Voyager: Dual Nature (A Literacy Moment)

The civilization-nature dichotomy is strong in the early chapters of the book.  Jamie has a heightened awareness of his dual nature--or perhaps even a tripartite nature: physical, spiritual, and intellectual.  Living in nature, knowing himself to be dependent on nature, he hunts like a pagan, feeling himself part of the legendary hunt:

The moon cast his shadow on a rock, humped and fantastic, as he made his slow, ungainly way down the hill. The deer’s antlers bobbed above his shoulder, giving him in shadowed profile the semblance of a horned man. He shivered slightly at the thought, remembering tales of witches’ sabbats, where the Horned One came, to drink the sacrifice of goat’s or rooster’s blood. (57)

The figure of the horned man was a fertility symbol--appropriate because of Jamie's hunting and provision, but ironic because of his then-celibacy.  As an additional layer of wildness-civilization imagery, we have day and night, light and dark:

He felt a little queasy, and more than a little light-headed. More and more, he felt the disorientation, the fragmenting of himself between day and night. By day, he was a creature of the mind alone, as he escaped his damp immobility by a stubborn, disciplined retreat into the avenues of thought and meditation, seeking refuge in the pages of books. (57)

Thought there is no mention of Greek myth, it is nevertheless very Apollonian for Jamie to be rational and intellectual in the daytime, which is "ruled" by the sun, and Apollo.  Given the associations between Ancient Greece and rationality and learning, this is perhaps not a far-fetched interpretation.

Not to be missed, here, is the literacy moment.  By day, Jamie "seek[s] refuge in the pages of books."  In Dragonfly, Jenny uses her literacy to allow her mind the freedom to roam while her body performed necessary tasks; here, Jamie uses literacy as a refuge--not simply an escape, but a place of safety and protection.  Literacy allows him to cope.

The precise nature of this coping, and of this reading material, becomes clear with the highlighted reading material.  Though it is not the only book he will have during his cave-dwelling, he is, in fact, reading (and, it turns out, internalizing) Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719.  In Robinson Crusoe, Jamie can seek refuge--escape, but also safety, and coping--given that his own isolated situation is very like a shipwreck:

The wind had been blowing downwind from the cave, and he had no expectation of seeing deer. He had been lying on the ground just within the cave entrance, where enough light filtered through the overhanging screen of gorse and rowan for him to read on fine days. There were not a great many books, but Jared managed still to smuggle a few with his gifts from France. 

This violent rain forced me to a new work, viz., to cut a hole through my new fortification, like a sink, to let the water go out, which would else have drowned my cave. After I had been in my cave some time, and found still no more shocks of the earthquake follow, I began to be more composed; and now, to support my spirits, which indeed wanted it very much, I went to my little store and took a small sup of rum, which however, I did then and always very sparingly, knowing I could have no more when that was gone. 

It continued raining all that night, and great part of the next day, so that I could not stir abroad; but my mind being more composed, I began to think  … 

The shadows across the page moved as the bushes above him stirred. Instincts attuned, he caught the shift of the wind at once— and on it, the sound of voices. (80-81)

Another remarkable literacy moment--however sharpened Jamie's senses, it is the movement of shadow across the book that first alterts Jamie to the presence of English soldiers.  He faces the cave entrance for light by which to read, and intently focuses his attention on the page.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

New Literacy-chic Blog (Cross-posted at Words, Words)

I wanted to  mention that with my blogging taking a more professional-personal slant, I have fragmented still further to create another blog, Teaching, Training, Blogging. The new blog is a bit shakier--I am not sure how much material I will have for posts, or how regularly I will post. With a book blog, it is easy--if I need material, I read another book.  The new blog will be notes on my current job as a software trainer, submerged in professional and organizational development techniques and lingo, and how insights from my current job could potentially influence undergraduate education.  I have a few good ideas to start out with, and after that... who knows?  I know I will be discussing the following topics:

• Classroom communication
• Composition and REALLY using computers/software
• Rhetoric and Communication Styles
• Personality-type reflections
• Collaborative course guidelines/class rules

And hopefully, more things will present themselves so that I don't have to feel guilty about cluttering up the internet.  Yes, this is something I think about!  

Voyager: Chivalry, Body Hair, and Civilization

In isolated moments in the narrative, the contrast between civilization and a sort of "state of nature" (but not really) is thrown into relief.  It is not a true state of nature, because while Jamie is living outside of civilization, and in nature, civilization still exists, and he is aware of it, and how he has been shaped by it.  Also, there are no Others in Jamie's uncivilized state to compete for resources and cause the conflicts that necessitate the formation of government.  Indeed, it is the unjust tyranny of a foreign government after Culloden that leads to Jamie's retreat into nature.

If it is not the State of Nature, Jamie's living arrangements are somewhat Purgatorial.  He is living in a cave, reminiscent of a desert hermit--isolated, celibate, unshaven, practicing secular reading and meditation.  However, rather than becoming closer to God, in the manner of a Christian saint, Jamie becomes closer to Celtic pagan Nature:

He pulled the dirk from his belt and knelt by the deer, hastily saying the words of the gralloch prayer. Old John Murray, Ian’s father, had taught him. His own father’s mouth had twisted slightly, hearing it, from which he gathered that this prayer was perhaps not addressed to the same God they spoke to in church on Sunday. But his father had said nothing, and he had mumbled the words himself, scarcely noticing what he said, in the nervous excitement of feeling old John’s hand, steady on his own, for the first time pressing down the knife blade into hairy hide and steaming flesh. (56)

In keeping with the Purgatorial theme, this is, in fact, a prayer, though a pagan one.  The mouth twist from Jamie's father indicates a tension between the Celtic prayer and the Christian faith of Brian Fraser that is generally absent, but which is appropriate in this context, when Jamie's removal from civilization threatens to overwhelm him.  The suggestion that Christianity is a "civilized" religion that ceases to exist, somehow, in the wild is a thread that will reemerge in America, in future books.

