

I didn't even make the connection until I read something here or heard an interview with Ron, that since the book was in first person Cait would be in virtually every scene.  That's intense for an hour-long show.

[WatchrTina]

I entertained myself at lunch today by re-reading the scene right after Claire faces Black Jack Randall -- the scene where Dougal takes Claire to the holy well to find out once and for all whether or not she is a spy (she doesn't burst into flames so, no.)  He then tells the story of Jamie's floggings and I found my self imagining how the show is going to handle that series of flashbacks.  It's going to be brutal.  I'm girding my loins already.  I just hope that, like they did in the first scene where we see Jamie being beaten, they'll cut back to the "present" -- the story-telling -- to give us a break from the awfulness.

 

Speaking of that first scene, can I just say how much I love that wee little moment when Jamie tells Jenny not to go into the house with him "even if he cuts my throat" and then Black Jack pulls the knife.  The look of shock on Sam/Jamie's face is perfect.  That's a 19-year-old offering to die rather than see his sister dishonored (yeah, yeah, I know he doesn't look 19 -- just go with it) and he has a 19-year-old's sense of immortality, which comes crashing down in an instant when Black Jack pulls that knife.  Spot on performance by Sam on his first day of shooting. 

 

Here's the interesting tid-bit. As a read the book today, I envisioned my Claire -- the one I have seen in my head throughout all 8 books.  But Dougal was Graham McTavish.  He now owns that role in my head.  And I am totally okay with that.

Edited August 27, 2014 by WatchrTina

[absnow54]

Question about Lallybroch. Jamie says that the land is to go to Ellen's issue only. I understand why Jamie, as her only surviving son, is first in line, but what was the nonsense about the land going back to the Fraser's if he died. Wouldn't Jenny inherit the land?

[Pestilentia]

Question about Lallybroch. Jamie says that the land is to go to Ellen's issue only. I understand why Jamie, as her only surviving son, is first in line, but what was the nonsense about the land going back to the Fraser's if he died. Wouldn't Jenny inherit the land?

Back in (I think) the second episode we heard Dougal mention that the MacKenzie clan followed the laws of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanistry'>Tanistry. From what I gather the succession is reserved firstly to all the male dynastic descendants of all the eligible branches, and only upon total extinction of all those male descendants would anything go to a female.

 

I think  :)

Edited September 9, 2014 by Pestilentia

[Glaze Crazy]

From the convo between Jamie and Claire on their wedding night:

 

“Dougal and Colum were not at all pleased to have their sister marrying a Fraser, and they insisted that she not be a tenant on Fraser land, but live on a freehold. So, Lallybroch—that’s what the folk that live there call it—was deeded to my father, but there was a clause in the deed stating that the land was to pass to my mother, Ellen’s, issue only. If she died without children, the land would go back to Lord Lovat after my father’s death, whether Father had children by another wife or no. But he didn’t remarry, and I am my mother’s son. So Lallybroch’s mine, for what that’s worth.”

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Outlander: with Bonus Content (p. 178). Dell. Kindle Edition.

[absnow54]

I understand why Jamie was first in line to get it, but I was under the impression that if Jamie died before marrying, Lallybroch would go back to the Frasers, when Jenny was still a living issue of Ellen.

 

Back in (I think) the second episode we heard Dougal mention that the MacKenzie clan followed the laws of Tanistry. From what I gather the succession is reserved firstly to all the male dynastic descendants of all the eligible branches, and only upon total extinction of all those male descendants would anything go to a female.

This would make sense though, that if the last male heir died, they would simply find another male Fraser heir to pass it along to, meaning not a part-MacKenzie. 

[Glaze Crazy]

absnow54, good catch, it doesn't specifically say "son" or "male issue."  I guess we are to assume that it's men who inherit property or title first.  It probably should have gone to Jenny if Jamie died, but Jamie lives and has now married, so he says later that it's Claire's property if he dies.  I think that fuels Claire and Dougal's encounter after Jamie gets picked up by The Watch.  Dougal wants Claire to come to his home so he can "protect" her.  She calls him out on that, saying he just wants to force her to marry him and he acknowledges that he wants Lallybroch because of it's prime location.

