outlander by diana galbaldon

sing me a song of a podcast that is travelling back in time, to the year 1743 for a tale of passion, adventure, clan politics and trout fishing. this month, we’re reading the epic romance Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and talking all things Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall Beauchamp.

this episode also features a special guest appearance from the ever-lovely Wren (aka @superb.wren on TikTok). Wren is here to offer us an alternative viewpoint on a book we truly cannot make our minds up about and share her love and wisdom for the outlander series.

synopsis music by Horror Streaming.

recommendations:

• Lonely Mouth by Jacqueline Maley
• Dominion by Addie E. Citchens
• Dominicana by Angie Cruz
• Cannon by Lee Lai
• Moderation by Elaine Castillo
• Catalina by Carla Cornejo Villavicencio
• The Idiot by Elif Batuman
• I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
• Strangers by Belle Burden
• Go-To Skincare Glow Exfoliator
• Go-To Skincare Much Plumper Skin 
• Cetaphil Hydrating Foaming Cream Cleanser
• QV Ceramides Cleanser
• Mixa Panthenol Comfort Anti-Scratching Cream
• Hamilton SPF 50 Everyday Face Cream
• On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle

see also:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Outlander/s/Mba1Loa6eR

https://www.reddit.com/r/Outlander/s/fzfhhP07SO

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

join talk lit, get hit podcast for deep dives into the hottest BookTok recommendations, trending contemporary fiction, and literary favourites! each episode features book discussions, spoiler-filled chats, and thoughtful literary analysis of novels everyone is talking about - from viral romance and fantasy to modern classics. whether you’re looking for BookTok book reviews, author interviews, or a virtual book club experience, out podcast is your go-to space for readers who love stories and want to explore them in depth.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.  

Transcript

Laura 0:00

I love bagpipes. Same. Hello and welcome to Talk Lit Get Hit, a podcast where we read viral books the internet won't shut up about and rate them lit or shit.

Bridget 0:10

We're your hosts Bridget and Laura, lovers of sad girl fiction and tragic endings, fearers of smut, urban fantasy, and the Who Did This To You trope. Join us as we pick apart all the books the internet loves and embark on a journey to figure out why.

Laura 0:25

Sing me a song of a podcast that is traveling back in time to the year 1743 for a tale of passion, adventure, clan politics, and trout fishing. This month we're reading the epic romance Outlander by Diana Gabaldone. Bridget, hello, hello.

Bridget 0:44

Hello, hello. Gabaldone.

Laura 0:48

Is it? I don't know.

Bridget 0:50

It's not Cabaldon. We've learned that.

Laura 0:53

We've marginally improved.

Bridget 0:55

Yeah. How has your month been? My month has been quite quiet, but quietly busy. Not doing much, just doing some gardening, doing some reading. I went to see Audrey Hobbit. Oh. This show had my perfect formula. First of all, no support act. Okay, stunning. Second of all, it went for about 45 minutes. Good. Good. She's only got one album. Okay. She played the hit. She did all she could. And that's all I want anyone to do other than Taylor Swift. I don't want anyone else to go longer than that. I was back to Toowomba by about 11. Oh, great. Amazing. It was on a Saturday night. Tick.

unknown 1:31

What?

Bridget 1:32

And the last tick, she played her biggest and best song twice. Once with phones. And then she played it as an encore. No phones. Oh. Did you catch anyone flouting the rules? Not in person, but I did see it on TikTok. It's so great to have a no phone song. And everyone's in the comments like, you've got your phone out, babe. If no phone, no phone. So that was great. Although I do have to end my monthly catch-up on a downer. Very sad news, everybody. It has been announced that Emily in Paris is not going to be continuing after the sixth and final season. Oh my god, I'm so sad. Poor one out for Bridget. I hate this show and I love this show. And it's gonna end and I don't know what what's next for me. She's just been your constant over these last few years. It's been like my, I don't know, my rock. The rock that holds me up and the rock that smashes me down. Is she still in Paris? No, she is, but the little teaser that I've seen, uh, she'll be in Greece. The last season, for some reason, she did spend mostly in Italy. Yeah, and then she's gonna go to Greece because she's chasing. I mean, spoiler alert, but she's chasing Gabrielle. Still, yeah, still crazy. That's some that's been She's been weaving around in. I think this might be the time they finally interweave. Imagine if they didn't. I'll flip a table. How's your month been?

Laura 2:58

My month's been pretty great. It's been a month of eating, it's been an expensive month. You know, peaks and troughs, peaks and troughs. I took my car to the mechanic to get it serviced, which, you know, anyone with a car knows is just like giving away money for free. Yeah, what do they even do? I don't know. Spin the tires with their finger, maybe? Do like a grease lightning film clip or something. I couldn't tell you, but it cost a lot of money. Upside is I saw one of the best double rainbows I've ever seen. So that was quite nice. That's my husband's birthday. So we did quite a bit of eating and drinking around that point in time, so that was stunning. We did go on a very quick trip to New Zealand for a family thing and also did uh quite a bit of eating while we were there. Um, I think visitors and locals of New Zealand alike can attest to the quality of the meat pies on that hallowed land. And so I did have a really good one. It was from this place called Patrick's Pies. It's like one of the places you must go.

Bridget 4:00

Well, I mean, what else would you go there for? Yeah.

Laura 4:03

Genuinely, sometimes that is what I'm going there for. And it was pork, mushroom, cheese, and caramelized onion, which was pretty delicious. Had a mince and cheese, which is, you know, just the classic. It's like your barometer. I had a lovely day yesterday with my mum. We had a massage and got our nails done and had lunch with my grandmas. And probably the last fun thing that I did this month, the very last, the one and only only. Um, I went to a recycled bead workshop with my friend Dania, and that was one of the DIY Daisy workshops. So all of the beads are collected from like op shops or harvested from I love that word so much. That's the word she uses, and I'm always like, ooh, science at play. Yeah. But like harvested from necklaces that she bought secondhand or whatnot. So I made a necklace that I really like, but then when I took it home, I was like, oh, it's exactly the same as this other necklace that I have, which is like obviously it's not exactly the same because of secondhand beads, but the vibes, it is incredibly similar.

Bridget 5:06

They are because when you sent me the one you made, I was like, that is a Laura necklace through and through. And then you were like, Oh yeah, I've got the exact same one.

unknown 5:14

I was like, oh yeah.

Laura 5:15

Like when they're together, it's kind of hard to tell where one necklace ends on the other. It's actually wild. Yeah, it's all my favorite colours. It's got the blue, the brown, a little pop of pink. So oh well, I'm consistent.

Bridget 5:28

That is true.

Laura 5:28

What about reading? Have you had a good reading month? Squeezed around the edges of this colossus of a book. Oh.

Bridget 5:35

Yeah, actually, I've had quite a few really good ones because I've been DNFing. I'm just flying through banger after banger. The first one is Lonely Mouth by Jacqueline Millet. That's an ARC that we received sometime last year.

Laura 5:48

Yeah, it's been a while.

Bridget 5:50

Yeah. And I'm sad that I put it off for so long. It was so good. Set in Sydney, there's grief, sisters, eating disorders.

Laura 5:57

Ticked all the boxes. The big three. She works at a restaurant. Someone asked us for more hospitality fiction.

Bridget 6:05

Like, I think when we did the specific book rec. Yes. So that might be why. Well, yeah.

Laura 6:09

Now we will have one, maybe.

Bridget 6:10

Fantastic. Second book I read was Dominion by Addie E. Kitchens, and this was great. This was set in Southern America. Very religious family, talking about men doing bad things and the women who love them and stand by them and, you know, try to support them even when maybe they shouldn't. Uh Dominicana by Angie Cruz. This story is about a young girl from the Dominican Republic who is married off to a man who's quite a lot older than her, and she moves to the United States, lives in New York. The hopes of the family are sort of resting on her to make a new life for them. Another lovely book I read was Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks, and this was very sad. This is a memoir about a woman who's lost her husband unexpectedly, and she takes a trip to a really remote place to grieve, basically, because she's been pushing through with demands of life and her work and her family, and she's just taken this time to sit in her grief, and it was beautiful and very, very upsetting. I read a graphic novel by Lee Lai called Canon. This was so good. Really? Yes, so good. It's about two young, queer Asian females living in Canada, and it just talks about the pressures of life and family and mental health and trying to find peace and stillness, like who you are as a person. It was so good.

Laura 7:33

Okay, I'm just looking at it now, and I have put this on my two-read list on like Libya or whatever, because I saw the cover and thought fantastic. So consider me a treat.

Bridget 7:42

Another great book I read was Moderation by Elaine Castillo, and this is about a woman who works in content moderation for a site. I think a little bit like Reddit, and then she gets offered a job in a virtual reality sort of social media escape. And it sort of turned into a little bit of a like a literary fiction love story. Ooh. And it was not what I expected. I expected it to be boring, and it was great. And the last book I read was Catalina by Carla Corneo Villa Vicencio, and this was very short, it was probably only like 250 pages. Uh, it reminded me of The Idiot by Elif Batumen. Your fave. My fave. It was about an undocumented American girl who was at Harvard, and it was like quite jaunty and silly at the same time as being quite sad.