That the presence of others is the key to civilization becomes explicit:

It was only as the lights of Lallybroch manor came into view that he felt at last the mantle of humanity fall upon him, and mind and body joined as one again as he prepared himself to greet his family. (58)

Part of this transformation into a civilized man--a ritual of his "return to civilization"--is the act of shaving.  When he enters the house, and begins to shave his full beard--a month's growth--the boys in the household gather to watch, anticipating their own rite of passage to adulthood within civilization.  When Jamie describes shaving as "one of the plagues of Adam," the boys begin to speculate on the removal of the various hair that signifies adulthood:

     “But what about the other hair?” Rabbie demanded. “Ye dinna shave there!” Young Jamie giggled at the thought, going red again.
     “And a damn good thing, too,” his elder namesake observed. “Ye’d need the devil of a steady hand. No need of a looking glass, though,” he added, to a chorus of giggles. (54)

When Fergus mentions women's body hair, Jamie jests,

     “Oh, well, that’s no a curse,” he told his rapt audience, picking up the basin and tossing the contents neatly through the open window. “God gave that as a consolation to man. If ye’ve ever the privilege of seeing a woman in her skin, gentlemen,” he said, looking over his shoulder toward the door and lowering his voice confidentially, “ye’ll observe that the hair there grows in the shape of an arrow— pointing the way, ye ken, so as a poor ignorant man can find his way safe home.”  (54)

In this passage is an echo of man's desire to return to the womb--albeit couched in a bawdy joke.  However, Jamie regrets his unchivalrous words quickly:

     He turned grandly away from the guffawing and sniggers behind him, to be struck suddenly with shame as he saw his sister, coming down the hall with the slow, waddling stride of advanced pregnancy. She was holding the tray with his supper on top of her swelling stomach. How could he have demeaned her so, for a crude jest and the sake of a moment’s camaraderie with the boys?

     “Be still!” he had snapped at the boys, who stopped giggling abruptly and stared at him in puzzlement. He hastened forward to take the tray from Jenny and set it on the table. (54-55)

It is a symptom of his living apart from civilization that he stoops to make unchivalrous jokes to the young boys of whom his sister has custody, and he realizes both his misstep in demeaning her, and the cause--his desire for companionship.

This moment of realization and compensation for unchivalrous words demonstrates again that 18th Century code of honor, contrasting with the 20th Century doctor's attitude toward Claire, and insinuations about her marital sexuality.  To demean women is, for Jamie, to be uncivilized and ungracious, in spite of--and perhaps because of--the difficult burdens that Jenny--a sort of ideal everywoman of the 18th C--has to bear.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Reading The Awakening Wrong**

I've always hated Kate Chopin's The Awakening, ever since it was forced upon us in high school.  When, as a 19-year-old college senior, 8 months pregnant, I was designated in my Literary Criticism  class to read aloud the Marxist feminist essay on The Awakening that argued that motherhood rendered a woman's life meaningless, I was amused, but not more inclined to like the tale.  I have not quite decided to reread it, as I am still inclined to think that trotting out The Awakening as a long-lost, long-forgotten classic that was suppressed because of the patriarchal slant of the canon was bona fide First- or Second Wave feminist nonsense, but as I was turning it over in my mind today, I decided to jot down a few thoughts.

While it may seem like a drastic departure from the Outlander series, I'm not sure that it wasn't, in fact, Outlander that brought it to mind.  Or at least, it was Outlander with its discourses on gender, sexuality, and motherhood, combined with my own thoughts on those very same subjects--which happen, actually, to be some of my very favorite subjects, just not as they are usually treated by literary critics and gender theorists.  My own model of literary criticism would take as a starting point the reader's reactions and the connections that proceed from those reactions, rather than taking as a starting point some external point of reference, like Marx (for an easy example).  It is entirely possible that Marx might become relevant (though usually not here), and certainly external theorists, philosophers, and critics--many more (and many more classical and Enlightenment philosophers) than exist in the current canon in the humanities--should be available as a point of reference.  But in order for the writer to be truly invested in the analysis, in order to be writing something that is, for her, meaningful, and in order for the result to have originality and resonance, the initial spark should be at least somewhat personal.  This is why student papers on "Good and Evil in XY Literary Work" will always be doomed to failure (well, one reason)--lack of personal investment.  (The same can be said about hot topics in composition courses.  Because really?  They don't have much invested in a paper about lowering the drinking age, even if they think they do.)  It is the original combination of influences, experiences, and knowledge that shape an original critic.

So I found myself thinking about motherhood.  And thinking about my recent posts, here and here, about women in some stage of becoming mothers claiming the child as their own, I realized--this is a necessary step in becoming a mother.  It is, in some ways, a sign of the maturity and capacity to mother a child.  It is--at least in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager--an Awakening.  But it is clearly a step that is missing from Chopin's Awakening.

So I thought to myself, perhaps that's the point.  Perhaps the feminist icon Edna Pontellier was not a model of subversion and rebellion.  Certainly, she achieves self-negation rather than succumbing to the role of mother.  But is this the result of a deep character flaw, or a nobility of cause and purpose?  She is petulant.  She is childish.  She is weak.  She is hardly an admirable character.  And yet I remember having the distinct impression that her act of self-negation, because it was rebellion against the only possible role available to her as a woman, was a noble act.  Is it any wonder I regarded the work with disgust?  I do remember asking how her original audience received the story.  I'm not sure my teacher in high school new the answer--and when I was in college, my questions about reception were automatically dismissed as irrelevant.  I believe that Chopin was popular--it's one of the arguments for retaining her in the revised canon (If she was relevant in her own time, why have we dismissed her? Because she's a woman?  And yet, Tolkien is often considered unworthy of graduate study because he is popular, as when a course on his novels was proposed in my degree-granting department.)

Thinking further about Pontellier, though, I remember how she was set up against Adèle Ratignolle, the epitome of perfect, devoted motherhood.  While I find Edna repugnant, Adèle is not a suitable alternative, because to be held up to such a model of perfection could make any woman feel that self-annihilation is preferable to 1) that model of motherhood, or 2) trying to live up to that model while knowing the impossibility of achieving it.

