As I said before, Claire is (I hope) human and believable. Whether women should worry about their looks in sexual situations is irrelevant—they do. Whether men should be attracted to women on the basis of their looks is also irrelevant—they are. I’m not pushing propaganda, here; I’m telling a story about two people, as real as I can make them.
Were I going to see a man with whom I had had a passionate physical relationship twenty years ago—with the specific intent of resuming said physical relationship—I would definitely take a good look at myself and wonder what the lover would see, and how it might compare to the way he’d seen me before. This is not being obsessed with thinness or “doing the skinny dance,” as you put it—it’s a sign of very human doubt and insecurity.
You may notice that that scene is phrased almost entirely in terms of muscle tone, not fatness or thinness. The only indication that Claire is reasonably slender is that her waist is “still narrow,” seen in back view. She doesn’t say exactly what her bottom looks like, but the strong implication is that it’s reasonably hefty, though well-toned (no dimples, at least, she thinks, after a long look at it).
So we’re left with her adjuration to her daughter not to get fat. Well, let’s consider a couple of things. For one, this was 1968, not the 1990s. People didn’t even jog back then, and aerobics was a crackpot new fad. Women by and large weren’t physically active, and those who weren’t careful of their nutrition generally did tend to be pudgy, out of shape, unhealthy, and look middle-aged. Coupled with the advice to “stand up straight,” and Claire’s own apparent levelheaded attitudes toward food and body (which we’ve seen in both pronounced and subtle ways all through the books), basically, Claire is not telling her daughter to starve, but to stay fit.
For another, let us consider the rhythm of that letter and the scene of which it’s a part. We have deep emotion, heart-wrenching, soul-searching explorations of guilt and love. Then, at the end, we have a short, ultramaternal zetz (as one of my Jewish friends put it) to break the tension, restore the tone of the relationship between Claire and Brianna, and—not least—give the reader the feeling of Claire’s sense of humor, which is profound and inclined to pop up even in the midst of Sturm und Drang. (This is not an isolated instance, after all; the reader certainly ought to have a good idea of Claire’s style by now.)
So yeah, she could have said “Eat leafy green vegetables, take calcium supplements, and always wash the pesticides off apples or peel them.” Or any number of other accurate, medically informed bits of advice (don’t you figure she’s told her daughter that kind of stuff all along? I’ve got kids. You do this kind of brainwashing constantly; you don’t save it up for your deathbed or some other dramatic parting). But that wouldn’t have had the sudden break in rhythm and the comic effect I was after.
In short, Claire isn’t offering Important Advice there; she’s reasserting her role as Bree’s mother. Readers who mention that letter (I’ve heard from quite a number of them—though none concerned with Claire’s attitude toward eating) have told me that they’re awash in tears and throbbing emotion. Then they hit that line, and laugh, with a sudden bitter-sweetness that makes the whole thing much more affecting than it would had I made the whole letter a straightforward tearjerker. They suddenly see themselves and their own mothers or daughters, which is what I intended.
See, I’m a writer. Not—repeat not—a feminist, a political activist or a spokesperson for some group that perceives itself as entitled to everyone’s attention. My own rather strongly held opinion is that it is not the business of novels to push political agendas of any kind. There are plenty of novels that do this, but I personally don’t care for them.
I take such concerns as yours very seriously—if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have spent two hours I can’t afford to answer your letter in such detail. I trust you will take mine with equal seriousness.
Any reader brings his or her own experience to a book, and consequently, perceptions will differ. That being so, I cannot possibly write with the possibility of multiple hypersensitivities in mind. Such an approach—seeking above all to offend no one, or to adhere to some standard of political correctness—results in blandness and mediocrity. I’m a storyteller, and it’s my job to tell the story of these people, keeping faith with my characters, to the best of my ability. Nothing more.
Sincerely, Diana Gabaldon
Chinese Sex Fiends
I was rather surprised, a couple of years ago, to receive a fairly lengthy and impassioned letter, denouncing me for “perpetuating negative stereotypes of Asian men as short, English-mangling, alcoholic sex fiends.”
This gave me pause, since frankly—as I told my correspondent—I was totally unaware that there was a stereotype of Asian men as alcoholic sex fiends. Now, I realize I have led a rather sheltered life, but still.…
Now, for all I know, Chinese men are known far and wide as alcoholic sex fiends, but it isn’t a view I’d ever personally been exposed to before hearing from this particular correspondent. I therefore don’t really think I can be deliberately perpetuating a vile canard by having allowed Mr. Willoughby to drink brandy—particularly given that all the Europeans around him are drinking as much or more—or by allowing him to express his admiration for women in general.
I did consider the other half of this accusation, though. I imagined there might be a perception, spread through films and TV, of Asian persons as “English-mangling.” However, as I explained to my correspondent, simply noting the fact that a person from one country might not arrive in another with a totally fluent grasp of the unfamiliar language does not really seem to me to be culturally derogatory.
