Cross Stitch (by Diana Gabaldon)

I picked up this book - 'Cross Stitch' by Diana Gabaldon - second-hand after reading a recommendation somewhere. When I finally started reading it, over two weeks ago now, I was almost instantly hooked. At first I tried reading just a couple of chapters each night before going to sleep, but by the end I could barely put it down. And it's a LONG book!

It isn't anything to do with embroidery, however. Perhaps the title caused some confusion, as it has now been re-published as 'Outlander'.

This novel begins just outside Inverness in 1946. Clare and Frank were married shortly before the war, then parted for the duration; Clare worked as a nurse. Now they are back together again and taking a short holiday. Frank is an intellectual type who is fascinated by Scottish history and researching his family tree. Clare (who narrates the entire book) loves him and enjoys his company but finds him amusingly tedious when he starts lecturing on his favourite subject.

It's clear from the first sentence that this book has a mystical side to it - a 'disappearance'. Indeed, the blurb on the back tells us that Clare is going to find herself in the middle of a skirmish in 1743, so the first few chapters are really setting the scene. I found myself gripped almost from the start: observing Clare in her natural surroundings, learning a little of the history of the place. I wondered what the significance was of her interest in herbalism, and whether something dramatic would happen at an ancient stone circle which she visits.

I didn't know quite what to expect with a novel that evidently combined time travel with history.  I was impressed right from the beginning with the crisp writing style. Diana Gabaldon moves the plot forward at exactly the right pace to hold my interest, with minimal descriptions. I had a pretty good picture of Clare by the time she does her disappearing: she is a confident, intelligent, and also passionate young woman. These qualities become more evident as she is forced to adapt to unexpected new circumstances, entirely at the mercy of the Scottish rebels into whose hands she falls.

Underlying the whole book is a deep and thrilling romance which manages to be moving without being trite, passionate, sometimes erotic without being cringeworthy. The historical surroundings are so well researched that I found Jacobite Scotland coming alive to me in a way I could never have imagined. I have never before become engrossed in a novel where most of the characters were male, and much of the action involves fighting. But this book was gripping! For a week I managed to read just a chapter or two at bedtime... thereafter I was completely hooked and finished the remaining 500 or more pages in just three days.

I wondered at one stage why the author bothered to start Clare off in the 20th century - why not simply set the novel in 1743? But gradually I realised that it's a very clever plot device: we see Jacobite Scotland from the point of view of someone we can relate to, whose values and ideals are similar to ours, but quite different from those in the society where she finds herself. When she begins to understand why some very unpleasant things happen, it enabled me to catch a glimpse, myself, of why such different values were held 200 years previously.

There's a fair amount of violence in the novel, and this is something which would normally put me off completely. But it managed to stay just the right side of goriness, so that I was shocked but not quite sickened. There is considerable tension but no real heart-stopping suspense. Even when Clare herself is in serious danger, the fact that she relates the book reassured me that she at least would not be killed.

In addition there's a fine thread of humour that relieves the tension every so often. I was amused at scenes with small children asking innocent questions. There is also some light-hearted banter between adults who have learned to trust each other. I felt as if my mind and emotions were taken on a roller-coaster ride: at one moment horrified at the privations and violence of a society I have never known, yet a few pages later seeing the people as not so different, deep down, from those I know in the 21st century. 

I would recommend this to almost everyone, whatever their tastes in literature. My only slight reservation would be that ultra-sensitive folk might find it upsetting. I don't think I would have liked it myself as a teenager. I doubt if a child would show much interest in such a lengthy novel but if they did, I wouldn't worry too much since much of the disturbing material is couched cleverly in language that implies rather than describing exactly what happens.

All in all, I thought this a superb book and I'm looking forward to getting hold of the sequel, 'Dragonfly in Amber'.