Laura 8:31

Perfect. Plenty more books uh for me to finish in six months' time and say, I finally read a Bridget book. Speaking of, uh two books that I did read that I would classify as Bridget books were I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue. This was so much funnier and so much better than I thought it would be. Same. Even having heard you say the very same thing. I listened to some of the audiobook as well, and I would highly recommend that experience. The accents and the kind of tone that the narrator put on for her parents in particular was so funny. Like, I don't think I can remember cracking up in a book in so long, but they were hilarious. And I also cried. Also, since we last recorded, I have finally read The God of Small Things. This was yeah, a true work of art. There's so many things about this book that kind of flawed me, but just her use of language and the creativity with which she writes was so astonishing to me. It kind of reminded me of being 14 or 15, however old I was when I first read Cloud Street and was coming across all of these sort of unconventional, semi-made-up, like colloquial words. I think in Cloud Street there's no quotation marks, dialogue is like quite fluid. And I think the way that Randutty Roy wrote from the perspective of a child and like capitalized certain words and like described feelings was just so completely new to me and so spectacular. This book was devastating.

Bridget 10:01

Yeah.

Laura 10:02

Not necessarily in the way that I expected it to be, which maybe made it all the more devastating. It was completely unsettling. Um, and I'm so glad to have read it. And then apart from that, I've really just been trotting around with the It Girl novels of the minute. I have burned my way through Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. In case you've been living under a rock, this is a story that follows Natalie Heller Mills, an incredibly successful influencer who sells this like perfectly curated aesthetic of like a fundamentalist Christian life. She's at home making her own sourdough, homesteading, blah, blah, blah. Um, but she wakes up one day in a house that looks like hers with children that seem like hers, a husband that seems to be hers as well, except for the fact that none of them are. Something is slightly off. The novel traces the mystery of where the hell is she and what the heck has happened. And it's interspliced with like a then and now kind of thing. So you get this like tension of her rising fame coupled with the kind of bleak, true trad wife situation she's found herself in. It was juicy, it was easy to chug back. I had a good time reading it. I don't think there's anything wrong with me recommending this book.

Bridget 11:17

I haven't read it yet, but I think I'm like 36th in line at the library, so I'm keen.

Laura 11:23

I also read Strangers by Belle Burden, which I know that you also read. This was also similarly juicy. This is a memoir about the breakdown, like the very sudden, I should say, breakdown of a 20-year marriage and the kind of financial stress and emotional stress that comes after that. I did really enjoy this book, and I think that I really enjoyed it because it was a story from the perspective of someone whose life is so far removed from my own. So although I have seen plenty of criticism talking about like, oh boo-hoo, like, you know, you only have a couple million left, down from a few more, uh, it's just so far out of my realm of like understanding that it was juicy to read. It's not a book where I'm like learning about the world and like, you know, becoming a better person, but it was compelling, I would agree. Every month when we send out the voting for our book of the month, there's also a little box where listeners can submit requests for us to talk about anything else that takes their fancy. And more often than not, people ignore this box, and that's completely fine with us because we will talk about whatever we want whenever we want. So it's never stopped us before. This month, someone has asked us any skincare recs. I really appreciated the toothpaste discussions. Firstly, you can't know how much that means and how much that validates us. It's really tickled me. Yeah. It's just so funny. Bridget's a glow with pride right now.

Bridget 12:47

Do you have any skincare wrecks, Bridget? I am quite boring when it comes to skincare. I like to be told what to use and then I don't want to think about it ever again. But this is a product that if I don't use, I notice a big difference. So it is the Glow Exfoliator by GoTo Skincare. It's a toner. I mean, I don't really know anything about this, but I'm just gonna read to you what the website is telling me. So it uses glycolic acid to hydrate the skin while removing dead skin cells. Improves overall skin tone and texture. And I went without it for like a year. I've recently started using it again, and I really like it. Another thing that I've been using also from GoTo is a hyaluronic acid called Much Plumper Skin. And this is another thing that if I don't use, I really notice the difference. It just makes my skin feel more hydrated, I guess. And I'm feeling like my skin is getting older, like more wrinkly. So anything that makes me feel less wrinkly is good.

Laura 13:44

Perfect. How about you? Yeah, I'm also really boring with my skincare. I yearn to be like a little vial slash tincture slash, you know, natural products girly, but my skin yearns for pharmaceutical products in the most hideous packaging possible. I've tried, and I know it's probably like you've got to go through to get out, but I just I'm too vain. I did have really bad acne. A couple of years ago now, like I came off birth control and then like shit hit the fan, and it was the worst. I threw everything I had at it, aka like all the wrong things. Like I was one step away from whipping out the Senives apricot scrub.

Bridget 14:22

Oh, yeah.

Laura 14:23

And I think I made it so much worse. So there are a couple of products that I've been using, some for a couple of years now, that are my go-to cheap pharmaceutical reliables. The first is the Cetophil Hydrating Foaming Cream Cleanser. And you can get this bad boy in a huge pump bottle. So it's fun for the whole family. This one has hydrating glycerin, soothing aloe vera, essential vitamin B3, and pro vitamin B5. And it sounds good to me. Yeah. I think the foaming aspect really gives me that squeaky, clean kind of feeling, but I don't feel like it's stripping me, which I think sometimes can be the case with foaming cleansers. I mean, every dermatologist I went to, or like every doctor or like aesthetician or whatever, was like, you should use Cetophil. And I was like, no, I won't. It's too ugly. And then, spoiler alert, yes, it works. It's worked. I used to use that too. Yeah. Another cleanser in the same vein that I think was maybe a little bit better for my super dry skin in winter was the QV ceramides cleanser. Looks exactly the same, just has like purple instead of blue. I think QV may be made in Australia if that floats your boat. They're both huge, they're both cheap as chips, um, and they work really well for me. Recently, and I may need to backtrack this because I have only been using it for maybe like a month, but my skin was feeling really dry, so I tested this cream. It like comes in a tub. It's another hideous pharmaceutical. It's a French pharmacy brand that's popped up in Chemist Warehouse, and it's called Mixer, like M-I-X-A. And I originally bought this cream because I could not stop having searing hot showers and backs of my legs where the water was just like lashing them every day, were like so dry and so itchy, and I kept scratching them. This one was the mixer Panthanol Comfort Anti-Scratching Cream. Wow. It was fine on my legs. I'm not really a lotion girly, try as I may be, it's just too much work. But this is one of those slightly threatening creams that says it can be used on your face, body, and hands, which to me says no, that should not go anywhere near your face. Yes. But one day my skin was so dry and I thought I'll give it a go. And I feel like it's been really fantastic for my skin. It also has glycerin, it has omega 6 and 9, whatever those are. Yeah, the well-known ones. The big dogs. A bonus is that it comes in a huge tub, so I can feel like I'm a grandma using my like Pons cold cream or something like that. So it's good. And then the last thing I would recommend is a sunscreen. It's the Hamilton SPF 50 everyday face cream. It's Australian made and owned. It's super cheap. I just really like the way that this feels on my skin. It feels almost like a balm. The product information says that it's non-greasy and a matte finish. I don't really know about the non-greasy element because pretty much everything to do with my face is greasy. I just be greasy.

Bridget 17:22

I can't remember the peanut butter, like craft maybe where it's like never oily, never dry. That's just not possible. That's not true. Yeah. I think sunscreen always greasy.

Laura 17:31

Yes. It kind of reminds me of I don't know if you ever used those Maybelline baby skin primers.

Bridget 17:37

No, I don't think so.

Laura 17:39

That's the texture. If anyone out there, that's what it reminds me of. So yeah. Very happy to get that off my chest. At long last, someone has finally asked me. And I think this is only the beginning. Great. This is your new career venture. Yes. Maybe I should do like get ready with me while we talk about our podcast books.

Bridget 18:01

I'm actually sorry to interrupt you, but I'm surprised it's taken so long for that exact phrase in that exact voice to make it on the podcast because we're constantly saying it, but I don't think it's ever been in an episode. Get ready with me. Come with me. Do record an episode of the boat.

Laura 18:20

I don't understand how we've never said a book. I was this close to saying it when we were recording earlier as well. That's so funny.

Bridget 18:31

I have one more thing to tick off our admin list before we get into the episode. And that is I have received some correspondence from a listener, and they have asked me a question about your goal setting sticker chart that you said at the start of the year. Oh no. And they said to me, How's it going? How's her goal setting going? How are the stickers? How are the star charts going? And I said, Look, I haven't heard about the star charts for a while, but I can't imagine they're going well. And so I have been given a gift to give to you to encourage your goals.

Laura 19:07

Oh my god. This is the highs and lows. I've gone from betrayal to distrust to joy. Pleasure.

Bridget 19:14

So this is a goal setter sticker book. It has 20 sheets of stickers to help you reach your goals.

