Outlander Book Club: Drums of Autumn Chapter 42 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

We start the chapter with Brianna be woken up early by Jamie. He wants her to come with him into the woods, a chance to hunt together. Brianna gets a chance to see the world. She’d seen the wilderness of Scotland on the way to Lallybroch, but it’s nothing like the wilderness of the Colonies.

Jamie tells Brianna that they’re hunting bees. It’s something she’s never heard of happening before, and the aim is to take the bees back to their gardens. It takes some planning, especially to avoid being stung, but Jamie has a chance to experience this with his daughter.

He also gets to see her aim when it comes to shooting. Brianna explains that Frank was the one to teach her how to shoot. Nobody raises any questions about this, but it does make me think about how Frank prepared his daughter for life in the 18th century. It was like he knew she would end up in the past at some point.

Brianna and Jamie bond further by Brianna talking about the future. She lets him know that men did land on the moon and about the television. She realizes that while Jamie takes in the words, he doesn’t ever quite grasp the imagination of it.

Is that really surprising? If someone from the future told us about a device, would we be able to fully picture it? And that’s with the technology that we have now. Think of what it could have been like without the technology first.

Jamie also gets to think about how his daughter has grown. In an earlier chapter, he mentions he’s always thought of her as a baby. She’s a grown woman now, and he gets to experience some of her life with her.

However, he knows it’s not forever. When we get to Claire’s section of the chapter as she thinks about Bree being here, Jamie admits that he knows Bree is going to have to leave soon. Her place isn’t in the past, and he’s sad that he’s going to lose her. He is grateful that he’s had the chance to get to know her, though.