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....

Dragonfly: No Second Troy?

As the inevitability of war creeps up on Jamie and Claire, it occasions another moment of pondering their role in the success or failure of the uprising, and the question of what good Claire's foreknowledge had been in preventing or facilitating the upcoming events (which we assume will be disastrous, but which they hope now to turn to success).  The themes of honor, and of foreknowledge, time travel, and fate all collide--or coalesce--as Claire (more late- than early-twentieth century) argues that "[h]onor without sense is... foolishness. A gallant foolishness, but foolishness nonetheless."

The narrative leaves some room for debate as to whether a Charles Stuart's cause is, in fact, honorable.  In fact, Charles' reasons seem wholly selfish and his action rash.  The honor, then, is in the adherence of Charles's Scottish supporters to the cause of Restoration.  To attach oneself to a doomed cause for sake of one's preferred affiliation, one's word, or a forged signature is perhaps the foolishness, as I have difficulty thinking (as Claire's words seem to imply) that fighting for the ideal itself is foolish.  After all, the later books deal with the American Revolution, and to apply the same idea that fighting for an ideal is foolish to that conflict would register somewhat differently.

Whatever the ideal of "honor" that is "foolish," Jamie objects to his less-than-honorable role according to standards of his time:

"Aye, it is. And it will change--you've told me. But if I'm to be among the first who sacrifice honor for expedience... Shall I feel nay shame in the doing of it?" (626)

Jamie laments "that bit of myself I have left behind," while Claire also "felt a true sorrow for his corruption, and shared a sense of loss for the naive, gallant lad he had been"--quite a damning admission given that the "naive, gallant lad" was the one who inspired the passion of the previous novel (albeit that passion is ongoing).

All of this is as it is set up in the novel--and I have discussed similar themes here and here.  What sets this particular moment apart is that the facades have seemingly lifted--Jamie and Claire each see their efforts for what they are:  futile, and not quite honorable.  The moment is reinforced by the following narration:

"And... what choice had either of us truly had, being who we were? I had to tell him, and he had had to act on it." (626)

The beauty of this line is that it recalls at least two other women--and one poet.  W. B.  Yeats.  If you didn't think of it immediately (and I don't remember whether or not I caught it on the first read), and if my post title didn't give it away, the lines echo Yeats's "No Second Troy," worth quoting in full (courtesy of Bartleby.com):

WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?	5
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?	10
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

The poem is an extended metaphor comparing Maude Gonne, Irish Nationalist and unrequited love of Yeats's life, to Helen of Troy, for their similar ability to inspire passionate nationalism and violent action in men.  The poem's brilliance extends to the form, which is a 12-line poem written in iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefef--in short, a Shakespearean sonnet without the concluding couplet.  The syntax of the poem--a series of seemingly rhetorical questions--makes sense of the sonnet's missing conclusion, as does the title, which answers the final question, "Was there another Troy for her to burn?"

So what does it do for the reader, to compare Claire, or even Jamie and Claire, to Yeats's portrait of Maude Gonne by way of Helen of Troy?

When Claire's narrative voice says, "what choice had either of us truly had, being who we were?", the reference is to Jamie's and Claire's attempts to stop the Jacobite Rising of 1745, though the following sentence refers to Claire's need to tell Jamie what she knew of the disastrous outcome of Culloden, and Jamie's need to do something.  So by evoking Yeats, the text contrasts Gonne's passionate Irish nationalism--support of a Celtic identity in opposition to British rule--with Claire's complete lack of nationalistic feeling (and, indeed, of nationality).

To Gonne's tendency to inflame men to her cause, the one line--"what choice had either of us truly had, being who we were?"--compares Claire's efforts to keep men from action.

And turning itself back onto the poem, the sentence, which so closely echoes Yeats, takes the suggestion that Maude's "beauty like a tightened bow, a kind/ that is not natural" in the 20th Century, is, in fact, more suited to the 18th Century.

A reader of Yeats's poem might wonder whether having "a mind/ that nobleness made  simple as a fire" is a good thing.  Most assume not, though there is an undeniable--and wholly deceptive--nobility to the poem itself.  The poem adores her--worships her--in the same breath as it condemns her.  One might turn the poem's questions back on the poet himself--if she were other than what she was, would he love her?  Certainly, his poetry would have suffered from a more peaceful object with less of that primitive fire.  And in fact, the question, "why should I blame her" turns the contemplation of blame back onto the poet.  If not her, than whom?