Laura 19:21

It is stunning. Um this is pretty much perfectly in talklet get hit colours as well. It is as well.

Bridget 19:29

I know I thought the exact same thing.

Laura 19:31

Little swirly design. What a thoughtful, oh my god. 760 plus individual stickers. Oh, this cannot be as good for the listeners as it is for me, but if you could feast your eyes on these stickers, 760. We've got go date off kettlebells. Well, you are a gym girly now. I am a gym girly now. I have one or two calluses at most. They do fall off if I wash dishes for too long, but I'm working on them. Wow. Well, look, it's not going great. So this could not have come at a better time. Thank you. Halfway through the year. It's new year, new year. Q3. Q3. We we rebuild. We go, we get. Thank you. So our theme of the month was time travel. And I don't know about you, but this is a genre that I feel pretty resistant to. Yes.

Bridget 20:26

I'm highly resistant to time travel, I think.

Laura 20:28

It's a genre that authors seem to be drawn to time and time again. And I thought we could take just a minute to reflect on why that may be.

Bridget 20:37

I hope you have notes prepared because I have nothing to contribute here. Because I mean, spoiler alert, I don't know why they're doing this. I don't want to read about it. I hate it.

Laura 20:48

Well, having never written a piece of time travel literature, I can only make assumptions, but I think probably as a writer, it provides high-stakes tension. You know, we've got the like fish out of water. You know, I'm in the 17th century, I'm in the 18th century, I'm in the future.

Bridget 21:05

Small girl in a big city.

Laura 21:08

And then it sort of like writes itself with like the butterfly effect, or like it's made up tension. It's like easy to make up tension of like the juxtaposition between like Martin Girl in a feral Scottish world or like boy from the future in the past. I don't know why this is happening and I really don't like it. I love it. Um, I'm and also those are the only examples I have because I have not read spoiler alert a lot of time travel literature.

Bridget 21:35

No, neither. And I haven't enjoyed the few that I have read, I would say. The only one that I have enjoyed, against all odds, I think, is Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. That's the only one that I could remember that I enjoyed.

Laura 21:48

It's hard because time travel literature just seems to be some sort of line in the sand I've drawn where I'm like, no, I don't respect that when you do that. Like we famously read Before the Coffee Gets Cold on. The show. And I think time travel offers authors like quite a lazy vehicle to ask these what if questions that they could have gotten to another way, perhaps. Like, as we discussed, I did just finish reading yesteryear, which I guess falls. I mean, I expected it to fall into this category. Does it, doesn't it? I can't say. No spoilers. On the calculation of volume by Solvay Barr. I guess that's time travel in a way. It's the same day repeating over and over again. Both good, but maybe not time travel in the traditional sense where it's like, whoa, wacky man Doctor Who type vibes.

Bridget 22:37

I think this seems to be the episode for like listener submissions because someone asked another question and they said, Does reading time travel things mess with your heads? I have a hard time reading time travel sometimes because I start bringing too much logic into the mix. Like, girl, you can't do that. You might have just ruined the entire course of human history just then. And I agree. I don't think I am whimsical enough to like immerse myself in that world. I don't understand how it would be possible. I know that Diana Gabbledone and Stephen Hawking believe that time travel is possible. That's too much for my tiny brain to comprehend. I don't, well, possibly more. Do you? Let's survey everyone. Do you think it's possible? No. There's no one else in the room. Okay. But Stephen Hawking and Diana. Yeah, but I read about it. Okay. They believe it's possible. I don't understand why that is. And it's too much for me. It's like overload. I'm gonna be like a Mac trying to play The Sims. I'm gonna be overheating. I don't understand it. I don't want to read about it.

Laura 23:43

I mean, I know we'll come back to it. I think it's pretty rich of Diana Gabbledon to take that perspective with like the sprinkling of time travel that's often in her book. Moving on, um, yes, it does mess with my head. I think it's well noted in our podcasts that I'm not always so happy to go with the flow. Um, and in this novel and in like any movies or like other books in this vein that I've read, it's the like, but think about what you've done. Think about the ramifications, do it. But how? How are we getting back? What's the science? Does it work in reverse? How can we test this theory?

Bridget 24:18

Like, yeah, has anyone called in sick for your job? Like, what like what does your mom think you're doing? Oh, Narnia. Oh. It's just reminding me of something else I don't like.

Laura 24:30

Are your family sad? Yeah. Do they miss you? Yeah.

Bridget 24:34

How will they ever get closure? I don't want to think about these things. What happened to the vibrators in your top drawer? Did someone have to clean them out?

Laura 24:44

I can sense us getting riled up. I can sense us getting carried away, swept away, perhaps. Yes, of course, perhaps. To another time. To another place. We walked next to some stones. Careful where you walk. Bridget.

Bridget 24:58

Mind the cap.

Laura 25:00

Bridget, before we get too far into the episode, I'd love to know your initial thoughts, expectations, hopes, and dreams heading into Atlanda by Diana Garbell Stone. See what I did there?

Bridget 25:13

I did, yeah. Thank you. I didn't really know what to expect. I knew it was long. I obviously knew there was a TV show about it. And I only really know older women who enjoy that TV show. Like maybe two people I know have watched it. One of those people watched so much of it in a two-week period that they developed Vertigo. Why? Hang on. The other person I know that likes a TV show, one of my friends, has the theme song as the ringtone. And I didn't know that's what it was. Anyway, so like during meetings and stuff at work, it I'd just hear sing me a song with the lyrics. And I'd be like, what is that haunting voice? I never knew what it was. That's really all I know about Outlander. I looked at it on Goodreads, I saw that it had an outstanding average rating of 4.27 with around 1,171,000 reviews. Wow. And that's incredible. The only other thing I know about Outlander is I think standing stones are boring. There's some littered around Yorkshire. Brian always tries to get me interested in them when we are there. He's trying to send you back. It's so boring. I don't care about rocks. I don't care about stones. Man-arranged rocks or like nature-arranged rocks. Not here for any of it. The last time we were in England, we were driving, and he was like, Oh, there's some standing stones around here somewhere. Like I've been looking out for them, and I was like, Oh yeah, they were like 10 minutes ago. I saw them on the map and didn't, I just didn't think it was interesting, so I didn't bring it up. And he was like, Oh. So goddamn it.

Laura 26:53

I could have gone back to the past quite a lot of things. Maybe with that attitude, you should have. Go back for spanking.

Bridget 27:02

Stop. How about you? What was your thoughts about Outlander?

Laura 27:07

I can't explain it, but for some reason, this was one that, like, on multiple occasions for no reason at all, I'd been like, wouldn't it be crazy if we read Outlander? Actually, you were very keen to read this. I think you were the driving voice one. Like a number of years. What fits that genre? Outlander. I really thought that I was going to enjoy this when I looked on Goodreads, and I know it's not always the measure of a book, but when I looked on Goodreads, it actually has nothing below a three-star, quite a few four-star ratings from friends and foes. And I think I sort of thought, like, yeah, it might be trashy, it might be long, but the historical romance element might give it a bit more oomph. Yeah, oomph. A little bit more like gravity or realism, which could mean that I connect with a romance finally. So I was kind of excited. Aside from that, my friend Georgia Rose and I used to be, for some reason, in the Queensland Irish choir.

Bridget 28:05

Oh my god, I forgot that.

Laura 28:08

And we used to sing the skyboat song all the time. So I love that song. And although, yeah, we are talking about the book and not the show, I was excited to be singing in the zone. Singing that. Singing the song of a land. And what is it? Sing me a song of a land that is gone.

Bridget 28:26

That's it. Listeners everywhere will be pleased or displeased to know that I can't do a Scottish accent. Can you do a Scottish accent? No. There will be no accents done in this episode. But attention, lads and lassies, if you are yet to finish reading Outlander by Diana Gavaldone and would like to avoid spoilers, pause the episode here, subscribe to the show, and come back when you're ready to listen again.

Laura 28:49

Content warnings for Outlander include rape, sexual assault, violence, death, blood, abuse, infertility, and war.

Bridget 28:56

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is Assassinak, an outlander, in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord, 1743.

Laura 29:21

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire. And between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Bridget 29:44

Okay, Laura, we have now finished reading all 863 pages of Outlander, and I cannot wait to hear how you felt.

Laura 30:03

I don't know how to feel. I guess my overwhelming feeling is I wish I hadn't read that. And it's not even as glaring and as offensive as so many of the books we've read on the show. It's just a tepid, like, ugh, that wasn't for me.

Bridget 30:22

Yeah. I feel exactly the same way. I think there's like points in the story where I could have really been hooked in, and then there were other points where I was set free.

Laura 30:33

Running with the wolves.

Bridget 30:35

Go back. Back to your first husband, please.

Laura 30:38

Please just make a choice, let it end. Yeah. So overall, quite disappointing. Yeah, I would say so. Kinda good, kinda not. I don't think there's a chance that I'm going to read any of the other books. Oh, not at all. There's so many others, and uh from the stacks I've seen, they seem to get a little bigger every time.

