#the great tam lin extravaganza

[libraryleopard]

i reread tam lin by pamela dean this week and it's really interesting to me how this novel is the only tam lin retelling i've come across that still includes janet's pregnancy (i assume there's got to be at least one more out there, this is just the only one i've personally read*). i suppose it's because you can still make the overall arc story work if you have a romance instead of a pregnancy to motivate janet, but i think the fact that in some versions janet's second meeting with tam lin occurs because she's gathering herbs at carterhaugh to induce an abortion tells us a lot about her character and i would love to see more versions explore the themes of bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. the fact that pamela dean's novel is set during the early 1970s and roe v. wade explicitly happens during the course of the story also really threads those ideas throughout the story and i think it would be interesting to see someone tackle a version of tam lin set after the overruling of roe v. wade.

*apparently kimberly bea's upcoming novel the changeling queen is a retelling of tam lin in which the heroine is a midwife, though i believe it's actually a prequel about the fairy queen so that's a bit different (i'm definitely going to keep an eye out for it).

[libraryleopard]

me normally: idk sometimes it’s hard for me to get invested in intense enemies-to-lovers romance because the attraction element can sometimes feel a little sudden or forced when the two characters start out genuinely at odds, you know?

the dark tide: *has a heartless witch queen who wears a suit as the love interest*

me: oh wow never mind

[libraryleopard]

glad to realize that i have possibly still retained the elastic-brain childhood superpower of actually being able to understand the ending of fire and hemlock

[libraryleopard]

The funniest part of Tam Lin by Pamela Dean is that Janet seeing a woman in a red cloak by the classics building on the campus of a midwestern liberal arts college is probably supposed to be a hint at the supernatural aspects of the story to come except I have had that exact same experience and unfortunately encountered zero faeries

[libraryleopard]

I don’t think it totally hit me when I was first reading Fire and Hemlock as a preteen, but Ivy is such a bad parent, holy shit. Which is part of the point, I guess–lots of DWJ’s books have terrible relatives–but wow, she really is just willing to let her ten-year-old daughter go hang out in London with a strange man she’s never met. 

[libraryleopard]

Continuing the Great Tam Lin Extravaganza after a bit of a break and I enjoyed this short story retelling quite a lot–it’s also inspired by Chinese folklore and I liked how badass the Janet character was

[libraryleopard]

Over halfway through Fire and Hemlock now. It’s quite interesting to reread after writing my own Tam Lin retelling because I think little aspects of it seeped into my own understanding/interpretation of the ballad, like the Tam Lin character being associated with music or Carterhaugh being a fancy manor house. Also, I thought I’d only read this book once or twice as a kid, but now I’m thinking I might have read it more times and just forgot? My copy is definitely beat-up and some sections are so vividly familiar.

There’s also quite a lot of interesting things to unpack in terms of the way DWJ reinterprets the source materials–i.e. the way that the instead of Thomas the Rhymer being unable to tell a lie, everything he says comes true in a sort of roundabout way. Or how Laurel’s name, according to the reading of the will, is actually Lorelei and one of the paintings that Polly looks at in Hundsdon House is of a mermaid and a drowned man and Lorelei are a type of siren that lure men to their deaths. Or the way that all the photos of young men in Laurel’s bedroom are obviously former victims of the tithe. Or how the themes of the sections of The Golden Bough that Polly reads line up with the themes of Tam Lin and the Perry Leroys: kings being being sacrificed. Lots to dig into.

Now that I’m older than Hero-era Polly, I feel so protective of her, I think mainly because I saw a lot of myself in her at that age (and my parents hadn’t even gotten divorced at the point I first read it, ha) so it almost feels like stumbling on a time capsule of my past self. That really does not make me look forward to the romance aspect because she feels so young–the way she misspells words in her letters to Mr. Lynn and has a wildly active imagination and has friend troubles at school really capture the ages she is throughout the book. Someone did the math and worked out that Mr. Lynn is probably twenty-four to Polly’s ten when they meet at the funeral, which. Yeah. Don’t Like. (Even if they don’t get together until she’s nineteen after being separated for a while, still.)

But I think it has been interesting to reread, even if if I still find the romance massively creepy. I’m curious what I’ll think of the end confrontation with Laurel because it’s definitely weird, but I feel like I had a strong sense of what I thought was going on when I read it at a young age but I don’t really remember much more than that.