I couldn't help visualizing this New Yorker cover, with its take on women and identity.

It seems that every model of womanhood in The Awakening is impossible, or imperfect, or undesirable, and perhaps that is more to the point than the claim that motherhood negates one's identity.  Edna Pontellier did not have an identity.  She looked for one in the women she knew, and she looked for one as a lover of the men she knew, and she was unable to find anything to fill her own void.  Rather, she becomes aware of herself as the Self that cannot be signified (a reference to Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy).  She cannot identify herself except with reference to others, and finds, finally, that her self does not exist, and yields to non-existence.  I find this slightly more interesting, but I still find Edna Pontellier to be a waste of a significant chunk of novella.

As it reflects on motherhood, though--it is her failure as a mother to claim her children that seems significant.  I have written papers (in grad school) about the need for the postfeminist woman to come to terms with fertility, and the choice to--or not to--mother.  But women constantly have choices put before them regarding their fertility, though they are not discussed as such. The "choice" that is commonly evoked with reference to women's fertility is, in fact, and act of violence that negates that fertility.  The choice that Edna never makes is the choice to claim her children as her own.  And it is only when she makes that choice that she can construct an identity that includes the act of mothering, even if her identity is not limited to Mother.

**I leave it open whether I am reading it wrong--intentionally against the grain--or whether I think that the feminist readings I was taught were wrong.  At the end of the day, I am not, in fact, committed to the text, though I am invested in the ideas of motherhood, choice (no, not that kind of choice!), and identity.

Time-Traveler as "Other"?

One of the interesting ideas that surfaces when Claire is back in the 20th C is the "difference" of the time traveler.  Before Dragonfly in Amber, the only other time traveler besides Claire is Geilie Duncan--late of 1968.  She and Claire recognize each other by means of their vaccination scars.  In Dragonfly, two others with time travel potential are added to the roster, notably Claire's daughter Brianna.

Brianna is striking, first and foremost, because of her physical appearance, which strongly favors her 18th Century father, Jamie.  When the narrative describes Brianna, most often through the consciousness of Roger Wakefield, her strangeness is emphasized--she is savage, and timeless, and Other.  The timeless quality is particularly interesting, since Brianna is a 20th Century/18th Century hybrid who carries forward a lineage that otherwise had died out in the 19th Century (Voyager ).

But Brianna is characterized by something a bit less visible--her immediacy:

She and her mother both gave that odd impression of having been outlined somehow, drawn with such vivid strokes that they stood out from their background as though they'd been engraved on it.  But Brianna had that brilliant coloring, and that air of absolute physical presence that made Bronzino's sitters seem to follow you with their eyes, to be about to speak from their frames. (Dragonfly 16)

Compared to Claire and Brianna, the 20th C is muted, somehow.  Here, Claire shares in the strangeness--either because she has experienced the 18th Century, which, as emphasized by the contrasts between 20th Century and 18th Century men in particular, is more vital, or because this immediacy is a characteristic of a time traveler.

When I read this, my initial reaction is to think--a man comparing a woman to a painting.  How cliché.  So cliché that it was an indictment of Gabriel Conroy's pretention and lack of imagination in "The Dead" by Joyce.  And it might be that this reflects badly on Roger's imagination.  But what about this particular 16th Century painter?  A quick Google search points to the likely image:  Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi.  She is Italian, not Scots, but here is as long and straight a nose as one could wish, red hair, brilliant coloring, and that sense that she will "follow you with [her] eyes, [and] be about to speak from [her] frame." From the metaphor, the reader is asked to take away a few crucial details:  that "they stood out from their background," and that Brianna has an air of "absolute physical presence" that is not characteristic of her 20th Century background.

In an ironic gesture, Roger realizes Brianna's Scots savagery as she defends Frank Randall as the father of her body as well as her heart:

The girl that stood on the hearthrug, hissing and spitting in defense of her paternity, flamed with the wild strength that had brought the Highland warriors down on their enemies like shrieking banshees.  Her long, straight nose lengthened sill further by the shadows, eyes slitted like a snarling cat's, she was the image of her father--and her father was patently not the dark, quiet scholar whose photo adorned the jacket of the book on the table. (Dragonfly 898)

Certainly Brianna's difference is related to her real parentage--an 18th Century Highland warrior rather than a 20th Century English scholar.  But these descriptions that single out Brianna for her difference also tap into the question of why some people are time travelers and some aren't.  In Voyager, Geilie posits an answer-- that time travelers have the ability to travel through time so that they can change things.  Her own insanity--which undermines her credibility--and Claire's experience suggest otherwise.

But descriptions of Brianna tap into what the essence of the difference is.  Heredity is a factor.  But time travelers are. . . well. . . timeless.  Like a painting, or an illuminated manuscript:

     Fiona laughed up at Brianna, who towered over the small Scottish girl by nearly a foot. Fiona was nineteen, prettily charming and slightly plump; next to her, Brianna looked like a medieval carving, strong-boned and severe. With her long, straight nose and the long hair glowing red-gold beneath the glass bowl of the ceiling fixture, she might have walked out of an illuminated manuscript, vivid enough to endure a thousand years unchanged. 

    Roger was suddenly conscious of Claire Randall, standing near his elbow. She was looking at her daughter, with an expression in which love, pride, and something else were mingled— memory, perhaps? He realized, with a slight shock, that Jamie Fraser too must have had not only the striking height and Viking red hair he had bequeathed to his daughter, but likely the same sheer physical presence. 

    It was quite remarkable, he thought. She didn’t do or say anything so out of the ordinary, and yet Brianna undeniably drew people. There was some attraction about her, almost magnetic, that drew everyone near into the glow of her orbit. (Voyager 43)

Brianna has Jamie's charisma, but more than that, she demonstrates that time travelers are different--timeless--and gives further evidence that something important--vital, "vivid"--is missing from the 20th Century that did (or does) exist in the 18th.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) (p. 43). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Voyager: To Suckle, and Return to the Womb (Updated)

Not every post will relate to the Purgatorial theme.  Because certainly not every moment in the book evokes anything like Purgatory--even when Claire's absence from Jamie deprives her of light, she must continue her life with Frank.  And as they are husband and wife, there will be husband-and-wife moments, albeit not many.