Bridget 30:57

Yeah, I saw somebody say, I think on Reddit that it is an average of a thousand pages per book.

Laura 31:01

Oh my god.

Bridget 31:02

And there are nine currently published books, and the tenth is soon to be published.

Laura 31:07

And I think given that one of my major issues with Outlander was that there was just so much of it, I think that's a hard no. But whereas with some of the podcast books we've read, I would say, no, that's bad writing, that's a bad book, that's a bad plot about bad characters. I don't necessarily think that's the case here. There were lots of things in this book where I thought, oh, what a beautiful passage, or oh, it is nice to hear about this, or that's a great quote. And definitely scenes where I found myself swept up in the drama. This book was like a threadbare blanket. Like you could get warmth and enjoyment from your blanket in certain parts, and then the other bits were so cold and boring and such a waste of your time. Don't even bother putting the blanket on. I love this analogy. Yeah, it's so no, it's it's that's exactly what it is. Me being like, she needs to learn to write better. And I whip out this faultless blanket analogy. Is there anything else you want to add?

Bridget 32:06

No. I think you've summed it up very well with the threadbare blanket analogy. My overall feeling was bored.

Laura 32:13

Yes. And that's fine, I think. Well, before we get too far into the specifics of what did and didn't work for us in this book, I think we should wind it back a bit and have a bit of a chat about Diana Gabaldone, our author. So stressed every time I say her name.

Bridget 32:28

Same, because up until two hours ago, we have been saying Gabaldon. We've read that it rhymes with Stone, so if it's wrong, apologies. But she's an intriguing character. Let's talk about her. Straight off the bat, I would like to say I'm a little bit scared of Diana Gabaldon. Gabaldon. Shit. I've watched a few interviews with her. I think she's a scary lady. But let's talk about her. She was born in 1952 in Arizona to a Mexican father and an English mother. She has a Bachelor of Science in Zoology, Masters of Science in Marine Biology, and a PhD in behavioral ecology. She has a scientific mind and she's smart.

Laura 33:07

Isn't that interesting the way that like quite a few of the podcast books we've read now have been like an incredibly smart, scientifically minded woman who's turned to writing as just like a creative outlet and written these like incredibly popular romances.

Bridget 33:23

Yeah, like you think about Frieda McFadden or even Ali Hazelwood. Yeah. It's very interesting. Um, also quite interesting how we haven't liked them. There's something here we could stretch out into a theory, I'm sure. A hypothesis. Dare we say? So she started her writing career through submissions to Gold Key Comics, and she said that she had noticed like the quality of the comics slipping over the past 25 years in a letter to the company, and she wanted to try to do better. So she submitted some work. I think they bought her second submission and started from there.

Laura 33:59

25 years is a really long period of scientific observation, so you can't fault her there.

Bridget 34:04

Also, can't imagine being committed to a comic for 25 years. Wow, so lifelike. She was the founding editor of Science Software Quarterly in 1984, and she wrote software reviews and technical articles for computer publications, as well as popular science articles and Disney comics. Okay, quite a variety there. Yes. For 12 years, she was a professor in scientific computation. And in 1988, she decided to try her hand at writing a novel for funsies and practice. She was inspired by an episode of Doctor Who, where one of the doctor's companions was a Scotsman named Jamie in the year 1745.

Laura 34:45

I would love to be able to find inspiration that way. Like it is all well and good for me to come on and rag on these authors and be like, well, I didn't really like the romance novel you wrote, but I am not coming up with any ideas of my own. So I will give them that.

Bridget 34:59

Yeah. I was reading about how at the time she had some young children. She had a very busy career, obviously a household to run alongside her husband, and she wrote this book in secret. She was waking up at like four o'clock in the morning to secretly write because she knew that if she said to her husband, Oh, I'm thinking about writing this story, he might say, Hmm, maybe wait a few years because you've got so much going on. I had a bit of a count and a bit of a look around, and it seems that she has written about 31 books, numerous scientific articles, but one that really stood out to me was an article on the Gabaldone theory of time travel in the Journal of Transfigural Mathematics.

Laura 35:38

Okay. Did you read it? No. I wouldn't have understood a word. No, that's true. We would have been completely lost to us. We have already alluded to being quite terrified of her, and a quick search of Diana Gabaldone controversy has yielded some interesting results. So some of the controversies highlighted around her clashes with TV producers. Um, she was serving as an executive consultant for the Outlander television series. And you've seen and I've seen in interviews where she has been pretty vocal about um her opinions on like how the show has changed scenes or taken liberties. We heard her say like five times in one interview, the book is the book and the show is the show.

Bridget 36:18

And honestly, I get that because if I wrote a book, I would have a really hard time of letting it go. I don't think I could do it.

Laura 36:25

No. And another thing that I respect her for, even though it terrifies me, and if it was a different author, I could, you know, change my tune just like that. But she has had some pretty direct quotes about like, well, I don't write for the fans. I write for me. I don't really care what the fans think. I don't care if they're happy with the books, like it's just for me. So I think that's caused a little bit of backlash. And then one of the most intriguing ones for me was some comments that she's made around fan fiction. So Diana does have a blog which is still up on her website, which she's still updating, actually. Yeah, it's still being updated, but the website itself looks like approximately Yeah, it is time travel when you go to the website.

Bridget 37:05

You are going back in time. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like you're in 2005 on your parents' desktop.

Laura 37:11

Yes, very much so. And so although these blog posts have been deleted, we all know the internet is forever. So in 2010, she published a blog post when she basically called fanfiction illegal and immoral, which are two very strong words, going so far as to compare the unauthorized use of her characters to the quote rape of an author's work. So this led to her actually putting out a formalized official fanfiction policy, which requested fans don't write, send, publish, or do like any fanfiction based on her intellectual property.

Bridget 37:48

The blog post was unhinged. It is unhinged, and I think what makes it even more unhinged is when you look at the reason why this came about. So a deleted blog post from 2010, which has been preserved on, I think, a live journal, which is another blast from the past, says, recently a couple of people have drawn my attention to a person who's been posting on various boards about fundraising for an uninsured friend named Stacy who has breast cancer. The poster's idea for fundraising is to auction off a custom written piece of fanfic involving Jamie Fraser and Emmett someone who I think is from Twilight. I sort of hope it's not the willowy young bottom from the TV show Queer As Folk. She hastens to note that it won't be slash but will otherwise take the bitter's tastes into account. And of course, all proceeds will go to Stacy's hospital expense fund. She did not naturally ask me about this. What would I have to say about it? Well, the question here, of course, is what do I say about it? Do I write to this person and tell her to cease and desist and too bad about Stacy, thus seeming heartless? Do I give this manipulative project my blessing, thus opening the door to an endless parade of piously disguised fanfic charity? Make it clear that I disapprove of what she's doing, but stop short of forbidding her to do it, and turn a blind eye if she does. This went on. It was long and on and on. She got quite a lot of backlash. I think she got like the 2010 version of cancelled.

Laura 39:26

Yeah.

Bridget 39:27

I think she posted three or four different blog posts addressing this. They've all since been deleted. And then yeah, she did say the quote, okay, my position on fanfic is pretty clear. I think it's immoral. I know it's illegal, and it makes me want to baff whenever I've inadvertently accounted some of it involving my characters. It's extreme.

Laura 39:47

It is extreme. I don't know, like, I guess what, year 2010. Uh, fanfiction is I guess growing. It's a newer phenomenon, but also like fan fiction is as old as literature, really. Like everything's inspired by something. I do think her distinction that Stacy is uninsured is like a little cruel, apart from the obvious homophobia and twilight phobia. Yes. I don't know what's wrong with this. It's like Anne Rice when she was popping off.

Bridget 40:19

It is like Anne Rice, and I think I've I've seen some things about George R.R. Martin also talking about things like this. So similar eras, similar, you know, kinds of genres. I would also like to point out the fact that I read out earlier, which was she was inspired by an episode of Doctor Who, where one of the Doctor's companions was a Scotsman named Jamie in the year 1745.

Laura 40:46

So if that's not fanfiction, I don't know what it is, Diana. I sort of feel like she just wanted a monopoly on her own works because, like you said before, she's written like 30-something books. Uh, spoiler alert, a large portion of those are just fanfics about characters like novellas, prequels, sequels. Not only has she been writing those many novellas, but she's also given the rights to Outlander for a musical to be developed and a graphic novel. So I don't know. I think her opinions on fanfiction are a bit of a stretch. I don't know how I would feel if I was an author and people were writing stuff about characters that I'd written, but I do tend to think that I would have some acceptance of the fact that A, it's published, it's out in the world. Yeah. This could surely, possibly even benefit my work. And B, it's all made up.

Bridget 41:37

Yeah. You know, it's that argument of like good reads and bookstagram, story graph, they are reader spaces. I would also argue that fanfiction websites are also reader spaces. I don't think authors have any business going into fanfiction websites and reading about their characters. I think that could only be bad for the author. I don't know why you'd want to do that to yourself, but I think this is something that she should have taken a step back from. Yeah. And I wonder, like, I wonder in 2026, 16 years on, like she's 74 this year. Is she still feeling as strongly about this issue, or maybe has she thought, Akim, there's people that are dying?

