Month: December 2019

The Remarkable Diana Gabaldon

When I was at work at Arizona State University, little did I know that I was crossing paths with a person who would soon become an internationally known author with a fan phenomenon that continues to grow. Diana Gabaldon is author of the Outlander book series.

The first book which set off the chain reaction, Outlander, was published in 1991. Probably I felt the Earth tremble but didn’t know what it was. I was crossing a river of my own, thinking about writing a book, but didn’t get around to it until 2003. Literally, I crossed the Colorado and would eventually find my way to Phoenix and Arizona State University still clueless of the Gabaldon earthquake. Her eight books have sold over 35 million copies in 26 countries and are printed in 23 languages.

Outlander was a phenomenal success; 7 sequels rolled-on-out into eager fans hands all emanating from an incredible mind — with the 9th in the series due in 2020. See Diana’s website for updates. http://www.dianagabaldon.com/

Diana is a generous writer, sharing more information with her readers than any other author I’ve ever read, and actively engaging them on her website, in literary groups, her blog, and more, answering questions and engaging readers the world over. She has also published tomes called Outlander Companions that give readers a lot of background information on history, medicine, time-travel, etc. (Well, she was professionally a science historian and well trained to record and report with deep attention to detail, and also the weird little anomalies in human affairs.)

I’d heard about the TV adaptation from my daughter in law but didn’t get around to watching it until the 4th season, which in turn sent me on a wild adventure watching all the previous episodes and season, then buying and reading the entire series of books. I’ve started to reread book 5 and 6 in anticipation of the 5th TV season on Starz.

What prompted me to watch the Outlander TV series was a novel I was drafting about a young doctor whose mother’s family emigrated to the U.S. from Wales. [This is partially my own heritage along with Scottish and Irish ancestors who emigrated, and traveled down into the Appalachians where they settled.] My character  is an intuitive who wishes to learn more about natural remedies and practices of her mother’s home country especially after she has just finished a long residency and is deciding on her path in the practice of medicine.

In the fall of 2018 I was taking a course in Arthurian Legends, and reading about Welsh and Scottish history when I happened to stream Outlander to see what it was that had millions binging on Starz.

Diana’s mind is vast. That is the best way I can explain it. Matched with master storytelling which from all I’ve read is a natural gift, I could not stop reading, and when one book was finished I felt like my oxygen mask had been yanked from my face. I literally crawled into the closest book store gasping for the sequel! Later I ordered ahead so that there would not be days of blue lipped waiting. This was behavior never observed in myself before. I’ve become a fan of both Diana and now the Outlander cast members and writers of the adaptations.

What is it that has seized my mind and heart with such power, joy, and keen interest? I cannot express it yet but its something like this: characters that lift my spirit reminding me that we can be better than we think we can, and we can end up doing good even when we just stumble into it. It’s about intent. It’s also the story of a great love that stands the test of time and tragedy and never seems to be shredded or dulled by it. It’s the story of my family’s emigration, it’s the story of our nation’s early history, it’s about science (which I love and have worked in for my career) and it’s about a woman whose mind and skills are challenged to help others.

Finally, Diana has created a woman, Claire, who is a sort of hero for me and many women in even this modern day, maybe more so in our time. She says what she thinks, she never goes back on her word, she is imperfect and vulnerable, and she wants to be loved through and through by her man. Diana has created that man for her in Jamie Fraser who matches Claire’s strengths and provides a protective and totally absorbing love affair whose flame is inexhaustible.

And there is lots of humor! Thank you Diana for making fun of us along the way. If we can’t laugh then it IS a tragic affair, this life we all strive to live and make some meaning out of. She possesses a great sense of humor and puts her characters in numerous embarrassing situations.

I find the books healing in a way, like a balm for my tattered soul — tattered by the banal world I’m living in, the broken hearts, the disappointed people, the loss of a framework in which to live in this fractured time. The story is stabilizing. The people care about and love each other and even when the way is not clear, the characters choose a safe way forward. And to think, Diana is still rolling-out their lives,  showing us a way forward. The fact that Claire and other characters time-travel adds a mystery to it all and opens up unique possibilites for the author to explore and compare historical times and mores, and ask interesting questions such as, “Can history be changed?”