[libraryleopard]

hmmm thinking about what tam lin retellings i’m going to read when i’m done with azalea summer

tithe by holly black. probably should get around to this considering holly black is basically the go-to author for faeries in ya books but i’ve never actually read her ironside series other than a few short stories set in the universe and i feel like i should just so i can kind of know my history.

the dark tide by alicia jasinska. another f/f tam lin retelling, hell yeah! i feel like i might be getting this one for christmas because i kept dropping unsubtle hints, so we’ll see.

fire and hemlock by diana wynne jones. i wasn’t actually planning on rereading this one, but i realized a couple references to it slipped into my own work (primarily a character name), so i think i will revisit it after all just to be more certain of what i am and am not echoing from it. while i read it multiple times when i was younger, i feel like i’m going to find the age gape creepy this time around through so i’m kind of bracing myself for it.

the perilous gard by elizabeth marie pope. has been sitting under my bed for literal years after i bought it at a used book sale and i really have no excuse not to read it at this point, plus it’s one of the few historical-set retellings and i’m curious about that.

tam lin by pamela dean. i feel like i almost have to read this if i want to understand the landscape of tam lin retellings (though it’s a chunky book). plus, it’s about a bunch of classics and english people at a midwestern liberal arts college which, like…is me.

thorn jack by katherine harbour. maybe if i have time and aren’t feeling too tam lin-ed out. i feel like i only encounter this on comprehensive lists of tam lin retellings which doesn’t really testify to its sticking power/quality but i can get it through interlibrary loan so i might read it anyway.

with roses in their hair by ennis rook. a sci-fi f/f tam lin retelling that i believe i can read online for free? and it’s a novella, so pretty short. 

cotillion by delia sherman i reread earlier, so that’s one retelling i can cross off my research list. (and it definitely held up!)

also, i might read war for the oaks by emma bull, which isn’t a tam lin retelling but it generally regarded as a cornerstone of urban fantasy books with faeries, so knowing your history and all. plus a copy of that has also been sitting under my bed for years. 

a court of thorns and roses i read several years ago and didn’t like, the mirk and midnight hour is supposed to be racist so i’m not including those two on this list. 

roses and rot by kat howard i read a few years ago and liked, though i’m not sure i’ll reread it simply because there are other books by her i want to get to reading. 

magic at midnight: a ya fairy tale anthology edited by lyssa chiavari has a sci-fi tam lin retelling and i might pick that up at some point.

[libraryleopard]

hm i forgot that i own a copy of roses and rot by kat howard, maybe i should reread it now that i’m trying to read every tam lin retelling i can get my hands on

[libraryleopard]

I love when books include a Tam Lin moment without warning…special little treat just for me <3

[libraryleopard]

“I've always loved your hair” is, arguably, one of the creepiest lines in all of Fire and Hemlock

[libraryleopard]

oh! another nod to the original ballad that i noticed in tam lin is the college’s motto being “hold fast to learning and fear not” which is obviously based on the “hold me fast and fear me not” line tam lin says to janet 

[libraryleopard]

Tam Lin retellings where characters are aware of the original ballad and use it to navigate the story are so interesting and meta–The Perilous Gard is very much leaning into that aspect and so did Fire and Hemlock (The Dark Tide also did it a little bit, to an extent). It really adds a new layer to the idea of there being a cycle of tithes, I think.

[libraryleopard]

Starting off on the Great Tam Lin Extravaganza with The Dark Tide by Alicia Jasinska, a young adult fantasy novel with witches and an F/F romance! I’m about halfway through and it’s quite a loose retelling–there’s a magical tithe and a guy named Thomas Lin, but quite different otherwise–and I’m digging the atmosphere a lot.

[libraryleopard]

“Hell’s not boring,” Nina said smartly. She hated not being the centre of attention. “There’s devils with forks and flames, and thousands of sinners. You won’t have a dull moment when you go there.”

“I’m not planning to go there,” See said. “I told you to shut up. I’m planning not to.”

Oh boy…foreshadowing that Hits Different upon reread, huh?

[libraryleopard]

Continuing on with the Great Tam Lin Extravaganza again! (I keep getting distracted by X-Men comics, oops.) I just started Tam Lin by Pamela Dean and it’s making me miss college, ugh. Thomas Lane is obviously going to be the Tam Lin figure and Melinda is my bet on the fairy queen figure, though I don’t actually know much about this book beyond the vague premise of “Tam Lin at a liberal arts college,” so I guess I’ll see how the supernatural aspects unfold.