Favorite Books, Part II

For several years now I've been trying to get through Diana Gabaldon's novel, The Fiery Cross. Now, when I say "trying to get through" in this instance, I simply mean that it has taken me a long time to read the whole thing, with several false starts along the way. I adore this woman's writing. She has a way of bringing scenes, usually set in the 18th century, to life that I have never experienced elsewhere in fiction. When I read her novels I feel as though I am reading about real people and real experiences. They are very well researched in that when she has to write a scene where a man gets kicked in the balls (please, please excuse the expression) she finds out, from first-hand sources, what it actually feels like first.

When I read her books I always wind up reading passages from them aloud to Michael; I describe the plot to him because I can't help talking about it. She's that good.

I tried to read The Fiery Cross when it first came out and only got about 350 pages into it, partially because I had read the first four novels in the series almost straight through, and the level of detail Gabaldon includes can be exhausting. Not to mention the fact that each of her books is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages long. I also think now I may have been unready to read this book because Parker hadn't come into our lives yet. There are scenes in the book involving infants that are much more meaningful now that I actually have a child of my own.

Last night I read a sentence that I wanted to share. Claire, so often the narrator in these books, is thinking about her contribution to the household:

"As for sweeping the floor, polishing the windows, dusting, and general drudgery of that sort . . . well, if women's work was never done, why trouble about how much of it wasn't being accomplished at any given moment?"

This is an attitude which I have adopted as my own.

I always have to issue disclaimers when I recommend these books. The story is about a woman who travels through time to the 18th century and marries a Scottish Laird. Sounds like sappy romance novel material already, doesn't it? But the series is so much more than that. The first book in the series really does read like a romance novel, including lots of sex and violece, so if you have reservations about reading that sort of material (and some of my friends I know do) you may want to avoid the series anyway. On the other hand, Gabaldon is an excellent practitioner, and if you enjoy historical fiction, the series is a must read. Within the 18th century the characters travel from Scotland to France, to the Caribbean, to the New World. They participate in wars and battles and hunts, as well as the "drudgery" of boiling laundry, extracting abcessed tonsils, and coffe and whiskey-making in the wilderness. I can't do the books justice here, and would love to see what Kathi (showing here as David L.) has to say about the series. The last book of the series is currently on my shelf, waiting to be read, and once that is done I will probably have to start all over again.