What’s Scots for ‘the taller man’?

[nineveh_uk]

I am reading Outlander. It is completely ridiculous and I haven’t even got to the Really Infamous Bits yet. I am relieved that my knowledge of mid-eighteenth century Scottish history is almost nil* because it means that the total fantasy isn’t annoying me. Unlike the opening section, which contains such minor inaccuracies as WW2 ending before April 1945.

I'd heard that this was a novel so packed full of tropes it could give fandom a run for its money, and that certainly seems to be true. The sheer amount of hurt/comfort is hilarious. By little more than a hundred pages in, love interest Jamie has had the following injuries tended by nurse heroine Claire: dislocated shoulder, musket ball in (arm?), stabbed with a bayonet, been repeatedly punched, including in the head, by a professional Disciplinary Puncher, because he nobly took the place of a girl who was to be whipped. Jamie, of course, has also been whipped, but that was in flashback, so Claire only gets to listen in horror and caress the scarred flesh. Claire, on the other hand, seems remarkably unfazed by being stuck two hundred years in the past, and one would have thought that a doorstopper volume could have spared half a paragraph for her to wonder what her husband is thinking about her mysterious disappearance, especially as the first section kept mentioning how in love they were and how much sex they were having.

Having said all that, I can see why this would work as a television series. It has a decent central premise, the time-travelling heroine’s being a nurse is very useful to the narrative, and it has classic Romantic Scotland settings. Oh, and a lot of knitwear and a villain whose portrayal from the pictures I've seen appears to be based on ‘Jason Isaacs in the scene in That Patriot when he kills Heath Ledger’. Apparently the knitting is rather popular.

*Though still sufficient for me to be able to tell that the world portrayed is a total fantasy.

Comments

[sir_guinglain]

Doctor Who fanfic becomes novel series and then television series.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I briefly caught a bit of what I assumed must be Outlander (because it was full of Men in Kilts) on German cable TV the other day. It was dubbed into German but the Scots still all said "Aye" instead of "Ja".It sounds ridiculous enough when foreign characters in English films know enough English to explain complicated plot points but still say "Yes" in their native language ("Oui, Mr Bond, the island will blow up at ten ack emma precisely"), but it sounds even sillier when their entire native language has been dubbed into another language except for the word "Yes". It struck my that this was probably symptomaic of the way Scottish seasoning has been scattered blithely over the whole story without regard to logic, fact or potential for absurdity.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I gotta admit, when I speak Spanish or a Spanish-speaker speaks English to me there is no telling what language "Yes" will come out in. "Da. I mean hai. Yes. Si!" It's like every language I've ever learned has to get in on the act.

[bronze-ribbons.livejournal.com]

Hah. A variation of this happens to me. Apparently the French-speaking part of my brain is the lost socks drawer come alive at night when I'm fumbling for Hebrew or Mandarin.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

This happens to me. But I don't speak a foreign language to a high level - my ESL work colleagues never do it,

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

probably symptomatic of the way Scottish seasoning has been scattered blithely over the whole story without regard to logic, fact or potential for absurdity

This feels very likely. It really is garnished with Scottishness: a bit of inventive spelling, frequent mention of tartan/plaid, lots of red hair and a resemblance to dimly-remembered films of Rob Roy. Having the German voice actors say "Aye, meine Frau" is entirely in keeping.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Noo! Kissing is for the English, dinnae ye ken?

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Claire, on the other hand, seems remarkably unfazed by being stuck two hundred years in the past, and one would have thought that a doorstopper volume could have spared half a paragraph for her to wonder what her husband is thinking about her mysterious disappearance, especially as the first section kept mentioning how in love they were and how much sex they were having.

