Outlander (102 page)

Q: Where did you get the idea for a time travel novel?

A: I had meant
Outlander
to be a straight historical novel, but when I introduced Claire Beauchamp Randall (around the third day of writing—it was the scene where she meets Dougal and the others in the cottage), she wouldn’t cooperate. Dougal asked her who she was, and without my stopping to think who she
should
be, she drew herself up, stared belligerently at him, and said “Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp. And who the hell are you?” She promptly took over the story and began telling it herself, making smart-ass modern remarks about everything.

    At this point I shrugged and said, “Fine. Nobody’s ever going to see this book, so it doesn’t matter
what
bizarre thing I do—go ahead and
be
modern, and I’ll figure out how you got there later.” So the time travel was entirely Claire’s fault.

Q: Why did you choose Scotland during the Jacobite period as the setting for your books?

A: Well, like almost everything else about these books, it was an accident. I was looking for a time in which to set a historical novel, because I thought that would be the easiest kind of book to write for practice. While pondering, I happened to see a rerun of an ancient
Doctor Who
episode on PBS—one in which the Doctor had a young Scottish sidekick, picked up in 1745. The sidekick was a cute little guy, about seventeen, named Jamie MacCrimmon, and he looked rather nice in his kilt.

    I was sitting in church the next day thinking about it, and thought, Well, you’ve got to start somewhere, and it doesn’t really matter where, since no one’s ever going to see this—so why not? Scotland, eighteenth century. And that is where I started—no outline, no characters, no plot—just a place and time.

Q: Have you ever been to Scotland?

A: I had never been there when I wrote
Outlander
, and did that book entirely from library research (since at the time, I thought the book was purely for practice, I hardly thought I could tell my husband I had to go to Scotland to do research). I did take part of the advance money from the sale of
Outlander
and go to Scotland for two weeks, though, while working on
Dragonfly
. It was (luckily!) just as I’d been imagining it. I’ve been back several times since, for book tours and the like, and would go back like a shot, at the slightest opportunity.

Q: Why is
Outlander
written in the first person point of view?

A: My initial impulse is to say, “Why on earth shouldn’t it be?” However, I do get this question quite often at writers conferences, so I’ll try to go into a bit more detail.

    I like to experiment and try new and interesting things in terms of structure and literary technique (not that writing in the first person is what you’d call madly adventurous). However, the answer is simply that a first person narrative was the easiest and most comfortable for me to use at the time, and since I was writing the book for practice, I saw no reason to make things complicated.

    Now that I know more about writing, there are other good reasons to have done it, but that’s why I did it at the time; it felt natural to me. I think I may have felt most comfortable with this (aside from the minor fact that Claire Beauchamp Randall took over and began telling the story herself), because many of my favorite works of literature are first person narratives.

    If you look at the classic novels of the English language, roughly half of them are written in the first person, from
Moby-Dick
to
David Copperfield
,
Swiss Family Robinson
,
Treasure Island
—even large chunks of the Bible are written in the first person!

    Which is not to say that there are no drawbacks to using this technique, or that it suits everyone. But if it fits your style and your story, why on earth not?

Q: Are all the locations used in the books real?

A: Bear in mind that I had never been to Scotland when I wrote
Outlander
. When I finally did go, I found a stone circle very like the one I had described, at a place called Castlerigg. There is also a place near Inverness called the Clava Cairns, which has a stone circle, and another place called Tomnahurich, which is supposed to be a fairy’s hill, but I’ve never been there, so I don’t know how like Craigh na Dun it is. As for Lallybroch … well, I do repeatedly find things that really exist after I’ve written them, so I really wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Q: Are you Claire?

A: Well, no. Though of course, I’m
all
the characters; I have to be, after all. But if you are asking whether I based the character of Claire on myself, no, I didn’t.

Q: Who is the ghost in
Outlander
?

A: The ghost is Jamie—but as to exactly how his appearance fits into the story, All Will Be Explained—in the last book of the series.

Q: Where will the story end?

A: I think the
Outlander
books will end in about 1800, in Scotland. If this tells you anything, more power to you.

Q: Will the story have a happy ending?

A: Oh, yes, the last book will have a happy ending, though I confidently expect it to leave the readers in floods of tears, anyway.

Excerpted from
The Outlandish Companion
, copyright © 1999 by Diana Gabaldon

If your book club is like mine, you probably have a mix of people who have just recently discovered
Outlander
and others who have read the entire series—perhaps multiple times—perhaps recently, or perhaps years ago.

