Tamsin

Rating:
Summary: World Fantasy Award Nominee
Review: "Tamsin" might best be described as a fantasy for people who don't normally read fantasy. It reminded me very much what Charles de Lint calls "mythic fiction," because it's basically a young adult story about a girl's rite of passage that incorporates elements of myth and folktale. No dragons, here, although there is a Pooka, the billy-blind, the Black Dog, a boggart, the Wild Hunt, and many (almost too many) ghosts.

None of the mythic stuff kicks in until Jenny Gluckstein's mother marries an English biologist and Jenny is forced to relocate from New York City to an ancient, run-down farm in Dorset. She acquires two stepbrothers along with her stepfather, boggart, etc., and meanwhile her beloved Mr. Cat is forced to spend six months in quarantine.

I'd feel the same way Jenny did if I were forced to temporarily swap my cat for something that titters nastily under an ancient bathtub that fills up with burping, sidewalk-colored water-- when the plumbing is working at all. Not to mention having to attend the Sherborne School for Girls where everyone HAS TO WEAR A UNIFORM.

Jenny does settle in, but it's a long grumpy, kvetch. The turning point in her attitude comes during her shift on a boggart patrol in the kitchen (also known as the Arctic Circle) with her young step-brother, Julian. Something has been smashing eggs, making the food in the refrigerator go bad, and generally making a nuisance of itself. Jenny and Julian are deep in a game of Snakes and Ladders when the boggart finally shows up:

"He was dressed like a cross between the Seven Dwarfs [sic] and Robin Hood, in a kind of loose red smock...and heavy little boots, ankle-high." Jenny thought they (the shoes) might be Doc Martens, except she didn't think they made them in boggart sizes.

Jenny and Julian solve the mystery of what the boggart really wants. Mr. Cat comes out of quarantine and falls in love with a ghostly Persian. Jenny makes a really good friend at school, and the ghostly Persian's owner finally makes her appearance.
Now Jenny must solve the deeper, darker mystery of why her ethereal friend, Tamsin who 'stopped' 300 years past, cannot find peace.

All of Beagle's characters are wonderfully human, including Mr. Cat, and most especially grumpy Jenny, and her pesky, lovable stepbrother, Julian. This would make a great read for anyone who is forced to pack up and move away from friends and school, and try to make a new life with a new family. In spite of all of its supernatural goings-on, "Tamsin" is not particularly scary--just Beagle at his most poignant.

I took away one star because the ending was a bit of a let-down. Jenny goes off to Cambridge, and I don't know what happened to Mr. Cat.

Rating:
Summary: World Fantasy Award Nominee
Review: "Tamsin" might best be described as a fantasy for people who don't normally read fantasy. It reminded me very much what Charles de Lint calls "mythic fiction," because it's basically a young adult story about a girl's rite of passage that incorporates elements of myth and folktale. No dragons, here, although there is a Pooka, the billy-blind, the Black Dog, a boggart, the Wild Hunt, and many (almost too many) ghosts.

None of the mythic stuff kicks in until Jenny Gluckstein's mother marries an English biologist and Jenny is forced to relocate from New York City to an ancient, run-down farm in Dorset. She acquires two stepbrothers along with her stepfather, boggart, etc., and meanwhile her beloved Mr. Cat is forced to spend six months in quarantine.

I'd feel the same way Jenny did if I were forced to temporarily swap my cat for something that titters nastily under an ancient bathtub that fills up with burping, sidewalk-colored water-- when the plumbing is working at all. Not to mention having to attend the Sherborne School for Girls where everyone HAS TO WEAR A UNIFORM.

Jenny does settle in, but it's a long grumpy, kvetch. The turning point in her attitude comes during her shift on a boggart patrol in the kitchen (also known as the Arctic Circle) with her young step-brother, Julian. Something has been smashing eggs, making the food in the refrigerator go bad, and generally making a nuisance of itself. Jenny and Julian are deep in a game of Snakes and Ladders when the boggart finally shows up:

"He was dressed like a cross between the Seven Dwarfs [sic] and Robin Hood, in a kind of loose red smock...and heavy little boots, ankle-high." Jenny thought they (the shoes) might be Doc Martens, except she didn't think they made them in boggart sizes.

Jenny and Julian solve the mystery of what the boggart really wants. Mr. Cat comes out of quarantine and falls in love with a ghostly Persian. Jenny makes a really good friend at school, and the ghostly Persian's owner finally makes her appearance.
Now Jenny must solve the deeper, darker mystery of why her ethereal friend, Tamsin who 'stopped' 300 years past, cannot find peace.

All of Beagle's characters are wonderfully human, including Mr. Cat, and most especially grumpy Jenny, and her pesky, lovable stepbrother, Julian. This would make a great read for anyone who is forced to pack up and move away from friends and school, and try to make a new life with a new family. In spite of all of its supernatural goings-on, "Tamsin" is not particularly scary--just Beagle at his most poignant.

I took away one star because the ending was a bit of a let-down. Jenny goes off to Cambridge, and I don't know what happened to Mr. Cat.

Rating:
Summary: A true page-turner
Review: A bit apprehensive after immensely well crafted The Last Unicorn and The Fine and Private Place I was suspicious of a really long lag before coming of Tamsin. But all that evaporated halfway into the first chapter. I found Tamsin to be a great novel hugely entertaining even before all the boggarts got loose. If I had to venture and define it's genre it would be a pastoral ghost story, rich in English folk tradition and reminescent of Simak with his goblins and trolls set in essentially homely Wisconsin countryside. Oh, yeh, my cat loved it too. Now, after this book I take more seriously his chasings of seemingly inocous shadows on the walls - cats, you know, have an eye for bogles and such...