The one truly erotic moment between Claire and Frank post-Jaime is one that is intimately bound to Claire's fertility--her motherhood--and it is a scene to which the books have been building since Outlander.  It begins with what is a very normal situation for a breastfeeding mother--the baby wakes, nurses on only one side, and then falls into a deep sleep, leaving the mother feeling engorged and, well--lopsided.  Claire is prepared to pump to relieve pressure, but Frank has other ideas... er, impulses:

Instead of leaving or answering, he took the pump from my hand and laid it down on the table. As though it moved of its own will, without direction from him, his hand rose slowly through the warm, dark air of the nursery and cupped itself gently around the swollen curve of my breast. 

His head bowed and his lips fastened softly on my nipple. I groaned, feeling the half-painful prickle of the milk rushing through the tiny ducts. I put a hand behind his head, and pressed him slightly closer. 

“Harder,” I whispered. His mouth was soft, gentle in its pressure, nothing like the relentless grasp of a baby’s hard, toothless gums, that fasten on like grim death, demanding and draining, releasing the bounteous fountain at once in response to their greed. Frank knelt before me, his mouth a supplicant. Was this how God felt, I wondered, seeing the adorers before Him—was He, too, filled with tenderness and pity? The haze of fatigue made me feel as though everything happened in slow motion, as though we were under water. 

Frank’s hands moved slowly as sea fronds, swaying in the current, moving over my flesh with a touch as gentle as the brush of kelp leaves, lifting me with the strength of a wave, and laying me down on the shore of the nursery rug. I closed my eyes, and let the tide carry me away.  (42)

The moment troubles me not because of the nature of the eroticism--I've been on the internet long enough to know that though some men have adverse reactions to their wives breastfeeding, others find partaking of breasts full of milk to be a rare treat.  It does get more bizarre when it becomes a regular husband-wife thing, but I'm not willing to address either extreme in any kind of nonfictional way.  I will say that adult male breastfeeding is not without literary or historical/legendary precedent, though in the case of The Grapes of Wrath and the story of Pero and Cimon, the act is about charity and starvation rather than motherhood and sexuality.

Frank's suckling bothers me for none of these reasons.  Rather, it registers as fetishism and objectification because his desire for Claire--and worship at her breast when the narrative picks up the thread of Adoration for one single, misplaced moment--seems indistinguishable from his desire for other women.  His desire perhaps derives from her mothering of Brianna, whom he has claimed as his own, but certainly taps into the primal instinct that men have (the novels argue) to turn to their wives as a way of returning to the womb.

In Outlander, Jamie's sister Jenny posits that men seek to return to the womb, a theory that Jamie and Claire discuss shortly afterward:

     "Do you think Jenny's right?" I asked later.  "Do men really want to come back inside? Is that why you make love to us?" A breath of laughter stirred the hair by my ear.

     "Well, it's no usually the first thing in my mind when I take ye to bed, Sassenach.  Far from it. But then..." [...] "I'd no say she was completely wrong either.  Sometimes... aye, sometimes it would be good, to be inside again, safe and... one.  Knowing we cannot, I suppose, is what makes us want to beget.  If we cannot go back ourselves, the best we can do is to give that precious gift to our sons, at least for a little while..." (Outlander 633)

Desire for the womb becomes a theme that surfaces in Dragonfly and broadens into a nurturing aspect of sexuality that manifests itself again in Dragonfly:

     "Will ye let me do this later?" he murmured, with a soft bite. "When the child's come, and your breasts fill wi' milk?  Will ye feed me, too, next to your heart?" 

     I clasped his head and cradled it, fingers deep in the baby-soft hair that grew thick at the base of his skull. 

     "Always," I whispered. (Dragonfly 249-50)

In fact, though I seem to have lost the scene--or haven't stumbled upon it again--it seems that Jamie dreamed of suckling at Claire's breast just as Frank did...  And this is strange because there is a dual link  (a somewhat disturbing one) between Frank and  Jamie--Claire, and also Jack Randall.  So when Jamie vicariously experiences Frank's erotic encounter with Claire, well... it is an odd moment, to say the least.

And again, the connection between the powerful emotional and physical bonding of sex, and the physical intimacy of mother and unborn child become conflated:

And when I had at length taken my last revenge of him, I did cradle him, stroking back the roughened, half-dry locks. 

"And sometimes," I whispered to him, "I wish it could be you inside me. That I could take you into me and keep you safe always." 

His hand, large and warm, lifted slowly from the bed and cupped the small round swell of my belly, sheltering and caressing. 

"You do, my own," he said. "You do," (Dragonfly 312)

With Jamie, each of these moments carries a tenderness--a quality of bonding, in which Claire's nurturing is appreciated, and Jamie's innocence, or the tragic impossibility of his innocence, becomes manifest.  The actual scene of suckling--with Frank--while it carries a tenderness of sorts, does seem to carry more eroticism and less emotion because of the missing bond.  What should exist between Claire and Frank is defective, and the act, if not precisely perverse, seems a violation of sorts, even if consensual.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) (p. 42). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Addendum:

It is when Jamie is in Ardsmuir Prison that he dreams of suckling from Claire's breast, as Frank has done:

Then her breast pressed against his mouth, and he took it eagerly, drawing her body tight against him as he suckled her. Her milk was hot and sweet, with a faint taste of silver, like a deer’s blood. 

     “Harder,” she whispered to him, and put her hand behind his head, gripping the back of his neck, pressing him to her. “Harder.” 

     She lay at her length upon him, his hands holding for dear life to the sweet flesh of her buttocks, feeling the small solid weight of the child upon his own belly, as though they shared it now, protecting the small round thing between their bodies. (175-176)

The repetition of what Claire did, in fact, say to Frank, suggests that he is participating in some sense in the act.  It is a strange moment because Jamie lingers as a ghost of sorts over Claire's marriage to Frank, and her abandonment in the act rather suggests that Frank's presence--and identity--is somewhat unnecessary, since her real connection is to Jamie.

