Chapter 17: We Meet a Beggar
In this chapter, Jamie joins Jon Snow in the brotherhood of Recent-Virgin Cunnilingus Savants. Also, something about Horrocks, blah blah blah.
In the morning, Rupert and the boys go out cattle-rustling while Jamie and Claire head out on another adventure.
Topic of conversation: Horrocks, the deserter who witnessed the murder at Fort William. Jamie can't meet with the man because Black Jack and the Watch are in the area, but he considers sending Murtagh.
Claire and Jamie sit down to share a snack among the rocks and pools of the forbidding landscape. A plover approaches them and instead of leaving it alone, Jamie decides to harass it by pushing one of its eggs out of its nest and then catching it with his bare hands. There's a story here — supposedly, plovers "have the souls of young mothers dead in childbirth," and he whispered a blessing to the bird before releasing it:
"God go with ye, Mother."
A young mother dead in childbirth. And a child left behind. I touched his arm and he looked down at me.
"How old were you?" I asked.
He gave me a half-smile. "Eight," he answered. "Weaned, at least."
That's all fine and good, but did he have to disturb the nest? That seems oddly cruel.
They hike around a bit more, with Jamie offering tips about living in the wild:
"Always hide in a forest, Sassenach," he advised me. "If ye dinna move too much yourself, the birds will tell you in plenty of time if anyone's near."
This seems practical enough that I expect we will see just this situation unfold before too long.
Staring contest! Claire wins. Jamie's all bashful again, which is fine. He isn't really sure he can trust Claire after all. With his safety, yes, but still not 100% sure if he can trust her with his pride and his emotions. At least that feels realistic. After some hemming and hawing, he coughs up his question:
"What I mean to ask is, is this . . . usual? What it is between us, when I touch you, when you . . . lie with me? Is it always so between a man and a woman?"
Claire's no fool; there is clearly a correct answer here: No, you are a very special snowflake and our love is a very special love.
"It starts out the same, but then, after a moment . . . suddenly it's as though I've a living flame in my arms . . . and I want only to throw myself into it and be consumed"
. . . said no one, ever.
I know it's a romance novel. Or, at least, that is one of the genres with which it engages. But any time Jamie lapses into super-sincere romance talk, I'm out.
I don't mind so much when it's relegated to description. Right here, Claire thinks,
I thought of telling him that his own touch seared my skin and filled my veins with fire. But I was already alight and glowing like a brand.
Fine. "Thought of telling him" is fine, but once this comes out as dialogue, it is just too silly.
An indeterminate amount of time later, they climb up to the top of a rock with an amazing view of the surrounding countryside. I imagine scenes like this in the TV show are doing good things for Scottish tourism this year. The description here is a bit flat — Gabaldon seems to be more comfortable with the small-scale botanical observations than with drawing these sweeping scenes.
All of a sudden, an arrow comes flying out of nowhere. I don't know anything about archery, but that has to be a pretty tricky shot, shooting a small object out of someone's hand from far, far below when they are mostly protected by a giant rock. But everything's fine, because Jamie notices that the arrow is fletched with a woodpecker's feather, so it must have been made by his friend, Hugh Munro. Nice friends you have there, Jamie.
The head burst into a jack-o'-lantern grin, snaggle-toothed and jolly, beaming with pleasure at surprising us.
Any marksman capable of pulling off a trick shot like that should have the good sense not to try it just for the sake of a laugh. Go ask Joan Vollmer.
Hugh Munro is much as he is in the TV adaptation — a man clad in rags, disfigured by torture, but affable and generous.
I had seen deaf-mute talk before, but never executed so swiftly and gracefully.
Sometimes, I forget that Claire is also an historical character. In my mental shorthand, she is a "modern" person, but then she'll say something that reminds me that she is supposed to be older than my grandparents. Her use of phrases like "deaf-mute talk" is a good reminder that she is a young woman of the mid-20th century, not the 21st.
After some pleasant conversation, Jamie explains to Claire that the metal tokens on Hugh Munro's clothing are gaberlunzies, licenses for beggars. This seems like another situation where Gabaldon saw something charming in a museum and created a character just so she could use that particular bit of arcana. Fair enough, I guess.
"Ah, well, Munro's a special case, d'ye see. He was captured by the Turks at sea. Spent a good many years rowing up and down in a galley, and a few more as a slave in Algiers. That's where he lost his tongue."
Yes, things are rough all over. Stupid 18th century.
I really didn't want to know [more about Munro's injuries], but both Munro and Jamie seemed dying to tell me. "All right," I said, resigned. "What happened to his feet?"
With something approaching pride, Munro stripped off his battered clogs and hose, exposing broad, splayed feet on which the skin was thickened and roughened, white shiny patches alternating with angry red ones.
"Boiling oil," said Jamie. "It's how they force captive Christians to convert to the Mussulman religion."
This is an interesting section because it contrasts so markedly with Jamie's attitude toward his own scars. Where Munro and Jamie are keen to go into detail about torture at the hands of the Turks, Jamie keeps the evidence his flogging a secret — it's not exactly shameful, but it inspires a terrible pity that he doesn't want to deal with. He certainly isn't proud of them, nor eager to talk about how he got them. Munro's scars mark him as a man who suffered "on behalf of Christendom," and this affords him special standing in the community. Jamie's shattered back does similar work among the proto-Jacobites, but he feels very differently about it.
Why include this character and this plot line? It isn't strictly necessary to insert a discussion of Mediterranean/North African slavery into a book set in the Highlands of Scotland. Two guesses:
- Jamie and Claire will end up in the Mediterranean in a future book and this will be important background information about the dangers they face.
- At some point, Jamie will transform his injuries from a mark of shame into a tool he can deploy as strategically as Munro does.