On the other hand, Claire's beauty is repeatedly compared to those around her, and she, too, is unnatural--out of place in the 18th Century.  And yet, in Claire's postwar 20th Century perspective, might the reader see the kind of sensibility that Maude Gonne lacked, and which--by implication--would have transformed Yeats's love into someone more peaceful and less noble?  Certainly, except in her ability to inflame Jamie's desire--the desire of a man of action rather than the poet's desire--and to persuade him to do her will, Claire represents the opposite of Maude Gonne.  And as Yeats questions the code of honor that Maude represents--while depicting it so eloquently--so Claire's logic questions the code that Jamie represents--while the narrative depicts it as passionate as compared to the lukewarm 20th Century life (and love) that Frank Randall represents in Outlander.

So which side does the narrative ask the reader to take?  For that matter, what side does the poem ask the reader to take?  The side of legendary and passionate honor, or the side of rational compromise?  I come down on the side of intentional ambiguity.  The reader, I believe, is asked to weigh the options, and perhaps never to come to any conclusion except which one is more aesthetically attractive.

One conclusion we can draw, I think, is that the narrative is self-consciously echoing Yeats.  And if there is a Maude Gonne figure in the novels, then--a Scottish nationalist who bewitches men into doing her will, who might she be?  A hint--not Claire, but a time traveler, nonetheless.

Dragonfly: 'Culloden's Harvest'... Written by the Winners

Above you can hear the first introduction I had to the story of Culloden, as an undergraduate, from the CD Celtic Legacy (1995).  This song stayed in my head constantly the first time I read the battle accounts in Dragonfly in Amber.  I did not learn about it as a History minor.

In the last third of Dragonfly in Amber, Claire's specific knowledge of Culloden comes to light as she accompanies Jamie to war.  It is, perhaps, a postcolonial moment when Jamie asks what details she remembers of the uprising, and she can't remember any.  Her impressions of the devastation derive from a visit to the Culloden battlefield and memorial rather than from history--and she was married to a historian.  Her memory certainly couldn't have been perfect, for narrative's sake, but the lack of information becomes a focus, and a focus of implied criticism.

Searching her memory, Claire "could just recall the two-page section that was all the author had seen fit to devote to the second Jacobite Rising, known to historians as 'the '45.' And within that two-page section, the single paragraph dealing with the battle we were about to fight." (603-604)

She remembers the number of casualties, but "only thirty men" dead doesn't seem as small a number as historical accounts suggest, given that that was the exact number of Jamie's men.  And yet Claire tentatively observes:

     "Taken all in all," I said, feeling faintly apologetic, "I'm afraid it was really rather. . . unimportant, historically speaking."
     Jamie blew out his breath through pursed lips, and looked down at me rather bleakly.
     "Unimportant.  Aye, well."
     "I'm sorry," I said.
     "Not your fault, Sassenach."
     But I couldn't help feeling that it was, somehow.  (604)

The beauty of this account is in the contrast between history as it is written and the event as it is experienced--this difference calls attention to the accuracy of the account, and--perhaps for the first time (in this context)--to Claire's Englishness.  "Sassenach," used by Jamie as a term of endearment, registers more literally here.  Claire has read the "winner's" accounts.*  And the scarcity of accounts and limited details provided, as compared to the enormity of the event and its catastrophic consequences for the Highlanders, as well as the cruelty they suffered, serve to indict the English.  And even compared to the fictional events, this is a powerful gesture, because suddenly the reader becomes aware of the reality of how history is written rather than simply following the actions of fictional Scotsmen (or Englishmen--like Jack Randall).  And that might be about as postcolonial a gesture as we get in the Outlander books--at least, with reference to Scotland.

*Here's an Anglocentric account.

Dragonfly: Jenny Reading Pt. 2 (A Literacy Moment, contd.)

In Dragonfly in Amber, we get, alongside Jenny's love of books, details about the literacy of the Fraser household, and also something about the character of reading in the 18th Century:

The manor boasted a small library, in fact, and if the evening leisure between work and bed was short, still it usually included at least a few minutes' reading. (580)

"The manor boasted" a small library--which was, indeed, a boastable feature.  Here's a little blurb from an article on the topic of book ownership in 18th Century Scotland:

Late eighteenth-century Scotland saw a period of growth in the availability of print material set against the backdrop of the Scottish Enlightenment. Yet despite much scholarly attention having been paid to the Enlightenment and an increasing interest in the books people were reading, little attention has been paid to the books that would have been found in individual Scottish houses and what they reveal about Scottish mindsets in these years. This paper addresses this topic, using a local case study of after-death inventories of personal possessions. These rich records reveal the size of household libraries, the varieties of books they contained, variation by occupation and social class, and the extent to which their owners engaged with and were influenced by debates and ideas of the time. In addition, the evidence allows us to consider the uses to which different types of books were put, examine differences between urban and provincial Scotland, and consider how and where people bought their books.