Another interesting point is that in his dream, Jamie shares in Claire's pregnancy here in a way that he could not in reality.  From the desire to return to the womb, we now have almost a "male womb"--he is able to protect Brianna as if she were in a womb, even though for suckling to occur, Brianna would have been born already.

Notable, too, is the way in which bodily fluids--blood and milk--become conflated.  Claire nourishes Jamie--in spirit--with her body and her (metaphorical) blood.  The reference to Adoration in the scene with Frank suggests a spiritual Communion between Jamie and Claire, though it somehow occurs through the body of Frank, which remains disturbing.  I confess to having a significant dislike for Frank.

Voyager: Adoration

Thinking about Voyager as a Purgatorial novel, while appropriate to Lent, also helps me to bring together the observations I've been making to myself as I read the novel.  While in Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber, there are references to Claire's Catholicism, they are generally dismissive.  Jamie's Catholicism is either part of his naiveté and innocence, or heavily flavored by Celtic paganism.  Jamie's Catholicism becomes somewhat modulated as be loses his innocence, and it always retains that Celtic pagan element.  Claire's Catholicism never becomes anything more than a very casual, occasional marker of her character.  And yet, in Voyager, she engages in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which is one of the more profoundly--perhaps weirdly, certainly mystical--spiritual practices that appear in the novels. It is also one of the most quintessential Catholic spiritual practices in the novels or outside of them, since it is based on theology that the Eucharist is, indeed, the actual, literal, Body of Christ.

Adoration is present in at least two Outlander novels--and I think in all three of the first ones:  Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager.  In Outlander, Claire is introduced to the practice as she hopes for Jamie's healing after profound physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.  The account of Adoration is a rather remarkable one--and certainly rings true for me as someone who has engaged in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  It helps Claire find peace, and there is the hint of an answer to her prayers for Jamie in the stillness of the chapel.

It was a disappointment that there was never more than the hint of religious feeling in Claire following the experience of Adoration.  I was excited when she seemed moved, and thought that there might be some subtle entry of religious feeling--or understanding for Jamie's religious feeling.  Rather, the novels seem to suggest that Claire's personality, ambition, modernism (in the bad sense), upbringing, or carnality are completely incompatible with Christian belief.  Frequently, instead of having the spouses seek perfection together, love for Claire puts Jamie at odds with God (because his love for her is greater than anything--not an uncommon sentiment, and very human) ...except at those moments when his love for her will redeem him, as when he tells Claire at the end of Dragonfly that his love for her will stand as his account of himself before God.

Be that as it may, Adoration appears in Voyager as Claire's escape from Frank--a place she finds peace, but not a place where she goes to pray, per se:

I sat there without moving, watching the flickering glow of the candle flames in the gold surface of the monstrance, until the soft footsteps of the next adorer came down the aisle behind me, ending in the heavy creak of genuflection. They came once each hour, day and night. The Blessed Sacrament was never left alone. (40)

Beyond the peace and stillness, and occasional acknowledgment of a Presence, I wonder what role Adoration has in the Outlander novels.  It seems privileged because of how prominent the scenes of Adoration are--it is impossible to ignore them completely.  They stand out from the narrative as something different.  (Which is as it should be...)  On the other hand, they fail to become thematic (even if, as I propose, Voyager is convincingly Purgatorial).  But neither do they become blended with the pagan forms of spirituality.  In this, at least, Catholicism--Catholic Christianity--is exceptional.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) (p. 40). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition

Voyager: 18th Century Sexuality, 20th Century Sexism

For Valentine's Day: a little meditation on 18th and 20th Century sexuality by way of Voyager....

One of the semi-reactionary threads that runs through the novel is the difference between 18th Century men and 20th Century men--with 18th Century men generally coming out on top (not intending anything off-color).  While rape is rampant, gender roles static, abuse frequent, prostitution commonplace, and marriage often miserable, nevertheless the novels come back time and again to the idea that men respect and protect women in a way that is qualitatively different in the 18th Century, even though they are, in fact, protected from other 18th C men.  I will return to this idea when male gallantry rears its head in Voyager.

Meanwhile, in a passage that's easy to overlook, Claire is subjected to a bothersome example of what happens when the code of honor dictating respect to women erodes, but the tendency to sexualize them remains.  In an italicized flashback, Claire is thinking back to Frank's first (somewhat involuntary) indication after Brianna's birth that he would like to "come home all the way":

I could do it—physically, at least. I had seen the doctor for a checkup the week before, and he had—with an avuncular wink and a pat on the bottom—assured me that I could resume “relations” with my husband at any time. (34)

The doctor's attitude--his "wink" and "pat on the bottom," should register immediately as behavior that is not suitable for a medical professional when dealing with a patient--of whatever sex.  His actions suggest vicarious pleasure and almost a lewd appreciation of her desire for sex.  There is no social code to hold him in check.

Interestingly, the doctor's behavior does resemble one 18th Century male--Dougal MacKenzie--and the liberties that he takes in the particular context of Claire's and Jamie's wedding, from the intimate position of kinsman, the power relationship as the brother of the lord of Clan MacKenzie, and from the bawdiness of 18th Century Scotts interactions.  Outwardly, the 20th Century revels less in sex--in fact, sex comes indoors in the 20th Century.  In the Outlander novels, the 18th Century is marked by a constant awareness of sexuality, and a sort of implicit celebration of its pleasure and fruitful potential that lurks just under the surface of interactions between men and women.  Shocking at times to a more contemporary sensibility (as when Claire is mortified at their companions' jesting about hers and Jamie's wedding night), nevertheless, there is an honesty and celebratory aspect to sex that is missing from the 20th Century scenes.

