The thought of hosting supper parties for Parisian society was in fact a trifle daunting. Jamie looked at me, eyebrows raised in question, but I swallowed hard and smiled, nodding. It was a good offer; if he felt competent to take over the running of an importing business, the least I could do was order dinner and brush up my sprightly conversational French.
“Not at all,” I murmured, but Jared had taken my agreement for granted, and was going on, intent black eyes fixed on Jamie.
“And then, I thought perhaps you’d be needing an establishment of sorts—for the benefit of the other interests which bring you to Paris.”
Jamie smiled noncommittally, at which Jared uttered a short laugh and picked up his brandy glass. We had each been provided a glass of water as well, for cleansing the palate between sips, and he pulled one of these close with the other hand.
“Well, a toast!” he exclaimed. “To our association, Cousin—and to His Majesty!” He lifted the brandy glass in salute, then passed it ostentatiously over the glass of water and brought it to his lips. I watched this odd behavior in surprise, but it apparently meant something to Jamie, for he smiled at Jared, picked up his own glass and passed it over the water.
“To His Majesty,” he repeated. Then, seeing me staring at him in bewilderment, he smiled and explained, “To His Majesty—over the water, Sassenach.”
“Oh?” I said, then, realization dawning, “oh!” The king over the water—King James. Which did a bit to explain this sudden urge on the part of everyone to see Jamie and myself established in Paris, which would otherwise have seemed an improbable coincidence.
If Jared were also a Jacobite, then his correspondence with Abbot Alexander was very likely more than coincidental; chances were that Jamie’s letter announcing our arrival had come together with one from Alexander, explaining the commission from King James. And if our presence in Paris fitted in with Jared’s own plans—then so much the better. With a sudden appreciation for the complexities of the Jacobite network, I raised my own glass, and drank to His Majesty across the water—and our new partnership with Jared.
Jared and Jamie then settled down to a discussion of the business, and were soon head to head, bent over inky sheets of paper, evidently manifests and bills of lading. The tiny cabin reeked of tobacco, brandy fumes, and unwashed sailor, and I began to feel a trifle queasy again. Seeing that I wouldn’t be needed for a while, I stood up quietly and found my way out on deck.
I was careful to avoid the altercation still going on around the rear cargo hatch, and picked my way through coils of rope, objects which I assumed to be belaying pins, and tumbled piles of sail fabric, to a quiet spot in the bow. From here, I had an unobstructed view over the harbor.
I sat on a chest against the taffrail, enjoying the salty breeze and the tarry, fishy smells of ships and harbor. It was still cold, but with my cloak pulled tight around me, I was warm enough. The ship rocked slowly, rising on the incoming tide; I could see the beards of algae on nearby dock pilings lifting and swirling, obscuring the shiny black patches of mussels between them.
The thought of mussels reminded me of the steamed mussels with butter I had had for dinner the night before, and I was suddenly starving. The absurd contrasts of pregnancy seemed to keep me always conscious of my digestion; if I wasn’t vomiting, I was ravenously hungry. The thought of food led me to the thought of menus, which led back to a contemplation of the entertaining Jared had mentioned. Dinner parties, hm? It seemed an odd way to begin the job of saving Scotland, but then, I couldn’t really think of anything better.
At least if I had Charles Stuart across a dinner table from me, I could keep an eye on him, I thought, smiling to myself at the joke. If he showed signs of hopping a ship for Scotland, maybe I could slip something into his soup.
Perhaps that wasn’t so funny, after all. The thought reminded me of Geillis Duncan, and my smile faded. Wife of the procurator fiscal in Cranesmuir, she had murdered her husband by dropping powdered cyanide into his food at a banquet. Accused as a witch soon afterward, she had been arrested while I was with her, and I had been taken to trial myself; a trial from which Jamie had rescued me. The memories of several days spent in the cold dark of the thieves’ hole at Cranesmuir were all too fresh, and the wind seemed suddenly very cold.
I shivered, but not altogether from chill. I could not think of Geillis Duncan without that cold finger down my spine. Not so much because of what she had done, but because of who she had been. A Jacobite, too; one whose support of the Stuart cause had been more than slightly tinged with madness. Worse than that, she was what I was—a traveler through the standing stones.
I didn’t know whether she had come to the past as I had, by accident, or whether her journey had been deliberate. Neither did I know precisely where she had come from. But my last vision of her, screaming defiance at the judges who would condemn her to burn, was of a tall, fair woman, arms stretched high, showing on one arm the telltale round of a vaccination scar. I felt automatically for the small patch of roughened skin on my own upper arm, beneath the comforting folds of my cloak, and shuddered when I found it.
AN INTERVIEW WITH DIANA GABALDON
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
Readers’ Guide to Outlander
Catherine MacGregor
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?