But the sex is just SO GOOD, you see...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The sex was so good! They couldn't be in the same room without having sex! The sex was the BEST EVER! But not good enough to make her ever think of him, apparently.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Oh, but you're forgetting Jamie and the magical sex they're having. Apparently Claire can have magically amazing sex with everyone.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

But she's not having magical sex with Jamie yet! Just sitting on his lap crying while he manages to be sufficiently distracted from the pain of a dislocated shoulder, musket ball, and bayonet wound to be aroused by it.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

Hehehe, fair enough. It's been long enough since I read Outlander that all I remember from it is the ridiculous quantity of sex.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it will get there.

[aella_irene]

I seem to recall her saying that the 1945 bit was fixed in later editions before I had a violent difference of opinion and Cast Her to The Wind.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

At least that's something.

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

My mom is a very, very dedicated fan of these. This is more than enough of a warning for me to Stay Away.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am definitely not planning to read more than one. In fairness, the prose is actually pretty good - I've certainly read worse.

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

Darn it, and here I'm endlessly reworking a story about a time-traveling newlywed also! (No, really. Except she gets kidnapped into the future and she spends a lot of time trying to figure out what happened to her husband and being afraid the police will think he killed her, so hopefully different enough not to seem like a ripoff). This book does sound like temptingly over-the-top fun, though. Being a nurse is definitely an advantage -- though I think that even a kidnapped non-nurse could get pretty far simply by knowing about the virtues of boiled water and the necessity of cleaning surgical instruments in it every time.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

There's "Goodnight Sweetheart", too - I'm sure the world can handle another subject on the theme, especially traveling forwards.

simply by knowing about the virtues of boiled water and the necessity of cleaning surgical instruments in it every time

Quite. There are lots of things in the past that I wouldn't have a clue how to do, but I reckon that "I can read and write, and I can cure cholera" would at least be something of a social benefit.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

My "handy guide for time travellers" t shirt will be invaluable if I ever go backwards* in time.

*Or forwards, to the right (wrong) time.

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

So, it is all nonsense and the later books need SERIOUS editing. Like, you could cut the length of Harry Potter 5 out of them and they'd still be longer than absolutely necessary. But I have to admit, the earlier books are brilliant plane reading. They helped me through several very tedious and slightly stressful journeys.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Nonsense, but quite engaging nonsense - they are very easy to keep munching through, like peanuts.

[snorkackcatcher]

As far as I understand, it is fanfic in the very loose sense of some fanfics: "I'll take the general idea of the characters, more or less (but keep the names), put them in a completely different setting, and write my own story that gives me the feels". Jamie here is supposed to be based on Jamie in 60s Doctor Who, after all. So it uses a lot of the old favourite fanfic tropes -- among which is that any character thrown into a different time/universe for the sake of a ship will pay no attention to this once they encounter the designated other half, and that the setting is just background for the fantasy anyway so it doesn't need to be accurate.

I was amused by a review of the TV series I saw somewhere which discussed the last episode with The Infamous Scene and was all "what does it mean that they are PORTRAYING THIS THING when TV shows don't usually go there, and why is it handled so easily afterwards?" Basically, because it's the standard fanfic hurt/comfort trope and that's how the trope works. Nothing deeper to it than that, don't worry about it and enjoy the pretty.

The interesting point I suppose is that the success of this, 50 Shades and so on shows that there's a market for that type of "fanfic aesthetic" of plugging straight into the id, and complaints about it being bad writing are probably missing the point. It does the job it's trying to do, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't meet Literary Criteria because they're not what its effectiveness is being judged on.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It has a strong fanfic feeling, with a focus on the tropes and a scrupulous avoidance of those things that someone might actually do/think, that would get in the way of the tropes. So wedding night sex involves standard first time tropes, but not the heroine thinking "what happens if I conceive and then go back to my own time pregnant " - but in the service of those tropes, stuff like characterisation and dialogue is pretty good.

The "what does it mean" stuff is quite funny, really, because TV shows go there all the time - the only difference is the gender of the person involved, and the specific trope, which is to provide the h for the h/c rather than the motive for manpain.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That sounds like the perfect circumstances to read them under! Notwithstanding the annoyances of illness, that is.