By Hannah L.
To read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and learn that it was the author's debut novel came as quite the shock. The clarity and vividness in which Gabaldon writes is simply enthralling. Gabaldon has mastered the art of dragging her readers in with lovely description and keeping them there with addictingly life-like characters. Even without the unique and heart-stopping storyline, the magnetic pull of the personalities within can be felt through the pages.
Claire Randall, a newly-retired World War II nurse, is in the Highlands of Scotland on her second honeymoon with her husband, Frank, trying to reignite the flame of romance lost in the war. All goes well until Claire stumbles into a circle of standing stones and subsequently stumbles back through time—stumbles 200 years into the past, to 1743 Scotland. Claire tries desperately to return back to 1945 and Frank, but is entangled in the politics, trickery, danger, drama, and surprisingly, the romance of 18th century Scotland. As she is pulled deeper into the stolen time, she fears that her old life is slipping further and further away—but becomes unsure if she minds.
Gabaldon's writing is elegantly beautiful, simple but addicting. She is one of very few writers who does not suffer from pleonasm, yet she can bring a whole scene to the mind's eye with only a few sentences. Even more brilliant is her description of emotion. The characters' happiness, sadness, anger, pain, and love is the reader's own.
The pacing is dangerously high-speed, the story never staying in one place for too long. Almost fast enough for the reader to sometimes pity the character for their lack of rest. The journey of the plot, however, is surprisingly realistic, with no emotion borne unfounded and no plot twists that cause a roll of the eyes rather than a hand to the heart. Most valuably, it is evident Gabaldon had done her research before her imagination took hold. The characters, emotion, and story are mixed well with historical fact, bringing long-forgotten people, places, and politics roaring back to life.
One of the best parts of he novel must be the protagonist herself. Claire is exceptionally brilliant, beautiful, quick-thinking, and hilarious—as well as imperfect. She is not a perfect heroine but that is what makes her so relatable. Her basic humanness is what attaches the reader to her so securely and what compels the reader to keep turning the pages, one after the other.
The creativity that Gabaldon presents with such skill in her first novel is simply inspiring and shall forever be my first and favorite defense against those that say romantic fiction is cheap writing. Even without the romance, the characters firmly pull you into their affairs with no escape. With the romance, however, the description of a love that crosses centuries grips the reader like nothing else.
If there's one thing I would warn Gabaldon about, it would be about carefully pulling in those doubtful readers who are not yet aware of the potential laying within these pages. I nearly set the book down the first time I read it, after only three pages of a dreadfully long description of a dreary morning in Scotland and a vase in a window-shop, for example. I'm afraid passages like that might frighten off some readers, but I encourage anyone who encounters something of that ilk to trudge through, and get as much out of it as possible, for infinite reward.
Would I recommend a friend to read this book, and the rest of the series?
Short answer: Heck yeah.
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