Laura 42:13

I don't know. She seems like someone whose opinion on this would have only doubled down and strengthened over time.

Bridget 42:21

So the theme this month is time travel. And as we alluded to before, this book barely time travels. Something I found interesting when I was researching is that the novel didn't initially feature time travel at all. It was sort of added later by Diana to explain Claire's personality in comparison to the Scottish people in the 1700s. So she had meant the book to be a straight historical novel. When she was writing her first scene with Claire, she said that she wouldn't cooperate. Dougal asked her who she was, and without my stopping to think who she should be, she drew herself up, stared belligerently at him, and said, Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp, and who the hell are you? She promptly took over the story and began telling it herself, making smart ass, modern remarks about everything. At which point I shrugged and said, Fine, nobody's ever going to see this book, so it doesn't matter what bizarre thing I do, go ahead and be modern, and I'll figure out how you got there later. So time travel was all her fault.

Laura 43:28

That's a hundred shades of Jessa Hastings, hey. That's so interesting because one of my notes was that the time travel element is so secondary to everything else that's happening in this book. And I just was really thinking I don't understand why she isn't just a spy. Like that would be way higher stakes tension or like a highborn English woman. She could be a captive, she could be captured. Yes. You um actually can still be sassy and English, um, regardless of. What era you come from? It kind of screams of like we've seen know how to write any other way. Like having watched interviews with her as well, I would say the way that Claire narrates is exactly the way that Diana Gabbledone speaks.

Bridget 44:14

This just reminded me of a note that I have further down the document, which is be careful what we say, because as we mentioned before, we're scared of her. But she has come out and said that her characters are not her children. Her characters are her. Oh well. So we know that. But she said, not just Claire, not just Jamie, all of them, including Black Jack Randall. You might want to keep that in mind. Chills. I'm genuinely so scared. She was at a book club meet and she was surrounded by these women who were talking about her book, and they were saying how much they detested Black Jack Randall and like all of the awful things he says, all of the awful, awful, awful things he does. And she was like, you guys have gotta be careful. I'm right here. He's a rapist.

Laura 44:56

Yeah. Like serial.

Bridget 44:58

Yeah. Yeah. She also said they continue to be me when written on the page. You know this, if you've read it all, if a writer is halfway honest in what he or she does, the reader knows that writer in varying degrees, some conscious, some visceral. When you mess with my people, you aren't messing with something I made, you're messing with me.

Laura 45:20

I don't know. I don't know. I sort of tend to think when authors talk about their writing like this, it gives me the same feeling as like method acting. I know that your characters have to inhabit you a little bit.

Bridget 45:34

Yes.

Laura 45:35

Otherwise, like how do they come out? But this line where you can't detach yourself from them, you know, you cut me, I bleed ink type thing.

Bridget 45:44

Stephanie Meyer crying when she had to cut some scenes.

Laura 45:48

I mean, I would be no different. That's the thing. Like, you know, it's rich of me to say, I would absolutely like, even when we have to edit bits out of this podcast, sometimes I'm like, but I'm so funny. Yeah, this is my best bit though. I don't know. It's it's mainly terrifying, is what I would say.

Bridget 46:07

Oh, yeah, 100%.

Laura 46:08

I'm scared. She got me there. She got me. I think it's a testament to like how boring we found this book where the majority of what we're talking about is like the publication and the author. However, to build on some of the publication facts, Outlander was first published in the United States in 1991. It was published in the UK and Australia under the title Cross Stitch. The original cover for this is stunning. It's got like a clock, some tartan, some sort of like beads and chains. Every cover thereafter is hideous. So the US publishers had a little faith in their audience, as they so often do, and they changed the book's name to Outlander because it sounded not adventury enough and a little bit too much like embroidery. But this wasn't the only regional variation as a result of the publication process. In fact, there were so many subtle differences that at first Bridget thought she'd uncovered a conspiracy.

Bridget 47:06

Yeah, I thought I had like a dud copy of a book once again. This has happened sometime to me before. When was that? Fifty Shades of Grey? Yes.

Laura 47:13

Yeah. Yeah. Those like really like paper great paper books. Yeah.

Bridget 47:18

As I often do, I was switching between formats. So I have a paperback copy of the book, I had an ebook copy, and I had an audiobook. Normally I read the podcast books two times. I normally read it once as a book, and I normally listen to it once as an audiobook, but because this book is so, so, so long, I was just switching, you know, at the ends of chapters to whatever format was suiting me at that time. I was reading the book on my phone and I wanted to switch back to the paperback version. And so I was searching for this scene that I was up to, and it was a sex scene, and so I thought, oh, that'll be easy to find because I'll just look for, you know, some gross words and it will be fine. But I couldn't find it. It wasn't in the book, and so I was thinking, have I uncovered something huge here? Am I about to do a big mic drop of censorship and outlander and all of these things, bonus chapters being added to fit the steamy market, etc. etc. And then I started to notice a few other things. I noticed that there are some character names that are different. Alex versus Alec. Yeah. Comb versus Callum. We tried to Google it a few times and we couldn't find too much information on it. And what we sort of thought was just that the American publishers once again didn't really have faith in their audience. Then finally Lori hit Jackpot and she came across a Reddit thread that sort of validated our conspiracy theory and made us feel not crazy.

Laura 48:43

Yeah, this is interesting because I feel like this is something we don't see very often or either just like never have the opportunity to discover. I have two physical copies of Outlander, um, and these were both published post-TV shows, so I guess they would both be US editions, because they both call the character Callum, not Calm. But I was listening to the audiobook, which was released long enough ago that it says now ending disc one.

Bridget 49:10

Yes. Which I was like, oh, and long enough ago that the only audience for audiobooks seems to be 70-year-old women.

Laura 49:17

Yes. Yeah, the narrator did give Claire a certain older twang, which was a little unsettling in some scenes. I also had access to an e-book copy that was published recently by Penguin and has testaments from the likes of Allie Hazlewood, Rebecca Yarris, Cassandra Clare. So, I mean, had I stumbled upon that first, maybe that could have given me a better indication as to how I may feel about this book. Um, but one user on Reddit said, the UK version was called Cross Stitch. In the Outlandish Companion, which is a companion novel, or a bit of an explainer that Diana Gebaldone wrote for Outlander, she talks about how the sentiment of American readers was something to the effect of why would Claire be worrying about Frank so much when she has Jamie. But the UK readers thought that she wasn't worrying about Frank enough. So the UK version has a bit more worrying about Frank. And then there was another Reddit I came across where some more differences were highlighted. So in Outlander but not in Cross Stitch, there was a part where Claire sees Jamie's scars for the first time, um, and this whole part was missing in Cross Stitch. I think the details were deemed to be a little bit too gory, like the details of the flogging. In chapter 18, there's a sex scene that was cut. In chapter 22, Jamie tells the story about an incident where he was beaten in Colms Hall at the age of 16. And then changes that are made in Cross Stitch are minor, I guess. There's a couple of geographic differences. Apparently in chapter 24, Diana Gabbledon had to rewrite a scene so that it looked like they were just having stock standard sex instead of Jamie going down on Claire. And just a few other things like that. So I was kind of sh, yeah, surprised by that. I guess I was just really ignorant about the fact that that happens.

Bridget 51:04

Yeah, and I was wondering how often is this happening. Like I'm not often switching between an e-book and an audiobook and a physical book, paying such close attention. And how much other stuff have we missed in the past or even in this book? It's it's so interesting to me.

Laura 51:19

As is often the case with our show, we weigh up the good reviews against the bad reviews. But this episode we had an opportunity to do something slightly different. I was lamenting the fact that I'm struggling through this very large book on TikTok and received a comment from a very enthusiastic Outlander fan eager to jump to the defense of her favourite book. I think, Bridget, we're both still a little on the fence and a little uncertain about what's hooking so many people in and earning Outlander its 4.27 star average rating on Goodreads. And this opportunity has never really presented itself before. So without further ado, we'd love to offer you the other side of the coin, the other perspective, and raise the roof with a little enthusiasm for Outlander. Say hello to our mystery guest Ren. Hello, Ren. Thank you so much for joining us. It is an honor and a privilege to have you on our show. I was wondering if you could pretty please introduce yourself for our listeners, tell us who you are, what makes you uniquely qualified to talk on the topic of Outlander.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Okay, hi. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Ren. I am a public librarian in Melbourne. I think that I am uniquely qualified to speak on Outlander, or at least to say that I speak in defense of Outlander.