The doctor--supposedly a healer if not precisely a nurturer--who nevertheless occupies a position of power--can make insinuations about Claire's sexuality and even touch her inappropriately, though the culture is one in which sex is taken indoors, not discussed in public, and treated as something private--almost to the suggestion of shamefulness.  (There is also something to be said here about the predominance of male doctors.)  Frank--the suave gentleman of Claire's recollections--is the epitome of sneaky sexuality.  And yet, we generally think of the 20th Century as increasingly enlightened as compared to historical models of sexuality.  Whatever its historical accuracy, this flashback provides another indictment of the 20th Century as being less honest, less vital, and less desirable than the "barbaric" past.

***

A further note on Kindle reading...  When I copy from the Kindle App for Mac or Windows (which I use only at work on my lunch break), it automatically generates a reference when I paste the text:

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) (p. 34). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

This reference corresponds to the small trade paperback edition of Voyager with the green cover and gold brooch.

Voyager: A Novel of Purgatory?

Claire. The name knifed across his heart with a pain that was more racking than anything his body had ever been called on to withstand. 

If he had had an actual body anymore, he was sure it would have doubled up in agony. He had known it would be like this, when he sent her back to the stone circle. Spiritual anguish could be taken as a standard condition in Purgatory, and he had expected all along that the pain of separation would be his chief punishment— sufficient, he thought, to atone for anything he’d ever done: murder and betrayal included. (Kindle ed. 4)

Voyager begins with Claire's present--1968--and Jamie's past forming parallels.  Though separated by 200 years, the paradox of time travel allows the events to exist in a kind of simultaneous state of happening.  Jamie lives the past that Claire and Roger try to reconstruct.  So in the early pages of the novel, Jamie believes he has died.  Concluding that he must be in Purgatory, his meandering thoughts hint at a repeated thread:  that his absence from Claire is itself a as a Purgatorial state.

This moment is one that highlighted, but almost did not analyze, until I considered... why the constant references to Purgatory, and Jamie's sins?  How might Voyager be a Purgatorial novel?

In Dante's Commedia, Purgatory is a place of movement.  The closer one gets to heaven, the more movement there is.  To stop moving is to delay the journey toward heaven.   The object is becoming--becoming purified and holy, worth of the rewards of heaven.  In Catholic thought, the earthly journey is the same.  "Voyager" suggests movement. It does not necessarily suggest movement forward, but it could.  There is a subtle difference, I think, between a "voyager" and a "traveler."  Perhaps a traveler has a less finite destination.  Perhaps there are many destinations, with a circuitous route.  A "voyager," by contrast, does not necessarily return to a starting point.  In some ways, as Claire reminisces and and the novel flashes back to Jamie's experiences, the novel outlines the process of becoming for both while deprived of the light of each others' presence (see my hint at the redemptive power of physical/human love).  But though it is preoccupied in the beginning with a replay of the identity-shaping moments that lead up to the "present" (present past?  past present?) the novel makes it clear that there is no going back.  Claire may return to Jamie, but she does not return to a starting point. Moving forward.  Becoming.  

Yet when the novel opens, Jamie is in stasis.  And in fact, his journey without Claire, though a journey of becoming, is marked by long periods of delay--in a cave, in prison, at Helwater, and finally, in Edinburgh.  She is the necessary element of his voyage toward whatever concept of heaven there is in the Outlander series (a heaven that may be characterized by ghostly togetherness, as in the film version of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, mentioned in the same post as redemptive human love).  It is not until Claire returns that reconciliations happen (well, sort of) and the journey--a purgatorial journey marked by confession and guilt--continues.

Reading Voyager: An Analysis of Technology-mediated Reading

I'm gearing up to start posting on the third book in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, Voyager.  Note that I'm not gearing up to read the book--I've been working on it for about a week now, and I'm close to halfway finished (even with a busy week)!  But either because of how I'm reading it, or the book itself, or other writing I'm doing, I'm not stopping as often to post my analyses.

I love Outlander.  And I like Dragonfly in Amber.  Right now I'm trying to decide if I like Voyager more than the other two.  Probably not more than Outlander, because, well--Outlander starts the ball rolling.  There are mysteries and people to discover, places to see--and see again--a lot of sex and a lot of adrenaline.  And in fact, it is maybe the adrenaline that makes me feel like Outlander is not as easy to revisit.  But Voyager has the pace--it clips along very nicely, thank you!  Dragonfly in Amber does not have the same fast pace--which is just as well, because when I first read Outlander, I could not have handled another book of the same intensity so soon after.  My heart would have lept out of my chest!  But if it somewhat slower--if some parts even drag a bit for me--there is a lot in Dragonfly that can be considered, and analyzed.  Voyager is nice to just read.  There is not as much as in Outlander that's unfamiliar or disturbing.  Many of the essential comparisons between the 20th and the 18th Centuries have already been made by the third book.  It is a book with action, but not tense action--at least, not yet.  There is tension, but it comes later.  So it is a book that says to me, "Read me!  You know you want to.  Things are happening.  Come and see how they unfold!"  And it begs me to save the analysis for later.

On the other hand, I have many things that I plan to analyze.  I have them marked.  And the marking is a difference in my method.

For the first time, I am reading one of the Outlander books on my new Kindle.  For my birthday last month, I got a Kindle Paperwhite.  I had no idea that it would change my reading, though--literacy theory scholar that I am--I should probably have anticipated it.  Marshall McLuhan could have warned me, I'm sure.

Voyager is not the first book I have read on the Kindle--I read Lady of Devices: A Steampunk Novel by Shelly Adina (it's free for Kindle), which was not a terribly challenging read--in a couple of days.  I also read A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows: An Outlander Novella--in a relatively short time.  Both short; both books that were more straightforward, with less to analyze (not that I won't come back to A Leaf at some point, mind you...).  Not so, Voyager.  But the way of reading persists.

