Chapter 1: A New Beginning

In this chapter, we meet Claire and Frank Randall, a couple of war veterans with questionable taste in vacations.

We open in Inverness, Scotland, in the spring of 1945.

Mrs. Baird herself was squat and easygoing, and made no objection to Frank lining her tiny rose-sprigged parlor with the dozens of books and papers with which he always traveled.

I do this. I am trying to reform, but my last beach read was the annotated journals of Samuel Sewall, so I'm not making much progress. I feel immediate kinship with Frank.

I met Mrs. Baird in the front hall on my way out. She stopped me with a pudgy hand and patted my hair.

This is a vacation straight out of my nightmares. I consider disconnection to be one of the primary joys of travel; my ideal vacation involves the anonymity of a chain hotel, the freedom to eat/sleep/explore on a whim, and the security of knowing that no one around me cares who I am. Discussing hair care with the innkeeper would have me packing my bags immediately.

Frank trolls Mrs. Baird by bouncing on the bed; Claire makes reference to their difficulty conceiving. Haven't they been separated for most of their marriage, though? Unless they were actively trying to conceive before the war, I wouldn't despair just yet — they've only had a few cycles together.

Dinner the night before had been herring, fried. Lunch had been herring, pickled. And the pungent scent now wafting up the stairwell strongly intimated that breakfast was to be herring, kippered.

Worst vacation. 

Frank introduces us to Black Jack Randall, Claire "flopped down facedown on the bed and affected to snore." Again, as the person who is usually explaining the obscure historical figure to my long-suffering spouse, I am on Frank's side here. Perhaps I can convince Spouse that paying closer attention to my obsessions might benefit them if they ever fall through a rift in time?

There's some more background about Black Jack. Frank offhandedly mentions that Black Jack had a brother — no doubt this will be important at some point, though it didn't come up in season 1 of the TV show.

Of the barman:

He was just annoyed because I told him the ale was weak. I told him the true Highland brew requires and old boot to be added to the vat, and the final product to be strained through a well-worn undergarment.

Cool mansplaining, Frank. Sassenach-splaining?

This back-and-forth establishes that Claire and Frank have a playful, witty relationship, tinged with condescending cynicism.

Claire goes shopping and a vase inspires her to reminisce about her itinerant lifestyle, both during the war and during a childhood spent following her archaeologist uncle across the globe. The detail about her refusing to attend boarding school is a nice touch. As the parent of a five-year-old who holds very strong opinions about kindergarten, I sympathize.

Even after our marriage, Frank and I led the nomadic life of junior faculty.

Ug. Too real, Diana Gabaldon. Memo to Claire: having a baby does not make this delightful stage of academic life easier.

Tucking my handbag firmly under my arm, I marched into the shop and bought the vases.

Good for you, Claire.

To Frank:

And it was you who suggested I take up botany. To occupy my mind, now that I've not got nursing to do.

Christ, Claire is going to hate being a faculty wife. Like The Bell Jar sort of hate it.

They encounter doorways painted with blood. Frank runs off to investigate while Book Claire gets skittish. I prefer TV Claire, who rolls her eyes over this. Frank explains that the newly-built houses are daubed with chicken blood in deference to ancient rituals involving blessing new homes with blood sacrifices. There is some discussion of a human sacrifice at Mountgerald in the 18th century, which is enough specific detail for me to predict that we will find out more about that eventually.

Frank also offers some background on the "Old Days" - fire feasts and sun feasts celebrated by various ancient peoples.

Question: Frank says, "It's getting on for Beltane - close to the spring equinox." I am confused. Isn't Beltane May Day? And the spring equinox is in March. And, in any event, VE day was May 8, 1945, so how can the war be over already if they are in Inverness before Beltane? I am confused. 

We meet the vicar, Rev. Wakefield, and I am happy that Frank has someone to nerd out with.

One record was much like another, so far as I was concerned.

Let us hope you do not come to regret this, Claire.

