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Title: Outlander by DIANA GABALDON ISBN: 0-440-21256-1 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 02 June, 1992 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62 (922 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: What Do Women Really Want?
Comment: The age old question may finally have been answered by this modern publishing pheneomenon. The "Outlandish" series (I am reviewing "Outlander," the first of the series) is beloved by thousands of women worldwide, who passionately overlook mediocre writing, aimless plot, wildly unrealistic situations (Claire killing a starving, 90-lb wolf with her bare hands made time travel look reasonable), unnatural character behavior (why are Jamie and Claire always laughing at the most sober moments?), contradictory themes (Claire admires Jamie's loyalty, loves Frank, but was hunky-dory after just a few days about boinking a total stranger; a stranger whom she then marries and promises her loyalty, but from whom she then tries to flee back home, before being captured...), etc. etc. Perhaps most amazing is their tolerance for the horribly violent, disgusting, and often homosexual masochism that is constant presence in this story.
So I ask myself, what could make women overlook these otherwise important issues.
Power, Love, Intimacy, Freedom. Claire realizes most of a woman's greatest desires. In Jamie, Gabaldon has created the perfect man; loving, loyal, intimacy seeking, powerful, considerate, subservient, and lightning rod for horrible pain! In addition, Claire suddenly develops the skills of a talented physician, friends appear out of nowhere, as do shelter, food, money and reasources. Its the perfect fantasy. And who wouldn't want to occasionally (frequently?) leave the old ball and chain (husband) behind for an extended (and optional - she can go back any time) roll in the hay with a great man!
Why one star? While I admire the publisher's audacity to sneak such brutal masochism into the popular press, and Gabaldon for coming up with such a wildly successful recipe, I found the book to be fundamentally insincere. I felt the main caracter, Claire, to be disloyal, superficial, self-serving, insensitive, and totally unworthy of Jamie and most of the other Scotts characters in the story. It seemed all the better qualities she looked for and needed in others, she never demonstrated herself. Intimacy and trust, perhaps closest to the core of the book's value to woman, Jamie bestows upon Claire in heaps, but she never really reciprocates. Disagree? How often did Claire profess her love to Jaime ("I love you.") unless it was in respose to his prior declaration of same. Never. Perhaps in this way Gabaldon achieves yet another of the things women want - finally turning the tables on men. Fair enough!
Rating: 5
Summary: How did I miss this? You will LOVE this book
Comment: I simply don't know how I managed to miss this for so long! A huge fan of Dorothy Dunnett (RIP--she will be missed) and similarly lengthy historical novels I picked this up by chance in London and had a very similar experience: read it all afternoon, read it all evening, stayed up all night, stumbled back to bookstore to get books 2-4.
This is an enthralling tale of love, medicine, and clan politics in mid 17th-century Scotland. The central female character, Claire Randall, has been swept back in time after walking innocently into a stone circle shortly after World War II. A former WWII nurse, Claire makes her way in the fierce world of the clans through her medical skills and her blossoming relationship with a tall, red-haired Highlander, James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. By page 250, you will be in love with Jamie Fraser, too, mark my words!
I know what you're thinking: yuck. I don't DO time travel. Well, neither do I. But Gabaldon is a great author, and takes the twee convention of time travel and uses it to breathe new life and sharp observations into historical fiction. I was totally skeptical, but I am now convinced. You will be, too. If you like Dorothy Dunnett, you will love this book. Trust me. I'm a historian.
Rating: 1
Summary: how can the violence be overlooked by so many??
Comment: I actually read the fourth book in the series - Drums of Autumn - first, because I was flying through my reading material and my husband had this one sitting on the shelf. LOVED it! I went to the library and found the series started here. WANTED to love it...
It's all been said, so I won't go into detail about all the pros and cons of the writing, era, genre. Any enjoyment is greatly outweighed by horror. As someone else said, I wish I'd read reviews before I let these images loose in my head. Specifically, I agree with all the negative comments about the final seen between hero and antagonist. I'm no prude but in my wildest nightmares I would never have imagined anything this horrifying. If I could poor bleach in my ear and and scrub out the second half of this book, I would. I can't think of an acceptable reason to put ideas like this in writing, much less in fiction.
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Title: Dragonfly in Amber by DIANA GABALDON ISBN: 0440215625 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 02 November, 1993 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Voyager by DIANA GABALDON ISBN: 0440217563 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 01 October, 1994 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Drums of Autumn by DIANA GABALDON ISBN: 044022425X Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 10 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon ISBN: 0385336764 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Lord John and the Private Matter by DIANA GABALDON ISBN: 0385337477 Publisher: Delacorte Press Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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