(Thank you, EBSCO and Scottish Historical Review! And if I'm silently thumbing my nose at Wikipedia, Wikipedia is none the wiser.)  The main thing to note here (besides the very interesting research!) is that the availability of print materials increases in the late  18th century.  The early Outlander novels take place in 1743-45, with the Lallybroch library being compiled some time before, as both of Jamie's and Jenny's parents are dead by the time the events in the first book take place (their father is only recently dead).  So the library would have had to predate this growth in printing, which demonstrates the wealth of Lallybroch as well as the special place reserved for literacy and learning in the Fraser household.

Further, reading is a communal activity, though I do question whether French novels--which were notoriously scandalous to Louisa May Alcott's 19th Century American heroines--would have been good family read-aloud material. Both because of the scarcity of reading materials (who would have two copies of a novel?) and the rarity of literacy (in a later chapter, Claire notes that a woman watches her write "with an almost superstitious awe" (633)), reading aloud would definitely have been typical in the 18th Century.  Numerous scholars--notably, literature scholar turned literacy theorist Walter Ong--have discussed the influence of oral storytelling even in 19th Century novels.  Ong famously mentions how "the author intones dear reader" as a reminder of the storyteller or the reader in a communal setting.  It is a nice touch to see this social reality of reading included in a work of historical fiction, though the little glimpses of literacy do not become important until later novels in the Outlander series.

Given its limited function--what function does literacy serve in the plot? it's fairly incidental--one might wonder why it is included at all, or question this bold assertion of Jenny's literacy.  Would she have been educated?  We are led to believe that her class and her family's inclinations toward learning make this possible.  But as the female head of household, mother of three at this point...  What is reading for her?  What use would she have had for literacy?  Would she have had time to read?  If reading is an adventure, is it an escape?  Does it distract from other duties?

The narrative answers these questions very succinctly:

"It gives ye something to think on as ye go about your work," Jenny explained, when I found her one night swaying with weariness, and urged her to go to bed, rather than stay up to read aloud to Ian, Jamie, and myself.  She yawned, fist to her mouth.  "Even if I'm sae tired I hardly see the words on the page, they'll come back to me next day, churning or spinning or waulkin' wool, and I can turn them over in my mind." (580-581)

In fact, Jenny's reading allows her mind to escape while her body remains very much present.  And this is something that readers of Gabaldon's fictions can very much appreciate, I think.  It is perhaps a contrast to more male-centered versions of escapist reading (I'm thinking of E. M. Forster's "The Celestial Omnibus"--you can read about it in greater detail here) that her transcendent reading does not remove her from the material world of people who depend on her.

Interestingly, at this point in the scene, the issue of literacy drops completely, transitioning into a description of the somewhat unsavory occupation of "wool-waulking," but not without leaving the reader with a compelling discourse on literacy and its use in the life of an individual--the 18th Century stay-at-home mom.  Most stay-at-home mothers whom I know (at least through blogging) are either readers, writers, or seamstresses,* and almost always combinations of two or more, as if this life of the mind is a natural extension of the daily lives that they live with their children, managing their homes.  It seems, in fact, an essential part.  And the internet enables and gives testimony to it.

Thinking about what a busy woman--too busy to read, but who reads nevertheless--gains from literacy, I was reminded of my favorite poem by Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), "An Atlas of the Difficult World."  This poem provides Rich's own discourse on literacy, as the voice of the poet envisions the people who will read the poem, and recounts the reasons they will read:

I know you are reading this poem  

late, before leaving your office  

of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window 

in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet 

long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem 

standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean 

on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven 

across the plains’ enormous spaces around you. 

[....] 

I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light 

in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out, 

count themselves out, at too early an age. I know 

you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick 

lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on 

because even the alphabet is precious. 

And among the seemingly endless, democratic, Whitmanic catalog, these lines stand out:

I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove 

warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your hand 

because life is short and you too are thirsty. 