Bridget 52:39

You're taking up arms for Outlander.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Exactly, yeah. So Outlander was published for the first time in 1991 when I was about two years old. My mum had a first edition copy of it, and I've never lived in a house in my life without a copy of Outlander on the shelf. In fact, my copy is called Cross Stitch because that's what it was originally called. And then when I moved from Auteroa to Australia when I was 21, I found a copy in an op shop and I picked it up and I started reading it as a way to feel closer to my mum because I was so homesick. And then there hasn't been a year of my life since then. I'm 37 now. There hasn't been a year of my life that I haven't picked a copy up. Not necessarily of Outlander, but of one of the books in the series and had a reread. So I've read them all so many times, half a dozen times each. They hold an immensely special place in my heart. So yeah, I feel qualified to speak up for Outlander. I love that. That is so cool.

Laura 53:41

What a nice story. Yeah. I was just thinking, I don't think I have a book like that, to be honest. No. Definitely not one that is one that's been read by my mum. Like I also enjoy reading because my mum enjoys reading and I saw her reading and I wanted to be just like her. But I don't really think there's a book that we've both loved together. So that's really special.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

As I said to Laura when we were discussing me coming on to take this role on today's um podcast, I don't know that I can necessarily argue for the literary merits of Outlander, but I can argue for its heart and soul and the fact that it is a beautiful book.

Laura 54:21

I think that's very fair. And actually, that was gonna be one of my questions. I guess what is the reading need that Outlander fills for you? Is it just that kind of comfort, that deep comfort?

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Yeah, I mean, look, I do think that these books are well written. I think they are beautifully written. Diana Gabelden's descriptive style of writing, I think it's good. I think it's good writing. I say to my friend who also loves the books, I would read a shopping list that Claire has. You know, like I would read anything. In fact, I almost wish that she would stop trying to write exciting stuff. I just want to read about them going about their daily lives and the really basic stuff that they do. I think use the word comfort, and I think that's a big part of the need, the reading need that it fulfills for me. I think it's very interesting when you look through my end-of-year reading on fable or story graph or whatever. You can see I'm like, oh, that month was a hard month for me. Like work was tough or I was going through something or whatever. Uh, because that's when I picked one of the books up because it's so they're so easy for me to read and it's like visiting old friends. Sometimes I'll be like, Oh, I wonder what they're up to. And then I'll I'll be like, oh, okay. I maybe needed to start taking things easy because that's my sign that that I'm kind of at my limit and I need to go revisit something so easy and lovely.

Bridget 55:53

Your barometer. Yeah. Check in with yourself. Yeah. It is funny because normally, like on the podcast, when we read a book, we either have like a strong hatred for it or we love it. This one, I would say it's not either one of those. Like we weren't like, this book sucks, like we so often find ourselves. I think it's just so far like outside of our usual reading realms that it was hard to I don't know, hard to be gripped or hard to connect with the characters.

Laura 56:23

I don't know what it was for me. I think I really agree with you. I do also think that the writing was really beautiful and it had so much of the things that I enjoy in other novels. I found it to be really cozy and I loved the descriptions of domestic life and nature. The food. Oh, the food as well. I want an oat cake. Yeah, I want honey on warm bread.

Bridget 56:49

A slice of bread and a chunk of cheese, you know.

Laura 56:53

That's the best book meal ever. Yeah. I don't know. I think maybe the pacing threw me off. It is a big book. It is intimidatingly large. And I tried hard to read it slowly because I knew that if I tried to power through, I'd probably get frustrated and make myself angry. I don't know why it didn't hook me. Do you think that the other novels in this series build on this story like in a way that may make it better for me?

SPEAKER_00 57:20

This is a tricky one because I think that not every book in this series, there's nine of them. Not every book in this series is incredible. I think some of them are duds, or maybe not duds, but a little bit more boring. And the second one is is one of the ones that's a bit more boring. Dang. So wow. It's always a challenge because it's like if the first one didn't hook you, the second one is not going to. The second one's gonna lose you completely, but then the third one that starts getting really good. So you've got to be really committed, I think, to wanting to see the magic to really get fully hooked on them. And if the first one didn't, I don't know why you would bother with the second. But yeah, they are long, they're really long, and I can see why you would struggle. Like I love how long they are, I'd like them to all be twice as long. I like the filler, you know, I like the scenes that don't necessarily help the story progress because that's the parts that I love the best. The descriptions of domestic life and you know, they're at Lelly Brock and they're milk and goat phenomenal. Give me more of it. But yeah, if you're not hooked, I can see why that would be a real challenge.

Bridget 58:37

Not to say that there weren't bits that hooked me, like when Claire was escaping from the prison and she had to go out and fight the wolf. I was at that point listening to the audiobook and I had to switch back to the physical copy because I couldn't read it fast enough. And so, like, those really exciting bits really got me. Is that sort of level of pace or like adrenaline is it the same throughout the whole series, or some books go a bit slower? Because so much happens, so many events. We were talking about this before, like there's the witch trials, she's escaping from somebody all the time, like there's so much going on, they must be stressed. Yes, cortisol through the roof.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

That doesn't end, that never ends. Wow. You're like power to them. Someone's been kidnapped again. Like, what on earth? These poor people, when will they just be able to rest?

SPEAKER_00 59:33

That's so funny. So as you go on, more people are introduced, and then the different storylines happen, and Claire and Jamie are over here, and then so and so's over here, and it's following their story. So there are definite it it's it's a book series where a lot of stuff happens to a lot of people the whole way through. And it can get a bit exhausting, to be honest. Towards the end in the last book, one of my main criticisms that I have is that I think Diana Gabelden gets a bit too she gets a little bit too like you can tell that it needed a bit more heavy-handed editing. And my theory is that she's a hard person to edit based on interviews that I've seen. I think that she is really staunch in her idea that these are her characters and this is her story, and don't you dare tell her that this needs to be cut out because what would you know? It's her story. But in the last book in particular, I think there's quite a bit that could have been cut out and made the story a bit better. And it's all like these like crazy storylines, and then they sort of nothing really happens. You're like, ah, all then for what?

Bridget 1:00:41

We were talking earlier in the episode about Diana and exactly that. Like she seems to be fiercely protective of her work, and we were saying that we'd probably be the same. If we'd created this world and created these characters, uh, I think we would be difficult as well. Yeah.

Laura 1:00:59

I'm always dishing out advice to authors. Just let it go. It's not a writer's space anymore, it's a reader's space, but I would be the worst author. I'd be fighting everyone. So reading every review, crying myself to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

I read an interview once with her where someone asked her a question about one of their characters and why what their motivation behind something that they did was. And she said, Well, how am I supposed to know? They just do things and I write it down. And I was like, What?

Laura 1:01:29

You're a kook, Diana.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

Crazy. And so often you're like, Oh, okay, so you've written this down, but there's really no thought that's gone into why or how this fits into the story. Which, in my opinion, I love the way she writes. I love the stories, like it works most of the time, but occasionally it doesn't, and I think a a stronger editor maybe could fix that.

Bridget 1:01:54

Something that we've noticed in a few interviews with her is that she's maybe not always so happy about the direction that the show takes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

Oh, that's interesting.

Bridget 1:02:01

Yeah. Have you seen the show? No.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Wow, no. Okay. The book's too sacred to me. I watched a few episodes. I didn't love the casting, and I just was like, it's too precious, and I don't want those people in my head when I'm reading it.

Bridget 1:02:18

That's totally understandable.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

My main criticism, I think, is that the thing I love so much about Claire is how strong and she's this like amazing modern woman in this older time. That's what makes her so special. I found in the TV show she's quite wimpy and complainy, and like, you know, like I just didn't believe in the show that the character that they portrayed would fight off wolves.

Laura 1:02:43

I feel like shows so often lean into that kind of direction.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

To me, it just undoes it all because that is what Jamie loves about her, is that she's this woman that is like no other woman he's ever met. He's so desirable in his time. Like he's a gorgeous man and he's he'd be easy to find a wife, but he meets Claire and he wants her because she's just like nothing he's ever seen before. So to take away some of her like guts and courage and like kind of modernness, for lack of a better word. Yeah. It just doesn't make any sense to me, you know.

Laura 1:03:17

Hearing you talk about this, I'm like, oh, this is your twilight. I'm looking at the stack of Twilight books behind Bridget, and I'm I've been thinking about like some of our favorite scenes in the Twilight novels are the ones where Bella's doing nothing. She's like heating up some lasagna in the microwave, she's reading a book on the rug. She's so boring, yeah. And she's so boring, but it's just so comforting. Yeah. We found when we reread the books that she had a lot more personality and was like funny and a lot sassier and smarter than the movies made her seem.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

Yeah. That's my take on the show. I just think they take all of what Claire is, just take it away before like a visual audience. She's so beautiful. She's so beautiful in the show. But I just don't think she's Claire. And I I didn't want that in my brain. Yeah. You know?

Laura 1:04:09

That's totally fair. Actually, one of my favorite scenes in the book was when Claire was gonna go back to Frank and to modern times, and she was trying to explain to Jamie, you know, that she had time traveled here and that she wasn't a witch, but like just the frustration and the desperation where she was like, I would seem like a witch to you. I can walk through these crowds of people and I cannot get smallpox and I don't get this and that. And I was really hooked by that concept of like modernity as magic. I was like, oh, that is amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

There's a scene further in the series where there's a woman, I think, or a sailor with smallpox, and no one will go in and look after him on a ship, and she can just go straight in and look after him, and everyone's like, Whoa, like you can't go there, and she's like, Watch me. Like, I think that's amazing. And in the further books, she creates penicillin and she creates ether so she can do surgery while people are under. And I think that is so cool. Like, that's one of the things I love is thinking about like what I'd be able to take if I ever found myself back. I don't know anything.