This Readers’ Guide to
Outlander
is intended to extend the pleasure individual readers feel when enjoying these remarkable books privately. I hope the questions serve to enrich fresh discussions with friends and book club members. The questions assume that you have read the entirety of
Outlander
and they are more or less chronological, but some link particular early details with larger patterns. Most questions refer only to
Outlander
; some in parentheses, however, suggest connections with the sequels. Don’t worry: they are written in a way that will not spoil any suspense for those who still have those fresh treats in store! Page references in parentheses refer to the 2001 trade (large-size) paperback. I own multiple editions of
Outlander
with differing pagination, but this one seemed the most easily accessible.

Many book clubs enjoy using interviews with the author and other background material to broaden and deepen their reading experience, and Readers’ Guides sometimes include those resources. Thanks to Diana Gabaldon’s generosity and to lively online communities of readers, however, these are readily available elsewhere. If, like many of us, you want to deepen your enjoyment and appreciation of the
Outlander
universe even further—especially if, as I did, you go into withdrawal when finishing Diana Gabaldon’s books—you will also enjoy these resources.

The Outlandish Companion
, a hard-cover treasury which she wrote after the first four novels (a second volume will appear in the fullness of time!) is indispensable. Online resources abound: take a look at

Diana’s own website:
www.dianagabaldon.com
(you’ll find links to interviews here)

and her blog:
http://voyagesoftheartemis.blogspot.com
, Listen to her podcasts:

http://www.randomhouse.com/audio/podcasts/diana_gabaldon_rss.xml
And see video interviews on her YouTube Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/voyagesoftheartemis
You and your book club will discover kindred spirits and their intelligent and lively discussions of her work on discussion sites:

CompuServe Books and Writers Community:
http://community.compuserve.com/Books
and on the Ladies of Lallybroch site:
www.lallybroch.com
and on
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DianaGabaldon/summary

Questions and insights about the characters, plots, settings, themes, symbolism, historical backgrounds —and the creativity and discipline that transform them into these remarkable novels—await you … and will bring you back to the books, our own kind of time travel.

Happy reading!

Part ONE Inverness, 1945

1. You undoubtedly knew that this was a time travel novel. If you had not known this, however, at what point would it have become clear to you that Claire has gone back in time?

2. Fantasy, the para-normal, the supernatural … if we as readers are willing to suspend our disbelief (to use Coleridge’s phrase), narratives that make demands on our credulity require a very credible, trustworthy narrator. What qualities does Claire possess that make us willing to believe her tale? Are there aspects of Claire’s personality with which you can personally identify? Can you think of other narrators whose credibility is the key to a reader’s acceptance of an otherwise unacceptably incredible story?

3. Examine Claire’s account of her second honeymoon with Frank, weighing their affection, relief at being reunited after the war, and sexual passion, on one hand, with the evident tensions, on the other. All marriages have some strains in them; what signs of possible trouble do you see in theirs? For example, Frank seems pedantic to Claire. Does he seem so to you? And she seems ambivalent about the ladylike deportment required of her as a don’s wife. Perhaps most serious is their disagreement on the question of adopting a child. How significant, do you think, might these tensions have become had Claire not inadvertently disappeared through the stones? (If you and your group have read the sequels, how does Frank’s initial belief that he could not love an adopted child affect your sense of his character in the later books?) At this point, how sympathetic a figure do you find Frank to be?

4. The ghost episode (20): Yes, Diana Gabaldon confirmed that the kilted figure gazing up at Claire’s window was indeed Jamie and that we will know at the end of the series why he was doing so. Having read
Outlander
, however, why do you
think
he was there? The apparition provoked Frank’s clumsy attempt to tell Claire that he would understand and accept that she might have been unfaithful during the pressures of war. What is your reaction to this: is her angry response to him justified or not, in your view? Why? Do you share her intuition that he may have been referring to an infidelity of his own? If so, how does this affect your response to his character?

5. When Mrs. Graham reads Claire’s tea leaves and palm, she deprecates her own psychic skills, saying that prognostication is more a matter of “reading” common-sense observations about people. And yet what she says about the divided marriage line in Claire’s hand (34) does come true. The novel is full of ancient, primitive superstitions and practices that the rational, skeptical Claire largely rejects—and yet her experiences suggest that at least some of the ancient ways contain some inexplicable truths, none the less true for being inexplicable. In this novel, what seems to you to be the dominant impression of the old beliefs and folkways—their barbarism and ignorance, or their secret access to truths of which the modern world has lost sight?

6. The horror of Claire’s terrifying trip through the stones is striking. “There was a noise of battle, and the cries of dying men and shattered horses (49).” She frequently recalls the horrors of World War II. Is she re-experiencing some of that trauma? (If you are re-reading
Outlander
after having read the sequels, do you think that this carnage is associated with any one battle in particular? If so, which one? Or does it make more sense to see it as a universal expression of pain engendered by violence?)