The lines straddle the line between hope and despair, but "life is short and you too are thirsty" resonates as the most profound testimony to the function of literacy--of literature--in the life of an individual.  The written word feeds us.  Gives us nourishment.  Specifically, like a mother.  A mother's mother.

There are, of course, religious resonances in the idea of being fed by the w/Word--but let's leave it at literacy for now.  Reading.  It is what it is--but what does it do?

A: It feeds the soul, which sustains the body.

Literacy--in either context--keeps the body from forgetting that it also possesses a soul.

*I use the outdated, gendered term "seamstress" and reject the more contemporary "sewers," which evokes toilet water in my mind.

Dragonfly: Jenny Reading Pt. 1 (A Literacy Moment)

I go by "Literacy-chic," and that's no accident.  It's a name I came up with while working on my dissertation--when, in fact, my blog had very little to do with reading and everything with putting words together--still "literate activity," you might say, but still not quite what I meant by the name.

I meant it to be a play--not only was I a "literacy chick"--a female scholar concerned with representations of literacy in fiction, I was interested in seeing literacy become chic, en vogue, specifically with reference to literary criticism, which doesn't consider "the reader" in quite the way I was doing.  And I still see myself as "Literacy-chic," though I'm not currently writing formal literary criticism.  Instead, I'm writing informal literary criticism on whatever strikes me.  But I am still on the lookout for "literacy moments," or "scenes of literate activity."  Because looking at how writers conceptualize the act of reading, writing, or otherwise engaging with written texts can tell us a lot about what we think literacy does, and what we see as the place of literacy in society and in our own lives.

So any time you're reading a book, and some character is reading, the novel is drawing attention to the fact that the character is reading--"Look!  You're reading a book about someone reading!"  Frequently, there is an implied question:  "So why is this person reading?" and "Is this person reading for a good reason?  Are they getting anything out of it?" and "Okay, so what are they getting out of it?"

A reader might then be prompted to ask, "So why am I reading?" and "Why do I read?" That's a question I wish all of those people who pushed those shady gray books to the top of the charts would ask themselves (I really should have written the title out to get hits, but I decided not to)--for cheap thrills?  (Were they worth it?)  For escapism? I read for escapism, too--absolutely!  And an essential part of my escapism is to be found in the ideas I get when I read.  About things like why we read.  Things I can think about instead of the things I'd rather not think about.  So reading about the fictional reader reading should make us ask, "Why do we (people in general, certain types of people, people in society) read?"

In Dragonfly in Amber, when Jenny Fraser becomes ecstatic over the prospect of new reading material, the text very specifically asks exactly that kind of question:

"Ooh, three French novels and a book of poetry from Paris!" Jenny said in excitement, opening the paper-wrapped package.  "C'est un embarras de richesse, hm?  Which shall we read tonight?"  She lifted the small stack of books from their wrappings, stroking the soft leather cover of the top one with a forefinger that trembled with delight. Jenny loved books with the same passion her brother reserved for horses.  (580)

The level of delight is conspicuous, particularly in the last line.  The comparison--books to horses--is appropriate because of the relationship between Jamie and Jenny as siblings.  It is an obvious comparison, since Claire's narrative voice seeks to understand how the two, who grew up in the same household, measure up to one another and to Claire's understanding of Jamie.  Such comparison of siblings is a frequent narrative gesture in the chapters with Jenny.

However, the comparison is interesting for another reason.  Thinking about the comparison of books and horses, what exactly does it say about books?  Horses are living creatures.  Books are inanimate objects.  Horses belong outside.  Books are kept indoors.  Something might be said about exterior and interior spaces, and women being comfortable or belonging in interior spaces, but given all of Jenny's various activities, that's not really a relevant statement, and would reveal more about the critic's biases and sensitivities than about the novel itself.

Horses are active.  We might assume that books are passive, but the novel doesn't tell us that.  In fact, Friday's post will show that reading books is not, in fact, a passive activity for Jenny.

Perhaps the love of books runs deep in Jenny, and the love of horses deep in Jamie, because both brother and sister have strength of spirit that requires transport and freedom.  Both books and horses provide transport and freedom according to what each of them needs--or can use.  Admittedly, Jenny cannot run from the responsibility of the home--unlike Claire, who has no home, or Jamie, whose role as laird is largely forfeit throughout Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber.  An 18th Century novel might not have been self-conscious enough to declare reading a path to a kind of freedom, but Dragonfly in Amber (1992), as a 20th Century novel, comfortable with literacy and with all of the demands and expectations we have for reading, is free to make that claim.  Certainly, Jenny has a good reason to read.  She would have to have a good reason in order to make time, considering all of her other obligations.