When I was rereading Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber in the small, trade paperback editions with the solid-covers of blue and orange (respectively), adorned with appropriate symbolic object, I was not making notes in the books.  I have no problem making notes in the books--except that I'm picky about what kind of pen/pencil I use, and I sometimes want to reread a book from scratch without my previous marks influencing my reading, and that the paper on which these books are printed are a little too coarse and porous to lend themselves to notes.  Okay, I have several problems with making notes in books--particularly since the advent of eReading technology.  And also, since rediscovering reading like a reader instead of reading like a critic, I have actually stopped reading with my pen. It's sort of liberating.   However, it wasn't a conscious decision not to mark the books.  It just happened that way.

So while reading Outlander and Dragonfly, I would read the book.  When I came to a scene that I wanted to blog, I would either type the passage as a draft post right then and there, or I would remember it for later, or I would stop reading until I felt like coming back to blog about it, or I would use the Blogger app on my iPod to enter some basic info--page numbers and a title at the least, but sometimes I also included a note or two of what I wanted to say about the passage in question.  I frequently had several minimal draft posts on the go at the same time, and I would come back to them at leisure.  But what happened was that the knowledge that I had 4 or so draft posts to work on would halt my reading.  I couldn't go on until I cleared the cache, so to speak.  It was an interesting phenomenon.

So what is different with Voyager?  One of the greatest features of the Kindle (and assorted eReaders) is the ability to highlight and make notes.  I personally wish that it would allow me to export my notes more easily.  I can post them to Facebook, but that's not what I want to do.  I would love for it to export to Blogger, or to send it to my email.  So what I've been doing is, instead of posting to Blogger--actually typing in the text as I come to it--I've been highlighting my Kindle version.  This saves the text for later, but without the same pressure of the draft posts.  It works out very nicely, because I can then use my Mac version of the Kindle Reader to review my highlights and copy the text from the eBook into Blogger.  The Kindle Cloud Reader for Chrome doesn't have this capability, but the one for Mac OS does.  Go figure.  (See Kindle Reading Apps here.  No, Amazon isn't paying me anything.)

The highlighting feature also allows me to make notes and highlight text indiscriminately.  The thought process that went into choosing what would make a good analysis is not quite present--the selection process is reserved for when I start writing, instead of taking place as I decide whether analysis of this or that particular passage is worth the effort of typing it into the computer or--horrors!--the iPod.  (Not iPAD--iPOD!  Translation: very tiny touchscreen.)  So I have a number of collected ideas, notes, and highlights.  I just haven't gotten around to applying the filter and deciding which notes are post-worthy. But I'm getting there!

So between the novel itself and the Kindle interface, I'm just sailing along.  But I've got a lot in the pipeline that I'll be rolling out soon!

Dragonfly: Mother and Child

As I wrap up Dragonfly in Amber and move on to Voyager, I know that I will be looking back on Dragonfly from time to time.  There are things that are set up in Dragonfly that are not quite ripe for discussion--like how the narrative and the other characters view the time traveling women as "Others."  That's a sneak preview!

The last moment I want to discuss in Dragonfly without waiting for the theme to pop up in another book is the moment after Claire finishes her narrative--replete with details that a child would probably not want to hear from her mother (*ahem* "thighs...slick and wet with Jamie's seed" (894) *ahem*), but which, presumably, the reader needs.  As a follow-up to the narrative, Claire mentions her dangerous pregnancy, and her ambivalent feelings toward her daughter, and Brianna pursues the issue:

Brianna didn't move; didn't take her eyes from her mother's face. Only her lips moved, stiffly, as if unaccustomed to talking.
"How long... did you hate me?"
Gold eyes met blue ones, innocent and ruthless as the eyes of a falcon.
"Until you were born. When I held you and nursed you and saw you look up at me with your father's eyes."
Brianna made a faint, strangled sound, but her mother went on, voice softening a little as she looked at the girl at her feet.
"And then I began to know you, something separate from myself or from Jamie. And I loved you for yourself, and not only for the man who fathered you." (897)

The "hatred" might seem cold to some, but might also register as quite normal and natural given the trauma of the birth, the circumstances--and the postpartum state.  Motherly feelings do not always spring to life with the birth of the baby, as anyone who has experienced it can testify.

The moment is interesting from narrative and thematic perspectives as well, and connects rather nicely with a previous post of mine on the topic of "women's issues."  The post examines the moment at which a woman "claims" a pregnancy, and moves from trying to escape it to trying to protect it.  Specifically, in answering Claire's question of whether she wants to keep her baby, Louise de La Tour, married mistress of Charles Stuart, moves from attributing her reason for wanting the baby to her feelings for the father to identifying the baby as her own:

     She lifted her head and stared at me in astonishment.
     "But of course I want it!" She exclaimed. "It's his--it's Charles's! It's..." Her face crumpled, and she bowed her head once more over her hands, clasped so tightly over her belly.  "It's mine," she whispered. (243)

Though it comes at the conclusion of a pregnancy rather than at the beginning, Claire's description of her feelings for Brianna models the process by which a mother accepts the child that she must protect--this time, with an affirmation of the separate selfhood of the child.  She moves from resentment based on her own personal circumstances--the distance she has had to place between herself and Jamie because of the baby, to love based on love for the father, and finally, to love for Brianna as a separate person.  This is a step that the reader does not see with reference to Louise, but which defines the relationship between Claire and her daughter throughout the novels--even when Claire is mooning over the resemblances between Jamie and Bree.

Dragonfly: Not-so-saintly Ghosts

Towards the end of Dragonfly in Amber, we learn a thing or two about ghosts.  As she marvels over Alex Randall's ability to cling to life, Claire-as-narrator (because I think her voice shifts throughout the novels) ruminates on what ghosts are, no longer doubting their reality:

I thought that was perhaps how some ghosts were made; where a will and a purpose had survived, heedless of the frail flesh that fell by the wayside, unable to sustain life long enough.  I didn't much want to be haunted by Alex Randall; that, among other reasons, was why I had made Jamie come with me today. (858)

Although it is peopled with more or less saintly ghosts from beginning to end, the one ghost that haunts the whole Outlander series for me is the ghost--presumably Jamie, though we don't know him at that point in the narrative--whom Frank Randall sees gazing with consternation at Claire's 20th Century window at the beginning of Outlander.