7. When Claire is apprehended by Black Jack Randall, she is surprised by his dragoon’s uniform (which she believes to be a film costume) and shocked by his startling resemblance to her husband Frank. But she is also keenly aware of other details, including his scent of lavender, this scent growing in significance throughout this novel (and in the sequels) because of its subsequent effect on Jamie. A frequently-noted feature of Gabaldon’s prose style is her skill in bringing a scene to life, not merely through visual details, but through her generous use of realistic odors – especially in the 18
^th
c. episodes, where hygiene standards differed significantly from ours. What descriptions in
Outlander
are particular memorable for you because of the vivid focus on one or more smells? Is this realism part of their appeal for you? (Be generous with your club: include page numbers for all references.)

8. When Claire meets Dougal and his men, the scene is almost cinematic: the scene builds slowly as the men puzzle over Claire’s identity and odd clothing. We do not see Jamie, huddled in pain in the corner, for several pages. However, when the episode builds to its climax, Claire takes charge of the situation, ordering Rupert out of the way to avoid injuring Jamie further, resetting Jamie’s shoulder, and disinfecting his wounds. The men, perhaps surprisingly, allow her to do so. This is the first episode in which we see two recurring conflicts: first, a conflict between 20
^th
c. scientific medical practices and 18
^th
c. assumptions; and second, the conflict between a modern, educated woman’s expectation that she should be taken seriously and the tendency of 18
^th
c. men to assume she may be merely a whore or otherwise insignificant. What accounts for their willingness to recognize—at least temporarily—her authority in this situation? Is it the force of her character, or merely their desperation about Jamie’s injuries?

9. After the skirmish about which Claire warned the Scots at Cocknammon Rock (which indicates that Claire had been paying more attention to Frank’s history lessons than we thought), Jamie faints from his wounds. His faint does not just give Claire another opportunity to display her medical skills; it introduces a gender reversal, in which Gabaldon plays with and undermines the formulaic conventions of romance novels. Female protagonists are expected to faint prettily, but Claire was knocked unconscious by Murtagh, and we don’t expect young warriors to faint. If you are familiar with the conventions of romance writing, identify some other aspects of what you expect in a romance novel. Then reconsider your list when you discuss Chapter 15, “The Revelations of the Bridal Chamber.”

10. Once they are safely inside the castle, Claire is finally able to process some of the shock and grief of her disturbing experience. Weeping for Frank, she is comforted by the young stranger whose wounds she has tended and who has shared his horse with her. Her reaction as he soothes her: “slowly I began to quiet a bit, as Jamie stroked my neck and back, offering me the comfort of his broad, warm chest. My sobs lessened and I began to calm myself, leaning tiredly into the curve of his shoulder. No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I’d let him ride me anywhere (92).” In what subsequent moments in their relationship do images of horses and riding recur? What do these images ultimately suggest about their relationship?

11. Part One ends with Claire settling into Castle Leoch with clothing more suitable to the 18
^th
c., thanks to Mrs. Fitz, a growing sense of safety with the young Jamie MacTavish, but an increasing—and horrifying—fear that she has indeed gone back in time two centuries. This fear is confirmed when she snoops in Colum’s letters, where she finds a fresh one with the date 20 April 1743 (98). What character traits are evident in her reaction to this discovery? Have you ever made an utterly shocking discovery requiring that you fake, as Claire did, calmness and equanimity? Were you able to do so?

Part TWO Castle Leoch

12. Claire learns a good deal about life in Castle Leoch: she enjoys the musical entertainment and bardic story-telling, acquires a respect for Colum’s leadership skills and for his courage in bearing the pain of his disability, feels useful working in the herb beds and tending to the ailments of the residents, and once more tends to Jamie. This time, his injuries are sustained in a gallant offer to save Laoghaire from the disgrace of a public beating requested by her father and agreed to by Colum for her inappropriately flirtatious behavior—a state of affairs apparently accepted by everyone in this patriarchal culture. This episode dramatizes for Claire the brutality of this patriarchal world, the courage of young Jamie, the possibility of a romance between Jamie and Laoghaire, and the utility of leeches, a medical intervention demonstrated to good effect by Mrs. Fitz. But of everything Claire is learning, the most important probably concerns details about the life of the mysterious young Jamie. Although she is shocked to learn that there is a price on his head for murder, why is she not really alarmed? How is their friendship evolving?

