bibliogramma (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bibliogramma) wrote2007-07-11 02:08 am
bibliogramma) wrote2007-07-11 02:08 am
Entry tags:
Bonny Braes and Banks
Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
I have no idea why I waited so long to read this book. I'd heard about this great series about a woman from modern times (well, post-WWII, anyway) who is magically transported two hundred years into the past, where, despite having a nice husband in her own time, she falls in love - somewhat unwillingly - with another nice man in the past, and gets all mixed up in the events preceding the battle of Culloden.
But for some reason I just didn't get around to reading it until recently - and now I find that I must go out and buy about half-a-dozen sequels, because the first book was every bit as good as everyone has been telling me it was.
Outlander begins with one of the lead characters, Claire Randall, an English nurse, on a second honeymoon in Scotland. There's some discussion of the role her husband's ancestor, a Captain John Randall, played in the bloody hisory of the Jacobite Risings - the long attempt by the Highland Scots to return the house of Stuart to the throne of England and Scotland following deposition of James II in 1688, which was finally crushed in 1746 at the Battle of Culloden. (I should digress here to note that I myself am part Scot, part Welsh, and all Celt, and as far as the history of the time is concerned, my sympathies are all with the Scots and not the slightest with the Sassenach.)
While in Scotland, Claire discovers that there is a standing circle near where they are staying, where some of the local women still worship in the "old ways." When she explores the circle herself, she finds herself drawn back to 1745, where she finds herself caught up in the politics of the clans, the cause of the Jacobites, the invading Sassenach - one of whom is her husband's ancestor, and eventually a bold Scotsman named Jamie Fraser who wins her heart.
It's fascinating historical fiction wrapped up in a time-travelling frame, with all the complications that entails, it's a refreshing romance between two people who become friends and partners as well as lovers, and it's - most welcome of all - a story of an intelligent, resourceful, courageous and tough woman who survives and thrives despite being thrown out of her own time and all that she knows and understands.
no subject
But romance is a delicate subplot/plot, and should be handled with care, no matter what the pairing.
no subject
Aside from getting the sexual mechanics working more or less effectively, I really don't think there's much difference writing the essence of boy/boy, girl/boy, or girl/girl romances. Contexts can influence a lot, of course - boy/boy in ancient Sparta is way different from girl/girl in a medieval monastery, which is again different from girl/girl in suburban North America in the 1950s, which could be very similar to girl/boy in an alien SF society where the exchange of genetic material required for sexual reproduction occurs in some manner totally unrelated to love and sex, and while there is a physical distinction between people who are equipped to bear children and people who are not, everyone is expected to have have romantic relationships only with members of the same sex, and all other relationships are illegal, furtive, or confined to the "shocking classes" such as artists and the very rich.
But I think, based on my own experience, that once you sort of screen out the overtones of societal proscription and prescription and what that does to your head, there is more difference in relationship dynamics based on personality than there is on whether your partner is male or female.
But then, I'm more of a social constructionist than an essentialist when it comes to gender, so I'd be more likely to interpret my experiences that way anyway. ;-)
no subject