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A review by ladyk23
Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
4.0
Much like when I re-read the first and second Outlander books this year, this was again my second read through of the third Outlander book – having listened to all eight of the main books on Audible last year. However, as I’m continuing these reads for book club I wanted to read the physical copy of the book that I had, and as it worked so well with book one and two I opted to listen along to the Audible narration as I went.
As I found with book two, it took me a lot longer to read the book physically than it did when I initially just listened to the audiobook – which took me five days. This time it took me nearly three months.
Admittedly, I was on holiday for a week of that and didn’t get much reading done while I was away (which put me behind starting book four), but as I was in Scotland doing an Outlander tour I think I can forgive myself that little break from the reading schedule. Having said that, my holiday was at the start of July and it’s taken me until last week, the end of August to catch up to my book club's reading schedule. So that’s not good!
But anyway, we’re here to talk about book three, not book four, not yet anyway.
One thing I mentioned I didn’t like about book two was that for a lot of it, it felt like Jamie and Claire weren’t really on the same page, and so even though they were physically together, they felt apart. And when Jamie and Claire weren’t together, the book just wasn’t enjoyable. Weirdly, and probably for the better, I didn’t feel like that at all with Voyager.
The first 23 chapters of Voyager have Claire and Jamie apart. Not just feeling apart, but actually apart. They’re separated by 200 years, and for a period of 20 years, so I guess 20+ chapters follows that in terms of feeling like they are apart for a while. And I have to say, I loved these chapters. Maybe not all of them, I think we can all do without reading about Jamie being raped again (and somehow also being the one who rapes at the same time – that’s a real brain twister Diana even for you), and I for one could live the rest of my life without reading about Frank the gaslighting cheater ever again. But despite all of this, and the fact that our central couple are not together, I still really enjoyed the first quarter of this mammoth book.
Of course, once Jamie and Claire are re-united that’s when things really kick off in terms of the action, but those 20 years were interesting, character building, and allowed us to meet some new people too. Namely, Joe Abernathy, and Lord John Grey – who we meet briefly as a teen in book two but who now comes back into the story as the governor of Ardsmuir Prison, where Jamie is serving his sentence for his role in helping the Jacobites try to win their war.
Joe and John are two of my favourite Outlander characters period, never mind favourite in this book. Joe is the only black man learning how to become a surgeon in the 20th century, at the same time as Claire is the only woman learning how to do the same thing. So of course they gravitate towards one-another. I still recall the moment in the show when Joe asked Claire “Is this seat taken?” And I immediately said out loud “oh please become best friends!” I just love him. He’s such a great character.
And a total contrast to Lord John back in the 18th Century, who is well and truly in the closet, in love with Jamie – a man who could never feel that way for another man since he was brutally raped by Black Jack Randall (not that Lord John knows this of course) – and who is forced into the position of governor to cover up a “near-scandal”. I think you may find out what this “near-scandal” was in the Lord John series but I haven’t read all of them yet and if it’s covered in one I have read I can’t recall what it is. Either way, he doesn’t want to be there, and then to make matters worse, the man he’s in love with is not only one of his prisoners, he’s their leader.
Jamie is always leading men, whether it be in battle, as laird of his estate, or in this case, as a man willing to speak up on their behalf, so it’s not surprising that we see Jamie in this position within the prison hierarchy. But it does make things a trifle more difficult for poor Lord John. What’s nice is that he is able to forge a friendship with Jamie, and one that I am happy to report is continuing into book four of the series – as I just passed a chapter where Lord John makes an appearance.
Once all of this wonderful set up is sufficiently dealt with however, Claire discovers Jamie is still alive, and with a very big push from her grown up daughter Brianna, she decides to go back through to stones at Craig na Dun to find him. Here, as I mentioned, is where things really start to heat up.
There is a passionate reunion, pirates, kidnapping, the high seas, plague, more kidnapping, escapes, being stranded on desert islands, another reunion, a wedding, several other reunions, discovery of a plot to commit murder, an actual murder, and another reunion, all before this book is done. And all of this is just stuff happening to the main characters, I haven’t even mentioned the numerous side plots involving the Edinburgh fiend, a woman with an uncanny ability to see the future, a priest who lives on an island with his very odd mother-in-law and a coconut, and a tea party with a crocodile. This book really does have it all.
Unfortunately, along with all this high drama and adventure, there are problematic areas too. First and foremost is the caricature-isation of Yi Tien Cho – aka Mr Willoughby. Oh gosh it’s so problematic. My very talented friend Cass wrote a wonderful blog about Character and Cultural Criticism which goes into the issues with the way not only Yi Tien Cho is written, but how other characters in the book are written when they interact with him. I definitely could not put it better than she did and since I cannot link to her article here I will just say to search Rewatch Blog if you’d like to read it. I agree wholeheartedly with Cass that some things in historical fiction are written simply because they are accurate to the time, and not because they are relevant to the story. And I will leave it at that.