What can I tell you. I am a goner. Diana Gabaldon has captured my imagination and my heart for the time being. And I am grateful.

 

COP 25 Comes to an Ignoble End: Not Surprising

The most recent Climate Change Summit (COP 25) came to an ignoble end with few agreements among the member countries on coordinated decrease in carbon dioxide and methane pollution. This in the midst of reports flooding media about new or more advanced warming impacts on ecosystems pole to pole, ocean to ocean.

Yet this sad result is not surprising, is it? With one of the largest, and longest contributors of CO2 to the atmosphere bailing out of the Paris Agreement (US), it has complicated and weakened the coordination and commitments of countries to less than 2 degrees Celsius warming by 2050.

What’s more ,the most vulnerable places, already experiencing life threatening changes in the earth, sky, and waters, can’t pay for the kind of adaptation necessary to assure some form of well-being, forcing migrations and/or conflicts. All results that are predictable due to a lack of responsibility for each other.

Regionalism and nationalism are dangerous in light of global problems that we can only solve or mitigate together. Why should Americans care that our President, White House, and half the voting public have chosen to turn their backs on the world of which we are an integral part? Because it is just ignorant not to recognize that the well-being of countries worldwide benefits us in terms of security, wealth, and health. Any grade school child can conjure that.

All political affiliations of voters must urge their representatives to get off the barge heading for annihilation and start building in the safe guards for what is already wide spread destruction. We are right now teetering on massive problems caused by ever greater warming.

Its great we have a strong economy, wonderful. We’ll need it. Let us not bury our heads in the sand. If Climate Change goes against your religion, I suggest you sit down for a long chat with God. I am sure our Creator does not want his progeny to kill life everywhere so that we can have more money in the bank.

A great country must be a wise one. A great  citizenry must strive to use logic and prudence when playing with the very requirements for life. We cannot play God by tweaking the stock market. But, that is what we are doing. Chasing the Almighty Dollar, eyes shut, bellies full, and souls in tatters.

NPR Report on COP 25

 

 

 

The Joy of Reading a Really Good Book

My life is bountiful. I am surrounded by great books, talented writers whose sweat and tears have brought me a pleasure beyond words: worlds unto themselves, characters that are real and redeemable no matter what they do or have done, and a story that seizes my imagination.

As Tom Hanks’ rich voice delivers The Dutch House (Ann Patchett) into my living room, I chop veggies and set them to steaming, make a salad, or sit in my fav chair with hot tea, curled up under a yummy throw, the narrative rolls forward, jumps back, jumps forward, twists and turns, resolves, unwinds — windows opened to the full narrative of The Dutch House. Danny and Maeve are siblings who experience a tragic turn of events and are thrown together to survive. The narrative loops in long conversations between brother and sister — sitting and smoking in the car watching the moonlit house long after they were booted out of their family home. They return to The Dutch House at many points in their lives as a sacred space, a return to the scene of the “crime”.

The house is the center of gravity in the centrifugal forces of their lives into which we are invited to observe, consider, wonder where its all going. Hoping. Brother and Sister over their lives, work out what happened to them and how their lives have unfolded through the decades. Maeve’s coping is funny, maddening, and finally restoring while Danny lives on a stream of anger and resentment.

Maeve is the center force of Danny’s youth painted in realism so layered I felt I knew her as a sister. Danny’s very different way in the world is counterpoint, funny, and defining through whom the writer adds shading, depends a line in Maeve’s portrait. We can see its gonna be a masterpiece. I felt it coming.

Folks, it’s life presented just as it is, all its colors and shades, all its flavors. Life. I believe it’s the best book Ann has written — a culmination of all she has learned about life, marriage, and family and sibling relationships, about the unexpected, about serendipity and forgiveness. Danny tells the story of his sister, Maeve, and what a woman she is. Their continuous conversation over five decades of their lives, forms the stream of consciousness of writer and subsequently readers.

It is deftly delivered. Listen to an excerpt here.

To writer friends: Ann wrote the story, hated it, threw it out, and rewrote it which she shared in an interview recently.   Listen here. 

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