Friday, March 5, 2010

Lord John Grey

Darn the luck.
I had been raptly listening to Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon only to finish the first part and find the second (from the library) on reserve. No longer able to bear the hour long drive without an audiobook, I went in search of Outlander. Also gone. Not wanting to dive into the next stories (when it comes to Gabaldon's Outlander series, I prefer to read first and listen later, silly perhaps, but there it is), I picked up Lord John Grey.
To begin, it is brilliantly performed by Jeff Woodman.
At first I didn't remember the character clearly, years have passed since I first read Outlander. So it was a bit of a shock when I realized he was gay. In all honesty I have never read a book wherein the main character was a homosexual man. Or woman for that matter. I called my mother and asked her to remind me of who the character had been to Jamie Fraser.
Ah yes. Him.
Not too certain that I would be interested in the romantic aspect of these stories (sorry, but I do prefer man-woman romances, being a heterosexual myself) I was about to give up on listening to an audiobook that day, but decided to look at it more clinically.
The stories, in and of themselves, though filled seamlessly with the results of heavy historical research (Diana Gabaldon is a master at this), were nothing amazing. Several times I found my attention had drifted and had to back up and find where my mind had meandered. It felt, at times, as though I were just listening to a heavily involved character background (except it was written after the fact). It took until the middle of the third book for me to decide that, despite the sometimes sluggish story lines, I really like Lord John. Were we to meet, he would be a good friend of mine.
Has the Lord John series been worth my time? Yes. Even if I had read them I would say yes. A mediocre work of Diana Gabaldon would be a masterpiece for anyone else. If that makes sense to you. Diana Gabaldon has unparalleled talent, her so-so works are what others would consider to be their masterpieces. And though I long to be done with the last disc and move on to something more thrilling, I will miss Lord John and hope to hear from him again.

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