In any case, Munro agrees to carry a message from Jamie to Horrocks so that they can meet somewhere less dangerous. This has the advantage of cutting Dougal out of the plan entirely, which will certainly please him to no end.
Speak of the devil. Dougal's back at the inn, making dirty jokes about Jamie's haggard appearance. If I hadn't seen the TV show, this passage might read as light humor, but the lingering malice of TVDougal's advance on Claire colors my reading here and makes this sound more menacing than maybe it should.
The chapter concludes with another long sex scene — one that would be super hot if Jamie would STFU. Though I must renew my objection to the premise of this scene—Claire's first experience receiving oral—as an appalling slander against my man Frank.
Jamie's dirty talk usually starts out ok, but quickly veers into painful earnestness.
For example:
"Even when I've just left ye, I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch you again . . ."
. . . good, good, stay with it here . . .
". . . I feel as though I've given ye my soul along with my cock."
Sorry, no.
"I see why the Church says it is a sacrament," Jamie said dreamily.
I think I would have been a lot more dedicated to my C.C.D. homework if this were included in the curriculum.
"I feel like God himself when I'm in you."
What.
In the TV show, Sam Heughan gives the best possible reading of this line: delivered through barely-suppressed laughter. And it is still jarringly awful.
So why do I keep reading? Because every time Jamie's dialogue goes off the rails, Gabaldon shows some self-awareness and lets Claire react in the only possible way a real person could react to that statement:
"I laughed so hard he nearly came out."
So yes, Jamie's dialogue is ridiculous. But I have faith that it is a conscious authorial choice to make his character so over-the-top in these last two chapters. And it's balanced by believable moments, like the next scene, in which Claire hauls Jamie back into the realm of the human:
"A hedgehog? And how does a hedgehog make love?" he demanded.
No, I thought. I won't. I will not. But I did. "Very carefully," I replied, giggling helplessly. So now we know just how old that one is, I thought.
Jamie collapsed in a ball, wheezing with laughter.
I try not to be a "Book Reader," that is, someone who has read a book and complains about all the changes made in the TV adaptation. But this is the sort of charming bit that makes me glad I am reading the book, not just watching the show. The show leaves in a lot of the over-the-top "Blood of my Blood" stuff, but I'm here for this: lovers enjoying one another and giggling in bed.
And on to the oral scene.
A note here: This is not a heavy BDSM scene, but they are starting to trot out some of the language of Dominance/submission here — "authority," "submissive," "brooked no opposition," "I felt exposed, invaded, helpless," "fresh assault," etc. It's mostly lighthearted and playful, but they do dance up to a line where Claire is saying "no" and she is uncomfortable, "kick[ing] and squirm[ing] wildly." I am all for these characters exploring their kinks, and I do not require that the erotica I consume meet some artificial bar of rectitude. And, in fact, I'm sort of impressed at the role-switching evident so far in their relationship. But I feel that I must issue a disclaimer encouraging readers of this book to engage in responsible play, including explicit discussions with a partner about personal boundaries and, in boundary-pushing situations, use of a safe word. In fact, I just texted my teenage sister (who is reading this with me, as are some of her friends) to encourage them to have fun exploring, but also practice self-care and open communication. Also, here's a link to a helpful article about D/s play, feminism, and consent.
In truth, Claire is on board for oral sex, but has some of the common hangups:
"I don't think—well, I'm afraid that it doesn't— I mean, the smell . . ."
Bless Jamie here, who abandons the romance-novel persona and laughs until he cries, before offering some earthy wisdom:
"Jesus God, Sassenach," he said, snorting with mirth, "don't ye know what's the first thing you do when you're getting acquainted with a new horse? . . . You rub your oxter over the beast's nose a few times, to give him your scent and get accustomed to you, so he won't be nervous of ye . . . That's what you should have done wi' me, Sassenach. You should ha' rubbed my face between your legs first thing. Then I wouldn't have been skittish."
I find this delightful. More of this, less of the pseudo-profound romantic pronouncements, please.
Then, Jamie gets down to business and I'll leave you to read that on your own.
"Jesus Christ," I said. There was a faint chuckle near my ear.
"I only said I felt like God, Sassenach, he murmured, "I never said I was."
Shut up, Jamie. You are ruining this for me.
"Does it ever stop, Claire? The wanting?"
My head fell back onto his shoulder. "I don't know, Jamie, I really don't."
Well, fuck. You're a goner, Claire. Not that I have found your feeble escape plans particularly convincing before now. Frank is a vague and distant memory. And with that last line, it seems like you've forgotten any reasons you may have once had for going back.
That's the end of the chapter, but can we talk for a minute about the weird trope of the Hero as Cunnilingus Savant? A lot of the similarities between Jamie Fraser and Jon Snow are standard hero stuff — the skill at arms masking a sensitive soul, father unjustly killed by dastardly enemy, circumstances preventing him from being the lord he is meant to be, etc. But the whole "I am a virgin who appreciates my partner's substantial sexual experience, but am still able to introduce her to oral sex, at which I am preternaturally skilled" is a fairly specific thing. My best reading of this is that it is supposed to show Our Hero as a civilized man among brutes. He is a virgin not because he has not had opportunities, but because his personal morality forbids fleeting liaisons. Other men don't care about pleasing the ladies, but Our Hero does. And, of course, he is a pro on his first try, not just because he is good at everything he does, but because he is just so enthusiastic about pleasing his female partner that he bypasses incidental things like practice and feedback.
Not that I am complaining! If we want to evaluate our Heterosexual Male Heroes by how eagerly they eat pussy, I will not object. Need a new TV Tropes page, though.
Body Count:
Jamie: 3 + assorted redcoats + two years as mercenary in France