13. While cleaning the appalling mess out of Davie Beaton’s closet and deciding which medications might actually have some utility and which are useless or perhaps even dangerous, Claire has time to consider her own predicament and the terrifying images from her passage through the stones. She remembers deliberately fighting away from some, and then wonders, “Had I fought towards others? I had some consciousness of fighting toward a surface of some kind. Had I actually chosen to come to this particular time because it offered some sort of haven from that whirling maelstrom (129)?” She cannot answer that question at the moment; can you? From what you now know about her relationship with Jamie, do you believe that some sort of unconscious choice—his or hers—was involved, or was the timing purely random?

14. Consider the songs and supernatural folktales Claire hears during the entertainment in the castle (159); she notes the pattern that the transported women are so often gone for about 200 years—but do sometimes return home. Applying the lessons of the poetry to herself, she acquires hope and courage to try to escape through Craigh na Dun again. Readers of Diana Gabaldon’s fiction often express gratitude that emotionally powerful scenes in her books have empowered them to make positive changes in their own private lives. Has your life ever been touched profoundly by an insight from a poem, song, or piece of fiction? How?

15. Why is Jamie so much more comfortable with Claire seeing the scars from the horrendous flogging he endured than he is with even old friends like Alec MacMahon?

16. After Claire discovers Jamie and Laoghaire kissing, Alec shrewdly remarks that Jamie needs a woman, and that Laoghaire will be a girl when she is fifty (150). What evidence do you see of her immaturity in this book? If you have not read the sequels, how do you think this prediction might play out? (And if you
have
read them, how
does
it play out?) How much sympathy or criticism do you have for Laoghaire in this novel? Why?

17. When Claire meets Geillis Duncan in Chapter 7, notice the cluster of references to poison: Geilie immediately identifies Claire’s mushrooms as poisonous, jokes about poisoning husbands, discusses an abortifacient herb, and before Claire returns to the Castle—where there is an outbreak of food poisoning because of some tainted beef—Geilie tells her that Hamish is Jamie’s child. This breath-taking lie is almost Shakespearean: the poison-in-the-ear motif in
Hamlet
refers not only to the way Claudius killed Old Hamlet, but also to the climate of destructive rumors and falsehoods that contaminate the kingdom. Consider the other, later toxic falsehoods in this novel: which ones have the most serious consequences? For instance, consider Dougal’s telling Jamie that Jenny was with child by Randall and by a second British soldier; consider Randall’s persecution of Jamie for the murder of a sergeant-major whom Randall himself had killed; consider Laoghaire’s lie to Claire that Geillis was ill and wanted her to come, thereby luring her into the witchcraft arrest, and Geillis’ lie to Jamie that Claire was barren.

18. In the episode with the tanner’s lad, we see the petty vindictiveness of Father Bain (to be contrasted with the wisdom and compassion of the monks at St. Anne de Beaupré later), a hint of the cruelty of the mob (a foreshadowing of the witchcraft hysteria), and the first of the episodes in which Claire puts Jamie in danger by asking him to assist in freeing the tanner’s lad. Is she right or wrong to do so? Why?

19. When Claire attempts to escape during the commotion of the Gathering, she again endangers Jamie, albeit inadvertently. He has been trying very hard to avoid being present—where either his failure to take the oath (possibly signifying disloyalty to the whole clan) or swearing his oath to the MacKenzies (signifying he is one of them, and therefore a possible rival for the chieftainship)—could ignite the turbulent clan factions and result in his death. He has to return her to the Castle, and Claire, who does not comprehend immediately, later understands and deeply regrets the position she has put him in. How do you read this: are you sympathetic to or critical of her single-minded focus on escaping that endangers Jamie? Have you ever inadvertently put someone else in danger or been endangered yourself by someone else’s unwitting actions? And why is Jamie so willing to subject himself to harm and danger in order to protect women?

Part THREE On the Road

20. Dougal’s exploitation of Jamie’s flogging to stir public support for the Jacobites is clearly manipulative. Dougal, however, is a complex character, and even Jamie has profoundly mixed feelings about him. Do you think there is any justification for what Dougal is doing to Jamie? Does he understand how humiliating the experience (which Claire, significantly, calls a “crucifixion”) is?

21. Although the evidence is mounting that Black Jack Randall is a sadistic bully, Claire is still stunned—because of his remarkable resemblance to Frank—that he hits her. How might the resemblance complicate her memory of and love for Frank?

22. After he punches her, Claire’s contemptuous response to Randall’s question “Have you anything to say?” is “Your wig is crooked (238).” When Dougal describes Jamie’s great courage and composure during his flogging, he remembers Jamie’s insulting “I’m afraid I’ll freeze stiff before ye’re done talking.” Does their insolence to Randall increase or decrease the danger he poses to them? Do you see this verbal daring as heroic?