I then descended to particularities, since we were, after all, dealing with an individual, Mr. Willoughby (aka Yi Tien Cho). Given that Mr. Willoughby had arrived in Edinburgh rather precipitously as a stowaway—i.e., without time to bone up on his English before leaving China—had been in Scotland for no more than a year or two, and had spent his time exclusively in the company of wharf rats, prostitutes, and Scottish smugglers, most of whom regarded him as a worm and wouldn’t be talking to him at all if they could help it—I thought it would be highly unlikely for him to be speaking grammatically correct King’s English.
Now, “short.” I did stop to consider this one. Why did I depict Mr. Willoughby as short? Was it truly the result of negative cultural stereotyping? (It could be; one doesn’t usually recognize one’s own biases, and while I have seen the Chinese Olympic basketball team on television, I might conceivably have been warped by years of watching Deng Xiaoping smiling into the belt buckles of various American diplomats).
Of course, one would first have to stipulate that shortness is in fact a negative characteristic, which I for one (one who is five feet three—well, all right; five feet two-and-seven-eighths) wouldn’t be inclined to do.
However, one prime minister does not a culture make, any more than does a basketball team. Neither does a single fictional character. Yes, Asians come in all sizes; however, a single person, be he fictional or real, can only come in one size.18 If one ranked the eighteenth-century male population of China, in order of size, one would no doubt find individuals of varying heights, said heights occurring in a bell curve distribution (because height is one of those natural characteristics that always does occur in a “normal” distribution).
I have no data comparing height distributions for European and Chinese males in the eighteenth century, so I can’t say whether there was or was not a difference in mean height. However, this scarcely matters. Mr. Willoughby is the only Chinese character in Voyager (or in fact, in the whole series). It isn’t possible for a single character in a book to exhibit multiple heights for the purpose of reflecting cultural heterogeneity, I’m sorry. You have to pick one height for a character—how can it be a “stereotype” to pick one from anywhere in this distribution? There is a difference between a stereotype and a statistical distribution, surely.
So, in the event, the questio
n comes down—as it must, in fictional terms—to the individual. Now, in Voyager, the story is told through the eyes of Claire Randall, a time-traveler from the future, who is described throughout the books as being “unusually tall” for the times. The average European woman of the times was quite small—perhaps less than five feet tall, with tiny feet, judging from the clothing and shoes I’ve seen in museums; Claire, by contrast, is five-feet-six.
Her husband, in even greater contrast, is a six-feet-four-inch Scottish Highlander. Men of this size were certainly known to exist during the eighteenth century, but they were remarkable—George Washington was roughly six-feet-three, and judged an “impressive man.”
The point here is that Mr. Willoughby is seen entirely through Claire’s eyes and, most often, in close company with her very tall husband. Descriptions of him are given either by her, or by her husband, Jamie. Even if Mr. Willoughby were the same mean height as the average European male of the time, he would likely still seem “short” to either Claire or Jamie, and be described as such.
Now, in terms of novelistic intent, there is a real (if subtle) reason for depicting Yi Tien Cho as “small”—I wished to emphasize his relatively helpless situation in this strange culture, because this is key to the character and motivations of Mr. Willoughby. I.e., while he consciously acknowledges Jamie’s friendship and patronage, subconsciously, he greatly resents the dependence imposed upon him by the relationship. It’s this resentment—at being deprived of his rightful social position, at being despised by people he considers the lowest of barbarians, at being deprived of even his real name19—that causes him inadvertently to betray Jamie (an act he redeems later, by his rescue of Claire—while acknowledging his anger and claiming his independence at the same time).
Mr. Willoughby is an “outsider,” and an obvious one, by reason of his strange culture and customs (hence the mention of foot-binding, which underlines the “otherness” of his culture, in the eyes of the Scots and English he associates with). But there are “outsiders” of various kinds all through the book—Jamie, as a Jacobite prisoner, Lord John, as a gay man, Claire, as a time-traveler—the theme of the book is identity, with explorations of how people define themselves: in terms of profession, relationship, place in society, the perceptions of those around them—and most of all, by the ability to name themselves. Mr. Willoughby is merely one more exemplar of the theme.
While I understand that many short people (particularly men) are sensitive about their height, objecting to the portrayal of a single “small” Chinese man as a negative cultural stereotype seems…
Well, some people read to expand their experience; others read to confirm their prejudices. I’m writing for the former, I hope.
1In fact, I never did post work in an attempt to attract agents or editors. Given the way publishing works, random electronic exposure is not really a very effective way to go about it, and was still less so when I began writing novels, ten years ago.
2I was at one point in my checkered career an ethologist—one who specializes not in ethics, but in the study of animal behavior (not that animals are unethical; it’s just a concept that doesn’t apply).
3Many people no longer make any distinction between obscenity, vulgarity, and profanity. I spent eight years in a Catholic parochial school, and I do.
4Mr. Toole’s messages are reprinted here with his permission.
5In fact, all four of the novels include the F-word. Apparently it didn’t/doesn’t trouble people to hear Claire use it, while hearing it from Roger did bother them. I couldn’t say whether this is because they’re accustomed to Claire’s fairly casual use of bad language (while Roger is a clean-spoken preacher’s boy), or simply because the scene in which Roger uses the word is one of considerable emotional intensity, causing the word to stand out more sharply. Interesting, though.