But think about it--why do people read? Why does Jenny Fraser read? And what do authors and the characters and books they write tell us about why we should read?  Why do you read?

More on this next time...

Dragonfly: Saintly Ghosts

Looking back on Outlander as I finished the novel, I thought about a curious scene in which a seemingly ghostly Jamie looks in on Claire in 1945.  I will return to ghosts as I work through the rest of the novels, because while I don't necessarily see them functioning in the same way in each instance, the spirits of the dead remain with the characters in ways that become familiar.

In Dragonfly in Autumn, remembering the untimely death of his older brother and holding the small snake his brother carved for him when he was a child, Jamie describes how he talks to his brother:

"I talk to Willie, sometimes, in my mind," Jamie said. He tilted the snake on his palm.  "If you'd lived, Brother, if ye'd been laird as you were meant to be, would ye do what I've done? Or would ye find a better way?" (551)

There is a specific connection here to Jamie's own self-doubt, and feeling of humility at having inherited a role that should have belonged to his brother.  In a quite different way, he is also aware of his father's presence at unexpected times:

"I hear my father's voice sometimes, in the barn, or in the field.  When I'm not even thinkin' of him, usually.  But all at once I'll turn my head, as though I'd just heard him outside, laughing wi' one of the tenants, or behind me, gentling a horse."  (552)

There is obligation and responsibility that accompanies Jamie's memories of both his father and brother, but the interactions are different--his brother seems a confidante and guide; his father a trusted companion.

While Jamie's conversations register as manifestation of memory (mostly), but as Claire recounts her own experience of talking to the dead, there is a kind of shift from memory to a presence, particularly when she imagines her mother after her miscarriage:

"I do the same," I said softly, after a moment.  "With Uncle Lamb.  And my parents.  My mother especially.  I--I didn't think about her often, when I was young, just every now and then I'd dream about someone soft and warm, with a lovely singing voice.  But when I was sicker, after... Faith--sometimes I imagined she was there.  With me."  A sudden wave of grief swept over me, remembrance of losses recent and long past. (551)

The presence of Claire's mother beside her bed, as she coalesces after miscarriage, is of course the mother connection of childbearing women, but also hints at Claire's closeness to death.

Jamie crystallizes what they are both feeling:

"I think sometimes the dead cherish us, as we do them." (551)

In this particular exchange, with the descriptions of Claire and (especially) Jamie, I can't help hearing a kind of echo of Tevye talking to God in Fiddler on the Roof, but of course, without the conversation partner being God.  I also remember how, growing up, I imagined relatives I had never met, who died before I was born, looking down on me and watching over me.  Eventually, this is how I came to understand the Catholic concept of the Communion of Saints--not sure if I picked up on this from relatives who had been Catholic, or if it was just a child's way of theorizing death.  Either way, I see these ghostly memories, these presences, as being particularly saintly.  It is a comforting way of viewing the dead, and one that Gabaldon makes the most of in the Outlander series, beginning, in a way, with this conversation between Claire and Jamie.

Dragonfly: If you have ever raised chickens...

 This lovely rooster pic can be found here.  Photo is copyrighted to Thomas Laupstad.

...then you know how true this is:

     The sound of a cock crowing at full blast lifted me off the pillow, as though a stick of dynamite had been touched off beneath the bed. 

     "Idiot!" I said, every nerve in my body twanging from the shock.  I got up and cracked the shutter. It had stopped snowing, but the sky was still pale with cloud, a uniform color from horizon to horizon.  The rooster let loose another bellow in the hen-coop below. 

     "Shut up!!" I said. "It's the middle of the night, you feathered bastard!"  The avian equivalent of a raspberry echoed through the still night.... (Dragonfly 567)

This is one of the chickens my mother and siblings raised:

Enough said.

Dragonfly: Where is God in Time Travel?

