Voyager - By Diana Gabaldon

Please discuss Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager ONLY in this thread. Thanks!
The SPOILER Thread can be found here.


PART 5 – You Can’t Go Home Again
CHAPTER 18 Roots

September 1968
Claire is on a plane flying back to Boston to deal with things at her job and house. She also plans to see her closest friend, Joseph Abernathy, whom she met in medical school. They both stood out, Claire because she was the only female intern and Joe because he was the only black intern.

Claire reminisces about how after her first solo surgery, she started reading a random page of a romance novel in the doctors’ lounge where Joe was sitting. When she laughed out loud, Joe knew exactly what line she must have been reading. That was the beginning of her taste for romance novels. [This scene is a parallel to the beginning of Chapter 15 when Jamie was reading a romance novel with some skepticism too. I think Herself had entirely too much fun writing this section. ]

Joe tells Claire that she has the nickname Lady Jane, in part due to her English accent and because she “ha[s] a way of talking like you expect to get your way, and if you don’t, you’ll know the reason why.” [This presence also helped Claire manage other situations, including when she first met the Scots in 1743 and fixed Jamie’s dislocated shoulder.] She explains she learned it as a combat nurse in WWII watching the head matrons.

In addition to a sense of humor, Joe understands what she does and why. He also assures her that people will eventually stop saying inappropriate things to her (or his) face, like she should be home with her husband and daughter or he should be cleaning toilets.

Back in the present on the plane, Claire thinks about Bree and Roger searching for Jamie, about her job and Joe in Boston, and about Jamie. The chapter ends with what seems like a possible visit from Jamie’s ghost:

“I felt a slight ruffling of my hair, and one lock brushed against my cheek, light as a lover’s touch. But surely it was no more than the rush of air from the vent overhead, and my imagination that the stale smells of perfume and cigarettes were suddenly underlaid by the scents of wool and heather.”


- What do you think of that last paragraph? Do you think she was visited by Jamie’s ghost at the moment she was thinking about him? Or were the touch and the smells just her imagination?

- I thought it was interesting that Part 5 You Cant’ Go Home Again, starts with Claire headed to the home in Boston where she’s lived for many years. Clearly, she’s not sure she’ll be staying, so that fits, but in theory she is headed home. Of course, the other issue with the title of this part of the book is whether she can go “home” to Jamie in the 18th century again, but that’s probably more a discussion for a future chapter.

- I’m not sure I have a good explanation for the title of the chapter being Roots. Claire presumably had roots in Boston, but that’s not the focus. There are the roots of her friendship with Joe and her taste for romance novels, I suppose. But, with her up in a plane, it seems like kind of the opposite of roots in the ground. What do you think the title means?

- What do you think of The Impetuous Pirate, and about Joe’s knowledge of some of its funniest quotes and the pages on which they appear? What do you think of Joe Abernathy and his friendship with Claire?

I just listened to this on audio the other day. I loved this scene.

I would really like to think it is Jamie's spirit touching her and telling her it is okay. His way of letting her know he is waiting for her. (((sighs)))

As for Joe, I loved him. They seem to be two peas in a pod - two people out of place in their own time really. That started the bond they formed. They both had something to prove to the world.

As for Roots - I am thinking more of transplanting those roots. Claire is preparing to pick up her roots and go home again. I need to think more about that.

Part 5 of Voyager refers to not being able to go home again and that is what will follow all of the characters in this chapter. Claire can't go home (Boston) again with the knowledge that Jamie survived, Brianna can't go home again because that illusion has been shattered by her new knowledge, Roger can't go home again for the same reason as Brianna now that he knows about Geillis, and even Jamie can't go home again since we last left him in Hellswater because Lallybroch would be a different world than the one he left last.

This chapter is titled Roots because I think that the characters (Claire in particular) have to start planting new roots and deciding where they want to grow. Claire is on a journey back to Boston to prepare the field so to speak for transplanting herself to a new place to grow. This is just how I interpret these titles but I could be wrong.

I believe that Claire experienced some sort of paranormal connection with Jamie though I am uncertain if it was ghostly in nature. Just prior to feeling her hair being ruffled, her cheek touched and smelling the scent of wool and heather, Claire experienced a sensation of being "suspended, motionless, cocooned in solitude". Did time, at that moment, stand still for Claire? And during that moment, was she with Jamie? I'd like to think that she was.

Is such an encounter or connection possible? In OUTLANDER, Father Anselm had the following exchange with Claire when discussing the ritual of Perpetual Adoration (Chapter 38: The Abbey)...

"For me, in that moment..." He paused. "It's as though time has stopped. All the humors of the body, all the blood and bile and vapors that make a man; it's as though just at once all of them are working in perfect harmony."
(A couple lines later...)
"But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it's as though..." He hesitated for a moment, carefully choosing words.
"As though, knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary."

Father Anselm spoke of a moment in time where all things are possible from a religious perspective. A moment in time that exists in which all things are possible argues, therefore, in favor of a moment in time in which a connection could exist between two lovers separated by time.

Both Jamie and Claire experienced paranormal connections with each other during the years they were separated. In DRAGONFLY Claire had a "dream" that went beyond vivid (Chapter 4: Culloden).

This was different. Not that I remembered much about it, but I had a vague impression of hands that gripped me, rough and urgent, not wooing but compelling. And a voice, nearly shouting, that echoed in the chamber of my inner ear, along with the sound of my fading heartbeat.
(Several paragraphs later)
For I had come back, and I dreamed once more, in the cool air of the Highlands. And the voice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeated with the sound of Brianna's sleeping breath.
"You are mine," it had said. "Mine! And I will not let you go."

Jamie also had dreams. In VOYAGER (Chapter 5: To Us A Child Is Given) Jamie recalled dreaming about Claire...

He had them often, in varying forms, and it always unsettled him the day after, as though for a moment Claire had really been near enough to touch, and then had drawn away again. He could swear that sometimes he woke with the smell of her on him, musky and rich, pricked with the sharp, fresh scents of leaves and green herbs.

Is it significant that both Jamie and Claire noted scents they associated with the other (wool and heather; leaves and green herbs) during these moments of connection? Does a lingering scent point to Jamie and Claire actually being present, if only for a moment?

Susan, you are amazing! That is absolutely perfect. I loved the exchange about Perpetual Adoration and you have brought it all together for me. Thank you so much for that. It maybe isn't as much paranormal as it is spiritual. Their spirits are tied to each other and no matter what - no time, distance, space - can change that. They are so joined that they don't even know it but feel it.

I bow to your superior intellect!!!

Just returned from a camping trip and really liked what everyone responded here. Great analysis Susan.

And, Pauline, I liked what you said about everyone not being able to go home again and having to plant new roots. I'm still a little skeptical of roots as the title for this particular chapter where she doesn't seem to have any of the roots (and she is in a plane, not even on the earth), but I'm willing to accept that she needs to set down new ones now.

Thanks so much for such a great discussion.