6I have now and then had a reader tell me that the F-word was certainly known in the eighteenth century, having been recorded since the fifteenth century, and therefore, it’s not likely that Jamie would be unfamiliar with it, in the scene (Outlander [page 432]) in which he asks Claire its meaning. It’s quite true that the word was in existence in 1743. However, I offer two possibilities in response:
1) While the F-word certainly was a well-known English expression, it’s much less likely that it was commonly employed in the Scottish Highlands (where many—in fact most [but we have made slight adjustments to strict historical accuracy, for the sake both of Claire and the reader]—people spoke no English at all in the eighteenth century). Nor was it likely to have been commonly heard in France, where Jamie fought as a mercenary. Given that he had never been in England at the time, and did not normally associate with English people, it’s at least reasonable to assume that he might not be familiar with the word.
2) It’s possible that Jamie did know what Claire meant by the word—by context, if not by familiarity. However, examine the effect of his claim of ignorance; it temporarily deflects Claire’s anger, and defuses the situation, which hitherto has been Fraught. Do we think that Jamie might possibly be a sufficiently good psychologist as to be claiming ignorance as a means of changing the force and direction of the argument, rather than because he truly is ignorant?
I don’t know about you, but I’m inclined to give him credit.
7
8At the time this conversation took place, only the abridged form of the audiobook was available.
9Well, in 1993 I did.
10I have since learned—to my horror—that women often do this, too. Can’t imagine what the world is coming to.
11Six, so far.
12It isn’t, in case you were wondering.
13It was not, in fact—it was seldom prosecuted in London, where “mollyhouses” and homosexual activity in general were common—though there were periodic “moral” outcries against it in the English public press and the speeches of politicians seeking a moral high ground on which to achieve visibility [cf. “Hellfire”].
14Commonly referred to as “Queenie,” for reasons that needn’t be elaborated on here.
15He was originally called William; however, I very much wanted to name Jamie’s son Willie, and—with Jamie’s older brother having the same name—I thought that would be too many Williams in a small space, so I changed Lord William to Lord John, as unobtrusively as I could.
16cf. An Illustrated History of the Rod, Annotated Bibliography.
17This particular scene evidently doesn’t bother men at all; I’ve never heard a male reader even mention it.
18As a direct result of this letter, I took to paying careful attention to fictional representations of Asian men in hooks I read. Interestingly enough, most contemporary authors make a particular point of identifying Asian characters as “tall,” even when height isn’t mentioned for most other characters. However, Asians are not universally tall, any more than they are universally short, and while I understand the desire of writers not to offend sensibilities, the unfortunate fact remains that some Chinese men really are short.
19You may note the play with names that takes place all through Voyager, with Jamie shifting his alias according to need, Claire adjusting her own name (among Beauchamp, Randall, and Fraser), and even Roger noting his original family name. Voyager is all “about” the search for identity, and the ways in which people define themselves, and the name-shifting is a deliberate part of this overall theme.
PART ELEVEN
WORK IN PROGRESS: EXCERPTS OF FUTURE BOOKS
THE FIERY CROSS
Copyright 1998 Diana Gabaldon
eftenant Hayes’s nasal Fife accent carried well, and the wind was with him. Still, I was sure the people farthe
r up the mountain could hear very little; standing where we were at the foot of the slope, no more than twenty yards from the Leftenant, I could hear every word, in spite of the chattering of my teeth.
I’d gone to bed in the expectation of waking to hot coffee and a nourishing breakfast, to be followed by four weddings, a christening (no funerals, thank God), an intestinal lavage, and other entertaining forms of social intercourse. Now it was morning, and what I’d got so far was an ear-splitting tattoo of drums in the hungry dawn, heralding a proclamation that threatened to eclipse all scheduled festivities, and a cold drizzle of rain. No coffee yet, either.
I blinked blearily across a stretch of rough grass, to where a detachment of the 67th Highland regiment was drawn up in full splendor by the creek, grandly impervious to the rain.
The weather for Gatherings was always chancy, since they must perforce be held in late autumn, after the harvest was done. We had been lucky this year, though, and the weather had held fine—until today. A spatter of rain in the face had wakened me abruptly to the sight of gray sky above and a fog that lay like smoke in the hollows all round; a cloud had settled on Mount Helicon like a broody hen on a single egg, and the air was thick with damp.
“By his EXCELLENCY, WILLIAM TRYON, Esquire, His Majesty’s Captain-General, Governor, and Commander-in-Chief, in and over the said Province,” Hayes read, lifting his voice in a bellow to carry above the noises of wind and water, and the premonitory murmurs of the crowd.
The moisture shrouded trees and rocks with dripping mist, the clouds spat intermittent sleet and freezing rain, and erratic winds had lowered the temperature by some thirty degrees. My left shin, sensitive to cold, throbbed at the spot where I had broken the bone two years before. A person given to portents and metaphors might have been tempted to draw comparisons between the nasty weather and the reading of the Governor’s Proclamation, I thought—the prospects were similarly chill and foreboding.
The Outlandish Companion Page 53