An Echo in the Bone: A Novel (Outlander)
by Diana Gabaldon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Diana GabaldonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-09-22
ISBN: 0385342454
Number of pages: 832
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Book Reviews of An Echo in the Bone: A Novel (Outlander)
Book Review: !Spoilers! A solid addition to the series
Summary: 4 Stars
As I'm in the UK, I bought this from the American Amazon site, partly because of the cover design (I wanted all my copies to have the same cover theme) but mostly because I couldn't wait until January.
While I was waiting for the book to arrive I made the mistake of reading others' reviews of the book, again on amazon.com, and a large number of those reviewers were disappointed with the book for varying reasons, some of which I will comment on below. As such I started reading feeling very apprehensive about whether I would enjoy the book. Luckily my fears were unfounded and I found it just as good as, if not better than, the rest of the series.
Many have said there are way too many 'voices' in the book, which detracts from the Claire/Jamie story. To those people I would say - did you actually read any of the other books? The only book which had the one voice in it was Outlander (Cross Stitch), and ever since then Diana has been using multiple viewpoints, and IMO, to great effect.
One of the wonderful things about Diana's stories is the level of detail she goes into - I love detail - and given the multi-faceted nature of the American Revolution it makes sense to tell a story about it in a multi-faceted way. If Diana had just concentrated on Claire & Jamie, I think the story would be boring. I love Lord John, I think he's great; as such I really don't have any problem with the amount of the book he occupies, nor William, nor Brianna, Roger et al, nor Ian.
The whole story - meaning all the way from Outlander to An Echo - is about the married life and experiences of Jamie and Claire - they have a daughter, they were separated for 20 years, Jamie has a son, they adopt Ian as almost a foster-son - these are all people who influence these two people's lives - why should they not join in the story and have their parts in it?
Many romances (books AND films) are dulled by the fact they spend so much time and energy on all the intrigues that go on in getting the hero and heroine to the altar at the end (which isn't to say I don't like romance) - I'd much rather start with the wedding and go on from there. So what I love about this series is that it paints a portrait of the whole course of a marriage, all the joys and all the suffering too; we aren't just left to imagine that after they got married they lived in that mythical state of 'happily ever after' - after all they didn't exactly get married in conventional circumstances. For me it is fascinating, and means you see a whole lot more into the minds and hearts of the main characters, which is why I didn't find Claire's actions with regard Lord John at the end overly surprising, and vice versa.
Another criticism of An Echo was the level of historical detail described by the author - if you don't like history, why are you reading a historical novel? The history helps to explain a great deal about the motivations and opinions of the characters - becoming almost a character in itself. We ourselves can obviously never live through time periods like these, but being able to participate in the American Revolution through the eyes of Jamie, Claire and friends paint a much more interesting and personal (if entirely fabricated) point of view than reading about it in sterile history textbooks.
Warning - spoilers! I only gave it four stars because at the end when Claire thinks Jamie is dead, but we know otherwise, I didn't feel that Diana adequately developed the overpowering sense of grief and tragedy that Claire MUST have felt. Knowing her as we do from earlier in the series when we've seen a lot more emotional outplay on lesser events, if Claire really had lost Jamie (which from her point of view she had), she truly would have felt that her life was over, and I felt Diana glossed over this a little too quickly, looking at it more from the reader's perspective than Claire's.
I don't want to wish the next 4 years or so of my life away as we wait for the next book, but I will be looking forward immensely to its arrival on my bookshelf; the way there laid by a very solid addition to the series in An Echo in the Bone.
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