I agree with Laura that serious lessons on traditional values and male and female relationships can be learned from reading some Romance novels. I look forward to reading Laura’s recommendations, moving past my previous criticism of the genre, and seeing what more can be revealed. Here is my discovery so far. I have done my best not to over-intellectualize my review, but alas, as a product of higher education, I continue to struggle to get beyond my mind and find my passions.
Books were my real world as a child and I read almost everything all the time. By time I was nine I had read every horse story ever published and was into the works of Charles Dickens. I moved on to science fiction, mysteries, the classics, and nonfiction works on science and history. What I didn’t read were the “girl stories” like
Little Women and others that revolved around girl friendships and romance. By the time I became a college English Professor, I had read most of the Western Cannon and was steeped in the politically correct academic position on what was considered “good literature” and the Post-Modern ideology of the day. Fortunately, my love of a good story well told persisted and I continued to read a variety of well written but inexcusably, “popular fiction,” which remained undiscussed in my professional circles, buried along with my repulsion for Derrida and other culture-warping Post-Modern Intellectuals of the day.
Historical fiction has been one of my favorite popular genres for decades, but I avoided those linked too closely with the Romance works, and read the ones more focused on history. Until a few years ago, when I was at an emotional low point and desperate to escape this world, I took the advice of one of my wise students and started reading the Outlander series. I was saved. I read the entire series, every day for a year. They are LONG novels. When I was done, I went back to the first book and began reading them all again. With this relief available at the end of the day, I was able to cope with the rest.
What surprised me most about this series was not only the wonderful escapist reality and romance of the stories,
but a feeling that I had returned to a world that made sense, that seemed more real in tone than the reality of the contemporary world I was trying to understand and find a way to believe in. These books revealed to me what I found lacking in our current culture and nature of our relationships, and helped me acknowledge the value of traditional beliefs and mores over the degradation of human culture that we see happening today.
Dianna Gabaldon’s fiction novels,
The Outlander series, is a genre blending tall tale of the 18th century, time-travel, and above all the passionate romance between a man and a woman willing to risk and give up everything to be together. Gabaldon’s stories rise above the simplistic and stilted writing style of the commonplace “bodice ripper,” while providing all their passion, romantic heroism, and the traditional values of the best historical fiction and times long removed from the deterioration of the Post Modern present. The formal manners of 18th century Europe and America are a refreshing relief from the anything goes, combative, cancel-culture of the present. Civil behavior prevails and even duels and wars are at least begun with a sense of duty and honor. Gabaldon’s stories provide readers with an escape from current Relativism and a return to time-honored cultural ethics presented by realistic characters that will, as all the best fiction does, both “teach and delight.”
Gabaldon’s writing style is packed with an amazing scope of descriptive detailed exposition that creates a fully realized world in which to tell her stories. The plots move with the pace and tension of epic adventures as the main characters, Claire, an English WWII combat nurse, and Jamie, an 18th century Scottish Highlander Chief, move from one conflict to another, well-grounded in the historical context of the times, as they struggle to maintain their relationship and integrity. The protagonists are assisted by multiple supporting characters who are amazingly well developed, believable, and command the sympathy and loyalty of the reader as do Claire and Jamie. Their adventures in the first two books take them across the Highlands of Scotland, to France the Court of Louis the XVth, and back to the battle of Culloden. By the third novel,
Voyager, Gabaldon’s writing style has matured. For example, some of the sex scenes in the first two books gratuitously conform too much to the “bodice-ripper” motif, which I realize from Laura's observations is not the point as far as learning something goes, but I find her later sex scenes more nuanced and stirring as her characters also become more complex and relateable.
In
Voyager, Gabaldon sends her characters out to sea to meet pirates, Jamaican witches, Caribbean Voodoo priests, hurricanes, and shipwreck in a new world. Along the way Claire and Jamie are entangled in the usual everyday conflicts with family members, the ordinary issues of life in the 18th century, and the quarrels and passions that come when two people bond for life. Both characters deeply respect each other as people as well as love each other with an exceptional passion. They each bring a highly developed moral code regarding right and wrong, fair-play, duty, and sacrifice for others to their relationship. Yet, they are not stilted, rigid do-gooders incapable of some temptation and failure. Almost all the characters in the entire series operate from their own deeply held moral code, even the villains feel justified in their own hearts and minds, and all are shown struggling to achieve their best. Readers relate to their emotional battles even if our own situations are far removed from their romantic adventures and times. The characters remain emotionally compelling role models as the stories unfold and the decades pass; the traditional heroic nature and passions of Claire and Jamie prevail and readers are left satisfied that righteousness continues to exist in the world—at least somewhere in time.
NOTE: After a brief viewing and reading multiple reviews I recommend you avoid the TV series adapted from the novels. While the production quality is high, too much has been edited out from the books to conform to a film script. In the process the considerable interior monologs, complexity, wit and depth of Claire and Jamie are lost and their characters revert to more stereotypical heroic lovers for television viewing. It appears boring compared to the books, IMHO, and the cast does not represent the vision of the characters the text creates in the mind.
I've read Scarlett Scott's Scoundrel series with titles such as "Duke of Debauchery", "Duke of Depravity", etc. The covers are less cheesy, but still cheesy enough.
The series were intense at every level. By the third book (my favorite of that series), I really got a very strong sense of the gifts of the spirit - love, joy, patience, gentleness, etc. and how love never fails, despite the odds. It felt like I was like tapping from within into the new reality that Paul spoke about.
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The stories cover universal themes of war, slavery, etc. that are fairly common during past life recollections. So even though some stories could stir up quite a bit at every level, I found them all very healing and joyful.
Well said Gaby--I have the same reaction to the Outlander series.