 

ETA: or what Pestilentia said.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Glaze Crazy

[WatchrTina]

I had forgotten that that passage referred to Ellen's children and not just to Ellen's sons.  So I think the answer is that women belong to the clan they marry into.  Jenny wasn't likely to marry into the MacKenzie clan (unlike Jamie no effort was made to introduce Jenny to her mother's family -- she'd never been to Leoch and had never met Dougal) so if Jamie died unmarried and Jenny inherited Lallybroch the land would likely go to whatever clan Jenny married into.  Colum may even already know that Jenny married into the Murray family (though Dougal lies to Jamie about that) and therefore he knows his only shot at getting the land is for Jamie be a part of the clan.  If Jamie had taken the oath, he would have BEEN a MacKenzie (I think I recall that if Jamie took the oath he would also be expected to take the MacKenzie name.)  So I think Colum had really mixed feelings about Jamie not taking the oath. 

[Ava]

At what point in the book does Claire tell Jamie about the stones and time travel etc?  I can't for the life of me remember when/where that scene takes place. Anyone?

[Tif]

After he rescues her from the witch trial in Cranesmuir.

[Ava]

Thanks!!

[Tif]

You're welcome! :-)

[Petunia846]

That scene, her confession is my favorite part of the whole book.

[Haleth]

I put a hold on book 1 at the library since its been years since I've read it. There were a few people ahead of me but when I got to the library today I found a gorgeous 20 th anniversary special edition on the shelf. According to Amazon it isn't available until Oct 3. I bet it was just put on the shelf and I'm the first person to take it out. :)

[dustoffmom]

Haleth, are you speaking of the red, padded cover with a red ribbon book marker edition?  That was released in October 2011 and I agree....it is a gorgeous looking and feeling book!  But it's not newly released this year, unless they are doing another one entirely.  And maybe that is the case.  I think it more likely, if your local library is a small one like mine, that they just got a newer edition and added it to the circulation shelves.  Either way, enjoy the read!  :)

[Haleth]

Dustoffmom, huh, you are right, it is the red one from 2011. It's a brand new book though. I just found a cd inside the back cover that is still sealed in an envelope: music (?) from Outlander the musical. Who knew there was such a thing?

[dustoffmom]

That's it....mine has that CD as well!  I've never taken it out and listened to it though and like you, had no idea there was ever an Outlander musical!  :)

[peacefrog]

Outlander musical sounds really cheezy! You have to listen to see if it is and let us know.

[Nidratime]

I mentioned on another part of this board -- I think -- that "Storywonk" aka "The Scot and the Sassenach" will be doing an Outlander seminar during the hiatus. Alastair, the male half of the pair, had not read the first book, but has now done so and is conducting a seminar on Youtube every Tuesday, diving into the text indepth. The first seminar was this past Tuesday night, live, and is now stored for your enjoyment on their Youtube page. It covered Chapters One and Two which was upto Claire touching the stones.

 

 

Next week's will cover Chapters Three through Five.

[LilMissAnglophile]

Hi, all! New to the party. Just discovered the show about 2 weeks ago and finally found somewhere to come and chat! Thanks for the link to the Outlander Seminar. I read the book years ago, like 15 years ago, and I am currently 're-reading' via audiobook with the wonderful Davina Porter so this seminar should be fun to follow throughout the hiatus.

[Linderhill]

apropos of nothing being discussed right now, I just reread (I'm actually rereading the entire book, I first read it back when it came out) the passage where Claire tells Jamie where and when she came from and it suddenly occurred to me that the date is October 20th which is the date in the book and Claire's birthday.  An amazing coincidence.

 

responding to Nidratime's post, Alistair's seminar is great.  I just wish I had the time to tune-in i real time but since I don't twitter, etc. I guess its not that important to view live. (9 pm eastern time)

[Nidratime]

I tried to listen to the seminar live, but other things around the house distracted me and so I lost track of the conversation. However -- O woe is me! ;-) -- I had to listen to the seminar again on the storywonk youtube channel! I really enjoyed it though, and it's helping me to refresh my memory about the first book.

[auntlada]

I'm rereading this book and came across something that puzzles me. A few days before Claire goes through the stones, the older Scottish man (whose name I can't remember now, but he's the plant guy) takes her out to show her where to find plants and shows her the stones. She walks around touching them and nothing happens. She doesn't even mention hearing anything. It's only a few days before she does go through so shouldn't she at least hear buzzing? Later, it's only close to Samhain, I think, not the actual day, when Jamie takes her to the stones, and she hears buzzing and starts to disappear (he says). It seems like she should have heard something or been bothered by it when she went to look at the plants. I think it was two days before. She went to look at the plants that day, the next day she and Frank went to Loch Ness, and then the third day they watched the women do the ceremony and that night she went back to the stones and went through. (I may need to stop overthinking things.)