There are definitely questions about which I'm not interested in speculating. These are mostly questions that resolve themselves within the novels, or questions that do not resonate outside of the novels.  They are interesting, but there is no need to elaborate.  One such question asserts itself in Dragonfly in Amber, in the chapters titled "Untimely Resurrection" and "The Royal Stud": the question of Jamie's vengeance upon Jack Randall, and whether Claire is right to make him postpone that vengeance.  It could be that I think Claire is more wrong about preventing Jamie from killing Jack Randall on this particular occasion than she is to make him betray his country and kin to prevent the Battle (and devastation) of Culloden.  I'll never tell.  But it's also true that Gabaldon brings the matter around very neatly, giving Jamie the ability to reclaim some of his own by determining his own reason for postponing vengeance (and getting in some nice foreshadowing as well).  It's a lovely narrative card that she plays, and well worth giving a nod.  (See pp. 401-403 in the small, Dell paperback version with the orange cover.)  But--it is part of the narrative, and in terms of Jamie's justification, what he does or does not owe Claire, the question of conscience, or anything involving their feelings about other characters, it works itself out, and doesn't really require speculation or further analysis of motivations.  I like to leave the characters to themselves, and allow their motivations to emerge through the action of the story rather than through my own suppositions and psychoanalysis.  It's why criticism is (or should be) sort of the anti-fan-fiction.  (Just for fun, check out Diana Gabaldon's Fan Fiction Policy.)

What is interesting in the maneuverings of Claire to prevent Jamie from killing Jack Randall too soon is (first) that the question is never the morality of the vengeance.  That is taken for granted, and I'm glad.  Moralistic posturing would do no one any good in this case.  Claire's conscience is evoked, rather neatly, to turn the guilt of preventing Frank's birth (indirectly, by the death of Jack Randall) to Claire's decision to abandon Frank for Jamie--at least, that is how Jamie casts Claire's decision not to pass again through the stones: "it's one thing to abandon a man, and another to condemn him to death" (401).  Non-birth/prevention of conception is not quite death, but we'll let that go for the moment.  Jamie's conscience is never an issue, except insofar as killing always leaves a mark:  "I remember the face of every man I've killed, and always will" (400).  And that's just fine.

But the deeper implications of the maneuverings leave some room for consideration.  If this novel is instrumental to the series, it may well be--first and foremost--the working out of what a time traveler can and can't accomplish with reference to history that gives it it's highest value in the big picture.  (I have other considerations of time travel here and here.)  The reason I drag God into it in my title is because the question of conscience was right in front of me in the narrative.  Brother Anselm and his theology, the moral implications of preventing someone from being born.  But a larger question emerges:  could anything Jamie and Claire have done prevent the beginning of the bloodline that eventually produces Frank Randall, Claire's husband in the year 1943?

It's something like the question my son asked of his 4th grade teacher at the fourth-rate Catholic school that he went to for most of that year:  if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned, would any of us exist?  Need I say that the teacher didn't know how to answer the question?  I consulted a deacon friend of mine, and came up with the response that our existence in God's plan didn't depend on sin.  We simply don't know how things would have worked out without it.  There is something tangentially related to this question happening in Perelandra, the second book of C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy.  An alien world is experiencing its own Creation, and Lewis's Ransom is a spectator and intercessor, preventing the successful temptation of the newly-Created female of the alien species so that the world might emerge without the taint of Original Sin.  The idea is--Sin or no Sin, our existence as individuals is part of God's plan.

So is this worldview somehow reflected in Gabaldon's novel?  At first glance it may seem not to be.  Clearly, it is absent from the Back to the Future movie trilogy--things change, people disappear.  But there's nothing about God in those films.  Religion is simply not part of the picture(s).  By contrast, there's Catholicism all over the place in the Outlander series.  You can't get around it, the novels have a Catholic consciousness, whatever their orthodoxy.  You might say that it proceeds from what has been called "the Catholic imagination," though I wouldn't quote Andrew Greeley for orthodoxy's sake...

Without saying how, I will say that Frank's bloodline works itself out.  It works itself out with Jack Randall alive, but it does so in a way that his survival has precious little to do with the birth.  Clever.  So does that mean Predestination?  I'm not sure.  Although there is implied argument between Predestination and Free Will in the novels (especially with reference to Roger Wakefield in some of the later books), there seems to be quite a bit of room for Free Will--or really, would readers enjoy the books so much?  But characters' Free Will seems to feed directly into what they know to have been going to happen.  (I'm absolutely playing with verb tense there.  Too bad I'm not writing in a romance language!)  In other words, the characters end up proving their own instrumentality to the events that will unfold--or have unfolded--or will have unfolded.  Everything fits neatly into place.  Some would consider this as evidence for God in the Outlander worldview--or in its representation of time travel.  I think there's evidence, at least, that the man who was Frank Randall was "meant" to exist--which does, in fact, suggest some greater intentionality beyond the machinations of Claire and Jamie.