Rating:
Summary: Tamsin
Review: A remarkable piece of fine literature! Peter Beagle, an author with whom I was not very familiar with before, seems to possess a gift for telling stories. When I first saw the book, I wasn't prepared for anything wonderful, knowing how cheasy and tacky most "ghost stories" normally come out. But after the first page I was hooked--literally. The writing never sounds cramped and forced, it flows out in a realistic stream of grace and creativity. I enjoyed Beagle's theory of the supernatural through the main character, Jenny. She says: "...feelings like that don't die; memories like Tamsin's memory of Edric and her lost sister don't die. That's why you have ghosts." It's wonderful, simply amazing, how realistic everything comes out. Beagle also has some good mythology in here, as well: the Pooka, the Wild Hunt, and the Lady of the Elder Tree. I highly reccomend this book; it is well worth your time and money.

Rating:
Summary: Time to move to Dorset
Review: Beagle brought me to a place I didn't ever want to leave. Then he created a family I sincerely missed after I turned the last page, and that's only the people who were alive! This story gave me chills, it was so absorbing, and his matter-of-fact descriptions of fey beasties makes me want to believe. I wish with all my heart that I had read this when I was in eighth or ninth grade, when the magic of Beagle's writing would have transported me for days. This is the first Peter Beagle book I ever read, and let me tell you, don't get between me and his books at the library...

Rating:
Summary: Another wonder from Beagle
Review: First of all, Peter S. Beagle is one of my absolutely favorite authors, so I am predisposed to like his works. That, being said, I really enjoyed this book. His writing is extremely lyrical. The people in his books, despite the fantastic situations in which they find themselves, seem very earthy and real. Even the confusion of the ghosts and the way they respond to their circumstances are very believeable which encourages the reader to be sympathetic to their plight. I love Peter's endings, I believe he is one of the masters of the bittersweet ending.

If you are going to only read one book by this author, I would recommend The Last Unicorn, or, for older folks (20s or so) Folk of the Air over this one. However, this is another good book by one of the masters of Fantasy. Keep in mind that I think Peter tends to gear most of his books, including this one, for the young adult audience although most can be enjoyed by readers from 8 to 108.

Rating:
Summary: Another wonder from Beagle
Review: First of all, Peter S. Beagle is one of my absolutely favorite authors, so I am predisposed to like his works. That, being said, I really enjoyed this book. His writing is extremely lyrical. The people in his books, despite the fantastic situations in which they find themselves, seem very earthy and real. Even the confusion of the ghosts and the way they respond to their circumstances are very believeable which encourages the reader to be sympathetic to their plight. I love Peter's endings, I believe he is one of the masters of the bittersweet ending.

If you are going to only read one book by this author, I would recommend The Last Unicorn, or, for older folks (20s or so) Folk of the Air over this one. However, this is another good book by one of the masters of Fantasy. Keep in mind that I think Peter tends to gear most of his books, including this one, for the young adult audience although most can be enjoyed by readers from 8 to 108.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Written but Flawed
Review: I am a long-time fantasy lover -- adore the novels of Ursula Le Guin and Terry Pratchett -- but the people in TAMSIN are more gullible than intelligent, falling too quickly into belief in boggarts, ghosts, and billy-blinds. You can forgive the children, but the adults, too? They probably believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny. Their stupidity eroded the novel's verisimilitude and is personally irritating to me. Gullible sympathetic chacters are unwelcome in our sad era of New Age and Fundamentalist nonsense, when far too many people...have lost the commonsense ability to be skeptical.

That cavil aside, once you accept that the characters aren't really very bright, this is a truly well-written and sensitive fantasy, with astonishing insights into the concerns and teenage girls...Furthermore, TAMSIN warmed the heart of this old medievalist. It deals intimately with one of the crucial periods in history, the English Seventeenth Century--and reminds us why England had its Glorious Revolution and Bill of Rights, and why we must stalwartly defend our Constitution and our even better American Bill of Rights...

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful, Magical Story
Review: I borrowed "Tamsin" from the library on a 7-day loan, concerned I wouldn't be able to finish it by that deadline. It's now 48 hours later and I've finished the book. I could not put it down. I was drawn into Jenny's world; from her dismay at being relocated from NYC to the wilds of a tumbledown English farm, her fierce dedication to her cat, and her resentment of her instant step-family, all the way to her wide-open acceptance of the supernatural lives that swirled and battled around her in her new home. With a pure heart and a strong sense of right, she stood against forces far older than time to correct a centuries-old wrong. Beagle has created a living, breathing person in Jenny Gluckstein and in her "stopped" friend Tamsin, as well. If you're a fan of fiction that seamlessly blends the real with the mystical, don't miss "Tamsin."

Rating:
Summary: memories of being 13 years old brought back!
Review: I borrowed this book because I wanted to read a ghost story and because of the setting--Dorset, England. But the first half of the book is consumed by the spoilt angry 13 yr old heroine and made me impatient. Not that it wasn't right on target about children of divorced parents, relocation and the strange importance some things can be when one is 13 years old but I wasn't prepared to go down memory lane just yet. It's tough being 13 and I'm just getting over it! On the other hand, the ghost story (once we finally get into it) is substantial and eerie. Tamsin is a vivid character and the descriptions of the old and present Dorset/farmhouse are realistic. I love the portrayal of the cats and Mr Cat has all the attributes a true cat! (Patting his paws on eyelids, making the questioning 'prrrp' sound) Good book and thank God I am no longer a Young Adult but an aging Woman!