Outlander Book Club: Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone Chapter 20 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Claire visiting Malva’s Garden. While she’s there, she realizes that new life is growing in the area, and it shows that there is a life cycle that needs to be honored. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this mentioned in this book. Bree and Roger note of new life around the cabin that went up in flames due to a lightning strike.

Claire sees a peanut bush that is growing. She decides to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for everyone and takes the peanuts to the house. Jamie later joins her, although he notes that the storm will help to shell the nuts.

This is when the two discuss Frank. Jamie shares that he has long wondered what Frank looked like. He knows that Frank must have been smart as Claire wouldn’t marry a stupid man, but he wants to know how honest Frank was. The book he is reading seems to have been written for Jamie.

This is something that we’ve all wondered about. Diana Gabaldon keeps saying that Frank didn’t have an affair in the books, but Claire thinks he did. Well, what was Frank up to? Why does the book seem to be written for Jamie? What about other books? Why did he make sure Bree was trained to shoot? It’s clear that Frank knew more than he let on.

So no, Frank wasn’t honest, but is that all that surprising? He was MI-6. A spy or someone working in intelligence can’t be honest all the time. That doesn’t mean the words in the book aren’t honest. I am curious about what Jamie read that makes him think Frank might lie.

The two decide to put a pause on the discussion of Frank’s book until that evening. They then decide to do “Sortes Vigilanae,” which is an ancient practice of telling your fortune or looking for advice through passages in books. As they do that that night, Jamie brings Claire the leftover sandwich, and Claire thinks about the final time she came through the stones. She brought back a PB&J sandwich in Saran wrap, and she thinks about how out of time and place she felt, much like the Saran wrap, until she found Jamie again.