Moving on to problematic area number two. Which similarly to the first problematic area, is also very much accurate to the time, and even in some ways is relevant to the story, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult to read about; and that is all of the stuff around slavery, owning people, and just how people of colour were generally treated during this time period. As I mentioned already, one of my favourite characters in the whole Outlander series is a black man – Joe Abernathy – and so reading the chapters that focus heavily on slavery were not a pleasant read. I’m not saying that Diana intended it to be pleasant reading, I’m sure she wanted to shed light on how things were back then for people of colour, but yeah, it’s a problematic subject matter to say the least.
And of course, it wouldn’t be Outlander without a few rapes thrown in for good measure would it? *insert eye roll emoji* One of these days I am hopeful to read an Outlander book that has no rapes. But as yet, it has not happened. Again, it’s massively problematic to read about, it’s not necessary to the plot (as in other things could have transpired instead of a rape to get certain plots moving), and it has already happened too many times over the course of this story. I’ll step down from my soapbox now.
Problematic areas aside, there was a lot I still loved about this book. Namely our central couple, but also Fergus and Marsali (although I prefer their relationship in the show when she is a more appropriate age to be with a man who is 30), Joe, Lord John, Young Ian, Elias Pound, Annekje Johansen, and Lawrence Stern who I am sad was left out of the show entirely, as I thoroughly enjoyed his character. The settings are gorgeously evocative, going from the Scottish highlands, to Boston in the 40s/50s/60s, to the high seas, to Jamaica, and finally ending in the new world. There is so much adventure in this one, I think possibly the most adventure in any of the Outlander novels. But I can’t overlook the problems just because for the most part I did enjoy the book.
As such, I have taken a star off the rating I initially gave the book last year – when I was a bit blinded by the love I had for discovering the series. I’m being more objectionable on my re-reads, and not glossing over things I don’t like in them just because they rocked my world this time last year. No book or series of books is perfect, even if it did kinda save my life last year, the re-read, and the subsequent reviews are about me being honest in my findings.
I’m currently about 2/3 of the way through the next Outlander book Drums of Autumn, and must admit that I am loving it a lot more than I remember doing on my first read of it last year (I remember finding 4 through 6 a bit of a slog), so my thoughts on that will follow in due course. In the mean time, thank you as ever for sticking with me through my rambling review, and if you missed my thoughts on book one or two you can catch up with those on my Goodreads.
As I found with book two, it took me a lot longer to read the book physically than it did when I initially just listened to the audiobook – which took me five days. This time it took me nearly three months.
Admittedly, I was on holiday for a week of that and didn’t get much reading done while I was away (which put me behind starting book four), but as I was in Scotland doing an Outlander tour I think I can forgive myself that little break from the reading schedule. Having said that, my holiday was at the start of July and it’s taken me until last week, the end of August to catch up to my book club's reading schedule. So that’s not good!
But anyway, we’re here to talk about book three, not book four, not yet anyway.
One thing I mentioned I didn’t like about book two was that for a lot of it, it felt like Jamie and Claire weren’t really on the same page, and so even though they were physically together, they felt apart. And when Jamie and Claire weren’t together, the book just wasn’t enjoyable. Weirdly, and probably for the better, I didn’t feel like that at all with Voyager.
The first 23 chapters of Voyager have Claire and Jamie apart. Not just feeling apart, but actually apart. They’re separated by 200 years, and for a period of 20 years, so I guess 20+ chapters follows that in terms of feeling like they are apart for a while. And I have to say, I loved these chapters. Maybe not all of them, I think we can all do without reading about Jamie being raped again (and somehow also being the one who rapes at the same time – that’s a real brain twister Diana even for you), and I for one could live the rest of my life without reading about Frank the gaslighting cheater ever again. But despite all of this, and the fact that our central couple are not together, I still really enjoyed the first quarter of this mammoth book.
Of course, once Jamie and Claire are re-united that’s when things really kick off in terms of the action, but those 20 years were interesting, character building, and allowed us to meet some new people too. Namely, Joe Abernathy, and Lord John Grey – who we meet briefly as a teen in book two but who now comes back into the story as the governor of Ardsmuir Prison, where Jamie is serving his sentence for his role in helping the Jacobites try to win their war.
Joe and John are two of my favourite Outlander characters period, never mind favourite in this book. Joe is the only black man learning how to become a surgeon in the 20th century, at the same time as Claire is the only woman learning how to do the same thing. So of course they gravitate towards one-another. I still recall the moment in the show when Joe asked Claire “Is this seat taken?” And I immediately said out loud “oh please become best friends!” I just love him. He’s such a great character.