Bridget 1:05:21

You know that's actually something that we were thinking about. Like, if we had to go back in time, like where would we be most, I don't know, well suited to? And I couldn't really come up with an answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

No, I would I would suffer.

Bridget 1:05:33

I have no skills really.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

I'd get my first period and I'd be like, send me home. I can't do this anymore.

Bridget 1:05:37

Even like 15 years ago, I'd be like, I don't know.

Laura 1:05:42

I don't know. If I was back with my space, it could be good. Yeah. I'd get to coding again. Girls and STEM. Yeah. Often on our show, with the types of books that we read, there can be some pretty dicey depictions of sort of. Sexual abuse or like darker sexual themes. And to be honest, not either of us are very big readers of historical fiction. And so when it came to the depictions of, I guess, like violence or I guess some other scenes of sexual abuse in Outlander, we didn't really know where we sat on it. I guess I'm talking mainly about when Jamie beats Claire. What's your perspective on that?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

Okay. Every time I recommend this book to people, I say, look, you're gonna get to a part in the book where Jamie behaves really badly. And I need you to like just take it with a grain of salt. Like I think that's where Outlander loses a lot of people. Obviously, I do not think that violence against women is acceptable in any shape or form. But I do think that there is more nuance to that scene than people often will allow it. I think a lot of the time we come in as modern readers and we think it's simply not okay no matter what. And a man who beats a woman is irredeemable. But I just think that Jamie is redeemable and I think he does redeem himself. That's my take on it. So I think the thing with Jamie is that he's a man of his time. He was born and raised in the 1700s. It would never have crossed his mind because of the way he was raised that that was something that wouldn't be done. You know, expecting your wife to obey you unquestioningly is just the dynamic that he would have seen in every relationship of his entire life. And what Claire does is undeniably dangerous and reckless, and it puts him and all of his friends in this really dangerous position where they have to go and rescue him. And Jamie Dead at that point doesn't know about Claire trying to get back to the stones. He just thinks she's gone on this like wander for no reason. Like he had he doesn't know, and I think it probably really hurts his feelings as well because he thinks she's trying to run away from him, and he has no context as to why she would do something like that. So they go back to this inn, and I don't think it even crosses his mind that she doesn't expect it to happen because he thinks she's from that time as well. And so he does it, he beats her, he tells her why, he says, This is because you disobeyed me, and if you'd just listened to me, you wouldn't have put me in such a horrible position and yourself almost got raped. Like this is bad, and this is how I have been raised to deal with a situation like this. And yes, it's it's awful, it's bad, it's terrible, and we all wish that it didn't happen. Me, especially who loves Jamie so much. But I think this thing is that Claire very clearly explains to him that this is not acceptable to her, and he never does it again. He never raises a finger to her. I think at the end of the ninth book, they're like 60 years old, and he never ever does it again, and he doesn't want to. It's not like there's something in him that wants to do this. It never occurs to him that he shouldn't. And once it's explained to him, he doesn't.

Laura 1:09:08

I I don't know. I think that's a very fair and a very thoughtful take. Uh, and I think that's probably where I would have landed if I had used my brain a little bit more. Because exactly what you said, he's a product of his time. I don't feel that the inclusion of this is for shock value, it's not gratuitous. And what probably mattered the most to me was that, like you said, you could see Jamie change and grow. And like towards the end of the novel, when he realizes that Claire was trying to get back to her time, he has that moment where he's like, Oh, so that's where you were going. And he has that look of regret, which is a bit heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

Yeah, he says, and I beat you for it. Yeah. And you're just like, oh my god, he's like, you're just trying to save your own life, and I punished you for it. Like I got goosebumps thinking about it. He doesn't want to do it. He is gentle to his core, and you see that how he is with the horses. Like Jamie's relationship with horses through the books is is a really beautiful one. You know, you can see that he's a big man, but he recognises that about himself and he handles people gently all the way through the novels, and that's something that's so special about him. And I think he does see Claire as his equal, and that's a rare thing for a man of that time as well. And so going forward, he wouldn't beat her again because he I think to do that to someone you have to see them as less than you, or like you're up here and they're down there, and he just does not see her like that. I don't think he saw her like that before he beat her. He just was doing what he thought he was supposed to do. He's also very young. Not that that's an in 2026 that's an acceptable reason, but you know, like he's just learning.

Laura 1:10:52

I mean, obviously, in any environment you're learning from the people around you. And like you said, he is young, he's a virgin when they meet, he hasn't had a wife, he hasn't had a relationship, and yeah, there's so much outside pressure and sort of societal expectation on him. But after the fact, he learns and he grows. Yeah. Which is really all we can ask and hope of anyone in this situation.

Bridget 1:11:14

And he has a great relationship with his father, someone who he loves and the father loves him, and like one of the ways the father shows his love is through discipline. And just in this case, it's physical discipline, and so that's the modelled behaviour that he's had. I think what redeemed me to Jamie was at the end when they were trying to decide like where to go. You know, there was like the world is their oyster, basically. And he said to Claire, like, Well, what do you want to do? And I think that really showed me that he had I don't know if changed is the right word, but like I don't know, he he really did see her as an equal.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:47

And he's been exposed to things that he wasn't exposed to before. I mean, there are there are men now in 2026 who are told you can't beat women and they continue to do it.

Laura 1:11:57

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. Well, thank you very much for answering that really big question.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:06

Um I just feel like it's the thing that really turns people off, Jamie, and they hold it against him, and he's more than that. He's more than the worst thing he ever did, you know? Like he's a very good husband. And I think the other thing that I love about their relationship is neither of them are perfect. That's one thing I find absolutely intolerable in other books is when you've got these characters that are just so perfect. And both of them make throughout the series make some really pretty shitty decisions that hurt each other quite badly. Like Claire running away from him without any explanation is a shitty, hurtful thing that she did. And he forgives her for it. And later in the books, there's a lot of other examples, no spoilers, but you know, like there are things that I think that's I don't know if that's a very nice thing to do to someone that you love. And they always give each other so much grace. And I think that's one thing I love about the way Diana Gabelden writes her characters, is they're so nuanced and there's so much depth to them. And you might not get that just in the one book, but across their whole lives, you see so much growth, but also them falling down and then holding each other up. And that's one thing I love about the way that she writes her characters.

Laura 1:13:26

I think the opportunity to see them grow and exist in their relationship is something that's like almost got me over the line for the other books. I I don't think I will read them, but I think it's an interesting jumping-off point for like a 10-book series where the relationship happens so fast in the first book, and then you're left thinking, well, where to from here? I have read that they go through many peaks and troughs together, and I think that's a viewpoint you don't often see in modern romance fiction.

Bridget 1:13:56

Something that we are constantly talking about on the podcast is how sick we are of a romance series where it's like it's this couple for this book, and then this book. We're finished with that couple, we're on to the next couple. I would love to get into a series like this where I can see the growth of a couple throughout, you know, their whole lives together. I think that's something that we're sort of missing.

Laura 1:14:18

Normally at the end of our episodes, we name our favourite and least favourite characters from the book. No pressure, but do you think you could give us your favorite and least favourite from Outlander?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:27

All right. Favourites, Jamie, obviously. I love Jamie so much. This is no word of a lie. I love Jamie so much that when I read the books, I love my husband more because he reminds me so much of Jamie. It brings out more of my husband's really good qualities. Jamie has them too, so I'm like, you know, I sit there thinking, oh, my husband would do that too. He's so wonderful. Um Lee's character, of course, has got to be Larry. She or Laugh Hair, as I thought her name was pronounced the first time I read her.

Laura 1:15:02

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

Just to clarify, thank you. She is a nasty, stupid little piece of work. Piece of work. Uh, and as a a little tidbit, it's not the last you hear of her, Leary. She makes another appearance in one of the later books.

Bridget 1:15:21

I did read what happens Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:24

I'd like to see her put in one of those like witches' holes that they put Claire in. Yes. Um the witch. Oh no, sorry, sorry, sorry. Jack Randall. Obviously, Jack Randall's the worst. I can't believe I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:39

But that goes without saying. Yeah, no, the little annoying teenage girl is not worse than the horrible sadistic rapist.

Bridget 1:15:46

I'm often guilty of being like, I hate the kid in this book, and then I remember they're a child. So I'm with you. Yeah.

Laura 1:15:57

And then lastly, before you go, where can our listeners find you online?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:01

Well, I am on TikTok. My handle is superb.rin. And I just make content about being a librarian and just my thoughts on things. Just me, really.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:14

It's really good, you guys. Yeah. Great outfits too. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:21

Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It means a lot to me to have this opportunity to defend my favorite.