They discuss Viking influences in Scotland. I read this part aloud to Spouse, who was very pleased when their genealogical DNA test told them that their Y chromosome is from the haplogroup R1a1, so they are probably descended from Vikings (the paper trail on their paternal line goes back to about 1700 in Britain). I spare a brief thought for the hope that this particular Y chromosome came in by way of a Norse settlement, rather than by rape, but neither Spouse nor Frank is particularly interested in the details.

Next, we get a story about Claire's attempts to appear to be "the Perfect Don's Wife," which all goes to pot when she drops a teapot and yells, "Bloody fucking hell!" Atta girl, Claire. The Randalls and their host toss off some bullshitty theories about the etymologies of various profanities, and we get the first example of Claire's trademark, "Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ."

Then it's off to the scene of Frank returning home in the rain and encountering an apparition, presumably Jamie, watching Claire brush her hair. The TV show seems to have adapted this more or less faithfully.

I wonder why Jamie would haunt Claire in this moment. Frank says of the ghost, "No, he wasn't laughing. In fact, he seemed terribly unhappy about something." What does this portend? If Jamie's ghost is wandering around, looking for Claire, does that mean that their final parting will be a bad one? Ghosts haunt when they have unfinished business — what does this mean for the eventual end of the series? Will Claire end up with Frank in the end? Even if she doesn't, will she return to the 20th century? If Jamie and Claire end up together and happy, why isn't he resting quietly? I guess it's possible that he just wanted to see her in this moment, before she comes through the stones. But why would that make him unhappy?

Anyway, Frank tries to open up a conversation with Claire about whether either of them slept with anyone else during the war. He says he would understand, and it would only be natural, etc., and Claire pretty much bites his head off. She "jerks" and "explodes" and "demands" with a lot of "how dare yous" and "don't touch mes." Nice, rational response there, Claire. You know, if you go ballistic like that when someone tries to bring up a delicate subject, people just aren't going to tell you things. 

I think Frank comes off pretty well in this exchange, telling her that he would still love her even if she cheated on him. Though I think Claire is probably right — it's very likely that he gives his forgiveness of her imagined transgression so freely because he hopes Claire will offer him similar forgiveness. This seems a vain hope.

More importantly, this seems to be the author giving Claire permission to cheat on Frank. It is strongly implied that Frank did sleep with other women during the war, so does that make it ok for Claire to cheat on him? And does Frank really mean it when he says he would forgive her? If we ever see Frank again, I guess we'll see. At the moment, this isn't really all that important, but it seems like Diana Gabaldon making some excuses for Claire so that the reader doesn't come down too hard on her for her choices later on.

Another important thing in this scene: Frank says, "It was six years. And we saw each other only three times, and only just for the day that last time." If they've been married for "almost eight years" and spent six years separated, and maybe weren't actively trying for a baby right away when they got married, they actually haven't had too many chances to conceive. It's a little hard to tell how long they have been back together, what with it being chronologically impossible for it to be Beltane 1945 and for World War II to be over. Probably not more than a few months, though. In the TV show, Claire seemed pretty convinced that she can't get pregnant, but I wouldn't be so sure with those numbers.

So, at the end of this chapter, I believe in Frank and Claire. I think he handled that fight at the end well, de-escalating by apologizing and not talking about his own romantic adventures, as he might have if she had met him in a place of understanding and forgiveness. As a pair, they are a bit cynical and haughty, but also sharp and lively. I could see them being wonderfully catty together, destroying other couples at the bridge table and then gossipping about them afterward. But there are some points of tension as well - not really about what they did during the war, but with their expectations for life at Oxford. Could Claire really transform herself into a placid, domestic, doting faculty wife? Between her botany comments, the teapot incident, and the close-to-the-surface rage in that last fight, I don't think those vases would be long for this world.

When Spouse and I watched the first episode of the TV show, they commented that they liked the way this showed a marriage at a tense moment, but that neither Frank nor Claire was the villain. I agree with that — they are in a touchy situation, getting to know one another again after a long separation. But they are both working on it. Frank could be a little less precious about the way Claire carries herself in public. Claire could be a little more willing to talk things out, rather than jumping immediately to DEFCON 1. But overall, I'm rooting for them at this point.