And a total contrast to Lord John back in the 18th Century, who is well and truly in the closet, in love with Jamie – a man who could never feel that way for another man since he was brutally raped by Black Jack Randall (not that Lord John knows this of course) – and who is forced into the position of governor to cover up a “near-scandal”. I think you may find out what this “near-scandal” was in the Lord John series but I haven’t read all of them yet and if it’s covered in one I have read I can’t recall what it is. Either way, he doesn’t want to be there, and then to make matters worse, the man he’s in love with is not only one of his prisoners, he’s their leader.
Jamie is always leading men, whether it be in battle, as laird of his estate, or in this case, as a man willing to speak up on their behalf, so it’s not surprising that we see Jamie in this position within the prison hierarchy. But it does make things a trifle more difficult for poor Lord John. What’s nice is that he is able to forge a friendship with Jamie, and one that I am happy to report is continuing into book four of the series – as I just passed a chapter where Lord John makes an appearance.
Once all of this wonderful set up is sufficiently dealt with however, Claire discovers Jamie is still alive, and with a very big push from her grown up daughter Brianna, she decides to go back through to stones at Craig na Dun to find him. Here, as I mentioned, is where things really start to heat up.
There is a passionate reunion, pirates, kidnapping, the high seas, plague, more kidnapping, escapes, being stranded on desert islands, another reunion, a wedding, several other reunions, discovery of a plot to commit murder, an actual murder, and another reunion, all before this book is done. And all of this is just stuff happening to the main characters, I haven’t even mentioned the numerous side plots involving the Edinburgh fiend, a woman with an uncanny ability to see the future, a priest who lives on an island with his very odd mother-in-law and a coconut, and a tea party with a crocodile. This book really does have it all.
Unfortunately, along with all this high drama and adventure, there are problematic areas too. First and foremost is the caricature-isation of Yi Tien Cho – aka Mr Willoughby. Oh gosh it’s so problematic. My very talented friend Cass wrote a wonderful blog about Character and Cultural Criticism which goes into the issues with the way not only Yi Tien Cho is written, but how other characters in the book are written when they interact with him. I definitely could not put it better than she did and since I cannot link to her article here I will just say to search Rewatch Blog if you’d like to read it. I agree wholeheartedly with Cass that some things in historical fiction are written simply because they are accurate to the time, and not because they are relevant to the story. And I will leave it at that.
Moving on to problematic area number two. Which similarly to the first problematic area, is also very much accurate to the time, and even in some ways is relevant to the story, but that doesn’t make it any less difficult to read about; and that is all of the stuff around slavery, owning people, and just how people of colour were generally treated during this time period. As I mentioned already, one of my favourite characters in the whole Outlander series is a black man – Joe Abernathy – and so reading the chapters that focus heavily on slavery were not a pleasant read. I’m not saying that Diana intended it to be pleasant reading, I’m sure she wanted to shed light on how things were back then for people of colour, but yeah, it’s a problematic subject matter to say the least.
And of course, it wouldn’t be Outlander without a few rapes thrown in for good measure would it? *insert eye roll emoji* One of these days I am hopeful to read an Outlander book that has no rapes. But as yet, it has not happened. Again, it’s massively problematic to read about, it’s not necessary to the plot (as in other things could have transpired instead of a rape to get certain plots moving), and it has already happened too many times over the course of this story. I’ll step down from my soapbox now.
Problematic areas aside, there was a lot I still loved about this book. Namely our central couple, but also Fergus and Marsali (although I prefer their relationship in the show when she is a more appropriate age to be with a man who is 30), Joe, Lord John, Young Ian, Elias Pound, Annekje Johansen, and Lawrence Stern who I am sad was left out of the show entirely, as I thoroughly enjoyed his character. The settings are gorgeously evocative, going from the Scottish highlands, to Boston in the 40s/50s/60s, to the high seas, to Jamaica, and finally ending in the new world. There is so much adventure in this one, I think possibly the most adventure in any of the Outlander novels. But I can’t overlook the problems just because for the most part I did enjoy the book.
As such, I have taken a star off the rating I initially gave the book last year – when I was a bit blinded by the love I had for discovering the series. I’m being more objectionable on my re-reads, and not glossing over things I don’t like in them just because they rocked my world this time last year. No book or series of books is perfect, even if it did kinda save my life last year, the re-read, and the subsequent reviews are about me being honest in my findings.
I’m currently about 2/3 of the way through the next Outlander book Drums of Autumn, and must admit that I am loving it a lot more than I remember doing on my first read of it last year (I remember finding 4 through 6 a bit of a slog), so my thoughts on that will follow in due course. In the mean time, thank you as ever for sticking with me through my rambling review, and if you missed my thoughts on book one or two you can catch up with those on my Goodreads.