Bridget 1:16:28

Yeah. And you know what? You've kind of swayed me. Yeah. I'm kind of loving it now.

Laura 1:16:32

I might read 800 pages all over again.

Bridget 1:16:37

I'm like, you know what? It was great. He's a good man.

Laura 1:16:42

Well, that was an absolute delight. And honestly, I could be swayed.

Bridget 1:16:49

We are nothing if not persuaded by a cohesive argument.

unknown 1:16:53

Yes.

Bridget 1:16:54

Someone smarter and wiser, tick. Tick.

Laura 1:16:57

Someone we think is cool. Yep, we'll do whatever. Whatever we need. She's got a great fringe and opinions to boot. Thank you, Ren. That was a pleasure. I don't think there's anything about this book that we could say better than Ren. And so I think it must be time to move on to the tail end of the show and discuss our favourite and least favourite characters.

Bridget 1:17:17

Bridget, would you care to do the honours? I fear I'm going to be a little bit controversial. And I'm gonna say my favourite character was Black Jack Randall. Awful man. Do not condone his actions. But did he keep me interested? Yes, he did. Always keep them guessing. He was so scary. And I'm intrigued.

Laura 1:17:38

He was genuinely scary. He was very sinister. I don't know that I was capable of understanding the full scope of how terrible he was. Like, I don't know if it was imparted on me in the way that I needed, just due to the nature of this writing.

Bridget 1:17:52

Yeah, I don't know if I understand why he's like pursuing Jamie. That could be my fault for not reading the book closely.

Laura 1:17:59

He was very much giving uh I have to find the Avatar. Like he's just Zuko from Avatar, but without any redeeming qualities and a thousand times more evil.

Bridget 1:18:08

Yeah, I thought he was so scary, and he's not a character that I often read. Yes. If that makes sense, or like encounter. So I did find him quite interesting, and like he was this foreboding presence across the whole book. Yeah, he's my favourite. Who's your favourite? Forgot we were doing favourite.

Laura 1:18:26

Sorry. I was gonna be like, he's my least favourite too. Um I think my favourite character quite randomly is Ned Gowan. He was a banker. And oh I just thought he's gonna be a slimy little turd. But he was kind of a ride of die for Claire. Like when he rocked up to speak on her behalf when she was being tried as a witch, and she said something like, Oh, are you here for Dougla and Callum? I can't quite remember. And he was like, No, I'm here for myself. And I just really liked that.

Bridget 1:18:55

I thought it was quite unexpected. Yeah. I'm gonna change my answer to that man because I did honestly forget he existed, and I did like him because I imagined him as like Mole Man in The Simpsons.

Laura 1:19:07

I was picturing Mr. Collins from 2005, Pride and Prejudice.

Bridget 1:19:11

So same kind of vibe. Yeah. Um stuffed Black Jack Randall. I'm going for him. To be honest, it was a crazy choice to begin with. It was a crazy choice, and I think it's just because I don't really care for Claire. And I mean, I like Jamie more now after speaking to Ren, but also I'm not often picking the male main, like the romance. Almost never. As my fave. Ned Gowan, he's my favourite. Who's your least favourite?

Laura 1:19:38

I don't really have a least favourite, but I I would also go in for Ren's least favourite of Jamie's former paramour whose name begins with L. Sorry to the entirety of Scotland there. I do not have it in my heart to try to pronounce that name. I just think aside from being annoying and meddling, it's quite a predictable path for a character like that to take. Just spiteful and like, yeah, great antagonist, but rack off, please.

Bridget 1:20:05

Yeah. How about you? My least favourite is also Jack Black Randall. And when he was my favourite, he was also gonna be my least favourite.

Laura 1:20:13

You contain multitudes.

Bridget 1:20:14

He's gonna be my both, but he's also been demoted to only least. Same reasons as above. He was mean, he was awful, he was scary. Yeah.

Laura 1:20:24

Stunning. And now we finally arrived at the pinnacle of the episode, and I feel like for the first time in a long time, I'm genuinely uncertain on the edge of my seat, salivating, fearful, afraid, scared. All of the above. I don't know which way this is gonna go. Bridget, sorry to make you go first, but do you rate Outlander by Diana Gabaldon lit or shit?

Bridget 1:20:47

I don't know how this is gonna go either. In my mind, I'm like thinking about all of the books we've read. I'm thinking the books we've rated lit, thinking about the books we've rated shit. And I think it might have to be a lit. If I compare it to other books that I have rated shit, it's not in the same league. I think I'm gonna go lit.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:06

The heart wants what the heart wants.

Laura 1:21:09

What about you? Oh, I don't know, because you know, if I weren't reading this for the podcast, I wouldn't have persevered. I wouldn't have picked it up or persevered. I would have picked it up, but I would have been sorely disappointed. I don't know if I would recommend this to people. I don't tend to recommend books that I myself didn't enjoy because it feels a bit backhanded to be like, I hated this book, but you might enjoy it. That said, I feel like I can see what people would get out of this. It's what I was searching for, but just didn't find. And it's that kind of comfort, it's coziness.

Bridget 1:21:41

I want to be able to just sink myself into a series. We've tried a few times. I haven't found it yet. I haven't answered the question. Oh, sorry.

Laura 1:21:50

Back off. Um I um, you know, sometimes tell me.

Bridget 1:21:59

My ears are open and so is my mind.

Laura 1:22:02

Good, because you're gonna need it. Sometimes when a person goes to the toilet, they do a poo. And then when they look in the bowl, no poo. Ghost poo. Ghost poo. I think I could be about to award the first ever ghost poo rating on the show. What does that even mean? I barely understand. Look, I'm gonna give it a lit. Oof. Because I did think the writing was good. No, neither. I just decided I have to make a decision one way or another. Ren's persuaded me. Yeah. Imagine like the fate of some of the other books if we'd had someone on the show. Like, could history be pulled back?

Bridget 1:22:53

I don't know. We should test that theory.

Laura 1:22:56

I'm looking at the stack, and uh to be honest, I'm pretty doubtful that that theory has much weight. It's a lit, but it is a whisper of poo. I mean Oh, I see. I understand. Yeah, okay. It's it's lit, but it's just teetering on the brink. It's so close to me.

Bridget 1:23:14

I think uh it's the same for me, yeah. And we'll think about it more at the end of year wrap-ups. I'll be thinking about this for the next week, and I'll be like, uh, I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I completely change my mind in the next week. Yeah. But I did finish this a few days ago, so I've had a bit of breathing room.

Laura 1:23:29

I really liked probably the second half onwards. Um, that's when all the action was, and that makes me feel quite dumb to say to be like, I like the bits where they running and they jumping, and like blah blah blah.

Bridget 1:23:41

I liked it when they went swimming, when the cows were in the prison. I love the bit when the cows were in the prison. That's my favorite bit. When she's a fortune teller. Oh. Actually, we forgot to talk about the fortune teller, but when I read the line, hang on, I highlighted it. I made my debut as singer and fortune teller that night at Lim Rai with considerable success. I I have to I was teetering on the edge. I was so tired after like a quite a busy week of work, and I was like, you're kidding me.

Laura 1:24:13

And this is while they're on their way to bust Jamie out of prison slash certain death. This is still 77%.

Bridget 1:24:21

I've still got hundreds of pages to go.

Laura 1:24:23

I think where I really struggled was the fact that she's time traveled away from her booth. Yes. That felt crazy to say, but I'm committing to it anyway. And she doesn't really have too many thoughts about him. No. And almost immediately she's like, I settled into the routine of castle life quite quickly. No thoughts. No. Beyond wow, this is here and now. She's barely curious about how to get back. What how did I get here? What are the mechanics? She's like, oh yes, 200 years. That's normally how the story goes. I guess I'm 200 years in the past. I wonder if I would go 200 years the opposite way. Oh well, anyway, I ate an oat cake.

Bridget 1:25:06

To be fair, I kind of liked that because it was over and done with. She was like, okay, I've accepted my lot in life. This is me now. I'm this is it.

Laura 1:25:15

And as far as time travel goes, the less you think about it, the more questions you have. So I respect it on that front.

Bridget 1:25:21

Yes.

Laura 1:25:22

She was out here, I mean, as we learned, she's out here inventing penicillin, being like, oop, hopefully this doesn't change the course of history.

Bridget 1:25:31

Yeah. And I also had to respect her when she like had the chance to go back. And she was like, my new husband is pretty hot.

Laura 1:25:42

Yeah.

Bridget 1:25:43

And smashed. And I can just like ride around on a horse in the Scottish countryside. I'm not saying I would do the same, but maybe I would do the same.

Laura 1:25:53

I think I could thrive here.

Bridget 1:25:54

I wouldn't be getting sunburned, that's for sure. Yeah, born for this. Our bonus chapter for this month is our recurring bookish Dolly Doctor episode, Talk Lit with us. Have your say on what we read next by keeping an eye on the link in our show notes and on our socials. Make sure you subscribe to the show, and if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.