Outlander by Diana Gabaldon was published 25 years ago, before I was even born, but has recently become popular again due to a new hit TV show based on the book. Outlander was the first in a series of 8 books, the most recent of which was published in 2014.
As usual, I could not bear the thought of watching the on screen version before reading the book, and so I delved into it despite my heavy workload. This was before my exams at the end of last year and I didn’t manage to get more than halfway before studying had to take preference. Plus the show (which I had managed to keep ahead of while reading) hit a mid-season break, which meant that I had a few months to get around to finishing the book before the show started off again.
I then forgot about the book until spotting articles all over my Facebook timeline proclaiming that the midseason break of Outlander the TV show was over. I couldn’t believe that I had put down such a brilliant book for so long and immediately dug it out again. It took me less than 2 days to finish, even with lectures to attend.
So what makes this book so brilliant? There are a lot of contributing factors – timetravel, a female heroine, a hot Scottish bloke…and quite a lot of sex.
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The lead character is Claire Randall, who is a nurse for the British Army. She has recently been reunited with her husband Frank Randall, who had been fighting in WW2. The year is 1946.
Claire and Frank decide it would be a good idea to have a bit of a second honeymoon; to take some time to get to know each other again after the five years they spent apart. During this lovely holiday, Claire wonders into a stone circle in the middle of nowhere while searching for some plants (for medicine, she doesn’t just collect them for fun). Somehow, she is drawn towards a particular stone in the circle and, despite the fact that she can hear a weird buzzing sound emanating from the rock, she goes ahead and touches it anyway, which causes her to black out.
When she wake up she finds herself in the same spot, but she soon notices some minor differences. She has been teleported to the year 1743, to a Scotland in which there is no electricity and the residents of the Highlands are all members of clans, and live an entirely different life to those in the Scotland that she has just left.
Claire runs almost immediately into a bunch of Redcoats (British soldiers) who assume, because of the way that she is dressed, that she must be a prostitute. The leader of the redcoats is a man called Jack ‘Blackjack’ Randall, who is the great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather of her husband Frank. However, this particular member of the Randall family is slightly less lovable and has some not-so-savoury ideas about what to do with this strangely dressed woman.
Thankfully Claire is rescued from the Redcoats by a group of Scots, one of whom is Jamie Fraser, a man who soon becomes extremely important to the story. Claire tells the Scots that she is an English widow who is trying to get to France to see her family. The Scots are more inclined to believe that she is a British spy. However, they soon need her medical expertise to pop Jamie’s dislocated shoulder back into place.
The way that women are treated in 1743 is somewhat different from 1946, and it takes Claire some time to adjust to the lack of respect, and the fact that not many women dare to be as outspoken as she is.
Her relationship with Jamie begins to grow, at first as one of friendship, but then as something more. In a desperate attempt to keep Claire from being taken by the Redcoats (they could just take her because she’s British or something?), Jamie and Claire have to get married so that she can use a Scottish name by marriage as a form of escape from Randall and his men.
That’s as far as I’m going to go with the summarising, I don’t want to give too much away. I would strongly advise anyone reading this post to get your hands on Outlander, it’s definitely worth reading.
I love the fact that there is a strong female lead. Claire is brave (sometimes maybe a bit too brave, bordering on stupid), and has a mouth on her that would make an old lady blush. Her great knowledge of plants and herbs, plus her exposure to the medicine of the future, means that she knows previously unheard of ways to heal the seemingly always injured Scots (which is not always a good thing in a time where anything that seems unexplainable is blamed immediately on witchcraft). She is also not afraid to stand up to the men around her, especially the rude and crass ones, which manages to gain their respect in many ways. And finally, she merges into their life of no electricity or hot water, sleeping in the outdoors, travelling by horseback, and using a leaf to wipe your butt with almost no complaint. I know for a fact that if I were in her position, I would be crying on the first day that I couldn’t have a hot shower.
Despite all of the admirable things about Claire, I think that Jamie is still my favourite. He is respectful to Claire from the start, and is a generally funny and kind-hearted character. I love his innocence and honesty, and what kept me latched on to this book was watching him change as their relationship grows. He is so affectionate with Claire, and pretty possessive (I’m not sure why I find this endearing; I don’t think I would be so keen on a guy being that possessive over me), but you can clearly see that he loves her. However, there is one scene involving a spanking (you’ll see if you read it) that I’m not so sure that I like. I get that it’s what men would have been like with their wives back then, but I don’t know if it was really necessary to put in the book.
On the whole, I loved it and I am already well into the second one, despite the fact that have enough piled-up work to lose sleep over. Book two has an extremely unpredictable and ridiculously frustrating beginning, and even at a quarter of the way through the book I’m not sure that I’m happy with the way it’s going. But I just keep reading and comfort myself with the fact that there are 8 books overall and something has to happen to redeem the plot twist that may have broken my heart.
It also comforts me to know that there are still a number of episodes to go in season one of the TV show, which is a great distraction from what I fear will happen through the rest of the series. Plus Sam Heughan (who plays Jamie) is absolutely beautiful and I love every second that he spends on the screen.
Go get yourself a copy of this book; the 800 pages are totally worth it.
Reviewing ALL the books 
Now I need to read it even more