About 30 pages later, the novel evokes the bond between Jamie and Claire--a timeless bond (appropriately enough)--in Jamie's declaration that (once again evoking The Princess Bride), "death cannot stop true love--it can only delay it a little":

"I will find you," he whispered in my ear.  "I promise.  If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you--then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes.  For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust.  But there is one thing that shall lie in the balance.  When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest."
     His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
     "Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well." (889)

Though final judgment before God is evoked, there is something a little unholy, both in the will of Alex Randall and that of Jamie--unholy, but also admirable from a very worldly, human perspective, since it is human love that leads the soul to resist eternal rest, and human love itself is presumed to have some redeeming power.  (The idea of the redemptive power of human love could lead me on a whole different tangent, about Plato's Symposium and the "ladder of love"...)

A few pages later, as Claire and Jamie consummate their leave-taking:

Neither of us could finish the vow, "so long as we both shall live," but the unspoken words hung aching between us.  Finally he smiled crookedly.
    "Longer than that," he said firmly, and pulled me to him once more. (892)

Between the two passages, the reader can begin to piece together the mystery of Jamie's ghost:  his will and his purpose are bound to Claire, and she no longer exists in his time.  Jamie cannot time travel in body--only as a ghost.

Here I am reminded of another ghost story--The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which is both a 1947 classic film with Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney, and a 1945 novel by R. A. Dick.  The protagonist does not fall in love with the ghost until he is a ghost, and the film and novel versions of Mrs. Muir present very different versions of the afterlife, with the novel permitting a movement of ghosts back-and-forth between a heaven-like place and the material, human world, and the film omitting the vision of heaven.  However, the connection of soul to earth because of the will and unfinished purpose is a commonality with Outlander, and the idea of eternal (human) love that transcends the flesh is another.  In the film, the eternal nature of love is particularly poignant and attractive, and though the differences are too many to number, the vision of Jamie as a ghost with unfulfilled purpose, refusing eternal rest and gazing on the woman whom he loves and with whom he cannot be joined, evokes the ghostly Captain Gregg for me.

Dragonfly: Here is your...spouse?

"Jesus, Thou Son of Mary," I started, speaking hoarsely, "I call upon Thy name; and on the name of John the Apostle beloved...." (Dragonfly 893)

So says Claire, beginning the interrupted prayer of benediction with which she intends to send Jamie into war while she returns to the stones.  Reading this book for the second time, these lines jumped out at me, not because of the circumstances, or the prayer itself, but because of the names they invoked:  Jesus, Mary, and "John the Apostle beloved."  In particular, John, the beloved Apostle.

About 30 pages earlier in the edition I have been reading, the small trade paperback with the orange cover, a dying man presides over the marriage of his brother and his beloved, (unwed) mother of his unborn child.  Jamie and Claire stand as witnesses.  The marriage is one of convenience, undesired by either, and was intended primarily to give the family name to the brother's child, and also to give his beloved--named Mary--into the custody of his brother Jonathan.  In case the names of the characters--who have been part of the story, and so are known to the reader through their actions as well as names--did not jump out at the reader right away, the narrative includes this detail:

He stretched out a hand to his brother, who took it after a moment's hesitation.  Then he brought them together, laying Mary's hand in Randall's.  Mary's lay inert, and Jack Randall's stiff, like a dead fish on a wooden slab, but Alex pressed his hands tightly around the two, pressing them together.

     "I give you to each other, my dear ones," he said softly.  (860)

In this short passage, Alex Randall assumes the position of the dying Jesus, giving Mary (who is not his mother in this scene, but who is an innocent) into the care of his beloved John (who is Jack Randall--Black Jack Randall, so named for the color of his soul, as Jamie quips in Outlander).

What does this moment do?  It is not a parody.  As a comparison, there are too many incongruencies.  It simply. . . is.  Except that two textual moments cannot coexist as a conscious reference without there being some kind of interaction in the mind of the reader who is familiar with both texts.  So let's take a look at the incongruencies.

First, Alex.  On his way to death, he delivers Mary into the hands of John.  And yet, he is not dying at the hands of others; nor is he sacrificing himself for others.  So his situation only resembles the journey of Jesus to the Cross because of his provision for Mary.

Mary is the most interesting figure in this scenario.  She is an innocent--of sorts--but she is no longer virgin, having first been raped, and later, having had a liaison with Alex, who would have married her had he been able to support her.  She is also a mother, though not noticeably, and not the mother of him who gives her away--rather, she is his unwed spouse (if you will) and mother of his child.

John (i.e. Johnny, i.e. Jack, i.e. Black Jack Randall) is beloved of Alex, but he is not an apostle.  Truly, it remains incongruent that he is beloved of anyone--even his brother--given the depth of his depravity, which Alex claims to know.  The relationship between the brothers is deeply troubling and problematic, given that Jack--while humiliating, punishing, and raping Jamie--calls Jamie by his brother's name.  Can love coexist with the impulse to humiliate, hurt, and exploit?  The narrative suggests yes.  It is a point on which I disagree.

If Alex is Christ-like, it is perhaps in his forgiveness and unquestioning acceptance of his brother.  In which case, it is a misrepresentation of what it means to be Christ-like, since love and acceptance of depravity are not actually the same thing.  'Lest it be misunderstood, when I refer to "depravity," I am referring specifically to Jack Randall's sadism, and possibly his incestuous feelings, rather than his homosexuality, which the novels (and a spinoff series) treat separately in the character of John Grey.

The contrast between the Biblical source and the novel's scene is so stark that the point seems to be the contrast, though the narrative might be entreating the reader to view the scene with compassion and pity as well, perhaps since there is no higher meaning to this drama of human imperfection and inadequacy.  It is a clever tableau, but there is not a lot to analyze; it was simply so obvious a Biblical parallel that I would have felt remiss had I not given it a separate post.

I am open to any additional interpretations that anyone might have to share!  Might there be something to be said about dignity?  There might be a point to made about marriage as well, particularly since the observers are Claire and Jamie....