[WatchrTina]

auntlada  you raise a good point.  I can fan-wank my way around it by assuming that the first trip through the stones has to happen on a day when the power is at its peak (feast days) but that once that happens a traveler's sensitivity to the stones is heightened so that they can hear/feel the power on other days too -- days that are close to the feast days.  I can also speculate that a traveler's own time "calls" to them through the stones so Claire is more sensitive to the stones when she is out of her own time than when she first visited the stones with the plant guy.  But mostly I try not to think too hard about how the stones work. <g>

Edited October 29, 2014 by WatchrTina

[millahnna]

I figured it was supposed to be the ceremony the druid chicks do that activate the stones, though I'm not sure how well that tracks with subsequent books.

[Shorty186]

Okay, so I've been thinking about a silly question for quite a while. Apropos of nothing, other than Outlander 1B is still FIVE months away, can anyone explain the joke Claire makes about hedgehogs having sex? She says it on their wedding night, but for the life of me I can't understand what she means by:

 

No, I thought. I won't. I will not. But I did. "Very carefully," I replied, giggling helplessly. So now we know just how old that one is, I thought.

 

Was there a common hedgehog sex joke circulating in 1940s England or something ... ?

[Meredith Quill]

Okay, so I've been thinking about a silly question for quite a while. Apropos of nothing, other than Outlander 1B is still FIVE months away, can anyone explain the joke Claire makes about hedgehogs having sex? She says it on their wedding night, but for the life of me I can't understand what she means by:

 

No, I thought. I won't. I will not. But I did. "Very carefully," I replied, giggling helplessly. So now we know just how old that one is, I thought.

 

Was there a common hedgehog sex joke circulating in 1940s England or something ... ?

 

She means the paradox of her having told the joke in, and someone having heard it for the first time in, the 1700's; which makes it a very old joke by the time 1940 rolls around.

As for it being common, silly sex jokes have always been common here ;)

[ScotchnSoda]

My first time to comment . . .pls forgive any mistakes in forum rules.  This is regarding Alex MacGregor, a young man of 18 who hung himself while in prison after being raped by Jack Randall.  Jamie was given Alex's bible by the prison chaplain.  In telling Claire about Alex, Jamie said that when he saw Jack Randall dead he planned to return the bible to Alex's mother with word that her son had been avenged.

Question: Does Jamie follow through on his intention?

[dustoffmom]

ScotchnSoda....can't directly answer that as it likely might be considered a spoiler....but I will/can tell you, I believe, that....just in case I'll put it behind a spoiler:  

that maybe he does or maybe not, but regardless, it does not happen in this first book.

[ScotchnSoda]

Thanks, dustoffmom !

[morakot]

Re-reading and realize how unclear the timeline is when Claire first ends up at Castle Leoch. She comes through around May Day and, it looks like, is there for 2-3 weeks before they go to collect rents. (By the time of the gathering, she's changed Jamie's dressings twice, I think (?). Anyway, it's not long.

 

Is it also May when she ends up in 1743? or later?

 

She talks about picking cherries (not ripe until at least mid-June) and fresh apricots (don't grow in north Scotland now and unlikely in 1743) so maybe it's late summer when she comes through.

 

The Gathering is a week after she starts up as a healer (according to the text) by which time they are hunting stag and cooking pheasants. I don't think they hunt deer until August at the earliest and it is unlikely that pheasants would have been imported to the Highlands at that point. These are both more usually autumnal eating however.

 

Conversation around the Gathering implies that the harvest is in which is why people are travelling -- certainly by the time they collect rent, people already know what their harvest is -- so they can estimate and pay. All this implies even later in the year than May or cherry season.

 

Does anyone have a clearer idea of what months things are happening in?

 

On another note, there doesn't seem to be much dancing going on either in book or show. It's a missing for me.

[auntlada]

I've always gotten confused about the timeline, even in the small things. When Claire goes to the former healer's room, the events appear to happen all in one day or across at least two days. It's unclear, but the times are odd in it.

 

I think when Jamie rescues her from the witch trial and she tells him who she really is and where she came from that it's in October. He asks when her birthday is, and she tells him, and it's that day.

[peacefrog]

Yeah she arrives in May and the end of the book it's either February or early March. Wentworth is Christmas.

 

With all of her books you can't think about her timelines and geography details because they never add up.  

 

morakot what dancing were you expecting? 

[morakot]

peacefrog, there's so much great Scottish country dancing (think reels and contra-dancing) that are part of many Scottish weddings and celebrations, that it's a surprise that it's not mentioned or shown here. At an event like the Gathering, it would certainly have happened and could happen even in single gender groupings. There's been music and songs mentioned but not dancing that I recall.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Okay, unfortunately, WatchrTina couldn't be of much help to me about something that raised this question, so I'm putting it to y'all who still have the hard copy books--

 

I'm re-reading Outlander on Kindle and I'm up to right after the wedding and Jamie and Claire met the mute Highlander. Giving this specific scene so as to help you to know where to look to answer my question, in case y'all don't know it from memory, hee!

 

Okay, did Gabaldon not go into details in the first few love scenes between Jamie and Claire?  I'm finding the ones from their wedding night, come off as setting up the scene, but no actual description from Claire how it feels...hell, no mention of Jamie's penetration, to be graphic; then there's this gray line across my Kindle and the writing that starts beneath that is a postcoital scene. Very reminiscent of a fade to black kind of thing.

 

And the only reason it pinged my brain was because a couple years ago, I bought a category romance by an author I had collected and one of my favorite books, only to notice that ALL of the love scenes were edited out! I actually remembered the heroine's line to the hero the first time they made love, so that's what made me pull out my hard copy and do a quick comparison. I was able to get Amazon to credit me the money.

 

I'm hoping that's not the same case with this book. I mean, after all, she wrote the oral love scene.

 

Worse comes to worst, I'll just head to my library and get a copy and flick to the scene. But if anyone can confirm for me that I shouldn't be worried about having Amazon give me yet another refund, that would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

[Keeta]

GHScorpiosRule It's true, she doesn't go into detail about their actual encounters on the wedding night. First time ends with Jamie's famous "Holy God" line, second time no detailed description either, then when Claire talks about their "third encounter" it's to say that in the middle is when she has her first orgasm and has to explain to Jamie that he didn't hurt her. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

Thanks Keeta. That's all I wanted to know and thought as much, but those gray lines and then remembering how another book had deleted/edited the love scenes had me going "not again!" so I wanted to make sure.

[Petunia846]

Grey underlined parts on a Kindle indicate that other people have highlighted those lines, that's all. You should also see a tiny little grey number at the start of the line and that number is how many people highlighted that section.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Grey underlined parts on a Kindle indicate that other people have highlighted those lines, that's all. You should also see a tiny little grey number at the start of the line and that number is how many people highlighted that section.

 

Well that explains it. I wasn't sure if it wasn't supposed to be the Kindle version of *** that we sometimes see in the hard copy books to show transition, if you will.  But publishers need to really quality check to make sure what was in hard copy print translates exactly into e-format. Example, in another book, one of my favorites, there's this scene where the housekeeper (really, she helped raise them), was yelling at one of the minor characters to get her butt down to the kitchen to help her with dinner instead of "tarting herself up." In the Kindle? It was printed as "tarring herself up."

[CatMack]

Yeah, I've definitely had some kindle books with clear errors that I know weren't in the hardcopies.  Punctuation is a big problem for some reason.  And I've seen a lot of erroneous hyphen-ations.  Proofread! 

[AheadofStraight]

 

Grey underlined parts on a Kindle indicate that other people have highlighted those lines, that's all. You should also see a tiny little grey number at the start of the line and that number is how many people highlighted that section.

 

Oh thank you! I never knew that and wondered what I had done to cause some segments to be underlined. Interesting. 

[aemom]

This has always confused me somewhat and now that the next episode will cover it, I'm hoping that someone can shed some light.

Jamie wants Claire to leave him and she drugs up the room with opium and pretends to be BJR.

Jamie and Claire get into the physical altercation followed by sex.

After that whole episode, Jamie is willing to have Claire stay with him. I really don't understand why that made him change his mind?

[lianau]

My interpretation of that scene : Jamie is dying because mentally he's still trapped in Wentworth and he has given Jack his word not to fight . What Claire is doing is impersonating Jack and ordering Jamie to fight back , basically she's giving him back control .  Jack also kept talking about Claire through out  the entire thing connecting Claire with Jamie's trauma , so later on Claire brings out the helplessness he felt instead of comfort . And after given back control the feeling of helplessness lessens , helping him to disconnect Claire from the rape .

[WatchrTina]

Diana has posted some early lines from Book 9 that address this scene (you can find them in the Book 9 thread).  In it she confirms that Jamie, in his opium-enhanced fever dream, actually thinks he's "swiving" (raping) Black Jack Randall -- taking some Highlander-style eye-for-an-eye vengeance on him.  Being able to finally fight back is the key to his "cure."  I also think the point above is a really good one about breaking the link between Claire in the here-and-now and Jamie's memories of Jack talking about Claire while tormenting Jamie.

[aemom]

Many thanks lianau and WatchrTina. That was very helpful. :-)

[ulkis]

I know the argument about Claire coming back pregnant by another man and how much Franks loves Bree unconditionally. Both those things are big deals. Yet, I'll never really like Frank after knowing how many affairs and/or liaisons he had after Claire returned. That future knowledge clouds any and all notions of Frank for me before Claire went to the 1740s. I also know the possible arguments about Jamie's liaisons after Claire left, but I think they're contextually different. There can be whole dissertations written about all this, but for me personally, I just can't get back into liking Frank.

Of course, in all these things all our mileages - and opinions - vary.

And to try to stretch this post to fit into this thread's category, I'm guessing it never helped the future Claire and Frank's relationship when she would look at his face and think of BJR and all that happened at Wentworth.

I don't blame Frank. I just stopped liking him.

 

 

I don't care either way about Frank really, just from a writing perspective I think it was really unnecessary for Gabaldon to make him that big of a louse afterwards, I think at that point most of the readers would want Claire with Jamie even if Frank wasn't a cad. 

Edited May 24, 2015 by Athena
Spoiler for future books

[lianau]

I think Frank often gets the short end of the stick , he's trying to be married to somebody who is emotionally cheating on him 24/7 . For whatever reason neither Frank nor Claire filed for divorce  so they are both equally to blame for the state of their marriage .

[WatchrTina]

Somebody help me out. When do Jamie and Ian serve in the French army together (when Ian loses his leg)? Is it before Jamie is lashed and becomes an outlaw or after? I ask because if it is after, then did Jamie bring Ian only ALMOST all the way home to Lallybroch? Much is made in the book of the fact that he hasn't been home since the lashing (which is why he doesn't know that Jenny was NOT raped.) Did he get Ian back to Scotland and then entrust him to others to finish the journey, taking him the rest of the way to Lallybroch, while he goes off and lives rough with other outlaws?

I ask because when he does return home in the TV show Jenny says "Four years and no word. We thought you were dead." Isn't that a mistake? Surely Jenny had word of her brother via Ian during those 4 years because he and Jamie were in France together for a time.

If Ian and Jamie served in France BEFORE Jamie was flogged and made an outlaw then can someone remind me why? Why would the only son heir to a nice-sized estate go off and fight as a mercenary in a foreign war? Why would Brian let him go?

Edited June 3, 2015 by WatchrTina

[Keeta]

Somebody help me out.  When do Jamie and Ian serve in the French army together (when Ian loses his leg)?  Is it before Jamie is lashed and becomes an outlaw or after?  I ask because if it is after, then did Jamie bring Ian only ALMOST all the way home to Lallybroch?  Much is made in the book of the fact that he hasn't been home since the lashing (which is why he doesn't know that Jenny was NOT raped.)  Did he get Ian back to Scotland and then entrust him to others to finish the journey, taking him the rest of the way to Lallybroch, while he goes off and lives rough with other outlaws?

 

I ask because when he does return home in the TV show Jenny says "Four years and no word.  We though you were dead."  Isn't that a mistake?  Surely Jenny had word of her brother via Ian during those 4 years because he and Jamie were in France together for a time.

 

If Ian and Jamie served in France BEFORE Jamie was flogged and made an outlaw then can someone remind me why?  Why would the only son heir to a nice-sized estate go off and fight as a mercenary in a foreign war?  Why would Brian let him go?

 

WatchrTina I'm pretty sure they served in France after the flogging. Jamie was only about 18 or 19 when he was flogged yes? Plus being an outlaw was a big reason he was not in Scotland. 

 

Also, in re: to your comment about Jenny saying "4 years and no word" in the Lallybroch episode, that part in the show really bothered me, because it's just not logical and it looked sloppy. And it wasn't even necessary (unless they were mistakenly trying to inject even more drama?) because in the book they knew Jamie wasn't dead, I believe there was at least minimal communication in some way.