Tam Lin (The Fairy Tale Series)

Rating:
Summary: A book that absolutely shimmers
Review: Although it is written as a remake of the Scottish ballad, Tam Lin stands alone as a novel, its fantasy, mystery and magic neatly interwoven into one shimmering tale. Set in a midwestern college, Tam Lin is a coming of age story about an English major whose otherwise typical college life of love, friends, roommate problems, and departmental recruiting is entangled with ghosts, magic, and faerie lore. The faerie aspect is so well grounded in the story that the integration of reality and fantasy is complete and believable.Very much like the quoted Wasteland by T.S. Eliot, Tam Lin overflows with quotations and references that spread from Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Milton's Paradise Lost, Shakespeare's Hamlet and Much Ado about Nothing, Keat's poetry, and T.S. Eliot's poems and plays. Although their recognition is not necessary to enjoy the novel, such recognition provides even more delight, in addition to Dean's elegant, almost lyrical narrative.

Pamela Dean has a knack of showing the faerieland that surrounds us, the magic and mystery that lies in the ordinary, and Tam Lin is one of her best novels. I even brought it to college with me, and has even become almost a good friend -- reading Tam Lin during the rough times at college (e.g. finals) has always gotten me through them, its story of hope, dreams, and above all, magic in ordinary life being "fragments I have shored against my ruins" when I needed them.

Rating:
Summary: Enchanting
Review: "Tam Lin" is unadulterated fun. The characterizations are richly developed, the literary allusions are plentiful and amusing and the description of university life makes me want to do my college years all over again. For the most part, I also think Pamela Dean did a beautiful job of weaving the Tam Lin legend into a modern day setting. The parallels between the book and the legend begin from the moment she introduces her characters. My only complaint is the book's ending which I find incomplete. I also feel that in a book which seems so real, the ending should have been equally real and should have made sense of the legend without relying on things that simply cannot happen. For this reason, I give the book four stars and not five.

The book includes the Tam Lin ballad at the end. I think the ballad is misplaced and I strongly urge anyone reading the book to read the ballad first. Not only did I read it first, but I found it helpful to refer back to it several times during the course of the book in order to remind myself of the clues I was looking for. Finally, for those who want more of the Tam Lin legend, I highly recommend "The Perilous Gard," which, although is a children's book, does another take on the Tam Lin legend and is set in the sixteenth century.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe you need 2 copies of this one
Review: I liked this book so much that when I had loaned my copy out, I borrowed my library's copy several times till I got my own back. The book was not what I expected when I picked it up - the modern-day (well, 1970's still feels modern-day to me, okay?) setting was a surprise, and the first time I read it I kept expecting a dissolve to fairyland. Despite the unexpected setting, I've returned again and again to this story of tangled relationships. The college situations rang true, and in fact made me homesick for my college town. Another reviewer mentioned Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock, and Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard, both of which I heartily agree are wonderful variants from the same root stock as Tam Lin. Try all three!

Rating:
Summary: A book only English majors could love?
Review: This is the first book I've read from Terri Windling's Fairy Tale series. After reading Terri's fantastic introduction, I found the novel itself a bitter disappointment, and am now skeptical of the whole series.

I suppose the obvious strength in this novel is its innumerous literary in-jokes, quotations and allusions--I'm tempted to say that these really form 70% of the book's content, along with in-depth descriptions of college syllabi, the campus' buildings and its college-issue furniture. If you think you're going to enjoy the pervasive literary references and the college campus setting of the novel (and quite a sedate college atmosphere at that), this book may be for you.

I had approached this book as a voracious fantasy reader, who perhaps was not an English major, but had considered it seriously, had hung out with English and Theatre majors, had taken English classes and had also gone through a period of quoting esoteric literary texts (it seemed like the height of intellectualism). And I still couldn't stand this book. I'm certain this book is packed with a lot of subtle references to the ballad it was based on, some of which I spotted along the way...but I can't dredge up the energy to read this novel again. Its flaws were too many, and its reliance on literary references did not--will not--save it for me. There have been other books written, also using lots of literary in-jokes and allusions, that are more enjoyable, better-layered, and more packed and fun to read than this one. Pamela Dean's usage of old literature is only unique in that she takes it to the extreme, yet perhaps only half of it is of any value to the plot, and probably none of it would sustain a regular reader's interest. I suspect most readers who are NOT English majors are going to fling this book out of their window in disgust.

The pacing was terrible. Any build-up was indiscernible and the magic or fae-feeling you're supposed to get from fairy tales was so "subtle" that it felt altogether absent--until the ending, which was harried and haphazardly written. The characters were simply mediocre for me. A reader who picks this up as a fantasy novel/fairy tale, even knowing it's set on "modern Earth," might be taken aback at how this just reads like a very slow, self-indulgent college version of Sweet Valley High, penned by an English major, of course.

To be fair, this isn't a bad book. But it only has a chance of succeeding with readers if they are/were English majors, if they enjoyed a fairly uneventful college experience, and/or if they've attended Carleton College. If not, this is not a fun book or particularly great "modern fairy-tale" treatment of Tam Lin.

Rating:
Summary: I loved it, but you might not...
Review: This book is full of lovely language, subtle references to the ballad of Tam Lin, unadulterated nostalgia for life at a liberal arts college in the 1970s, and characters who are flawed but endearing. I wore out one copy of this book and had to buy a second, which disappeared into a friend's library, so I had to buy a third. I reread it at least once a year, or whenever I want to read a beautifully written book which will reveal more on each successive reading.

However, lots of people hate this book. Some of the people who hate this book are people whose literary tastes I otherwise trust implicitly. It's hard to know why they hate it. They say they hate the cardboard characters (but the characters seemed to me to be both wonderful evocations of the archtypes they represented and also quite well-drawn as individuals). They say the book is pretentious (but I went to school with a bunch of people who talked like that -- we outgrew it, but the dialogue sang to me). They say the fairy tale is just nailed onto the ending of the book (but if you look, the details of the ballad are present from the first page -- and surely one of the things Dean is trying to say is that the fantastic has as its context the mundane). They say the writing is wooden (I disagree).

If you love lanugage, if you were ever a somewhat pretentious young intellectual, if you want to remember what it felt like to be 18 years old at a liberal arts college (and you didn't have to go to Carleton to feel the tug of nostalgia), you will probably like this book. But if you don't, you will be in good company.

Rating:
Summary: nya-nya-nya-nya I WENT to the college in the book
Review: And Carleton is just as wonderful, awesome, and invigorating as the college in the novel. I first read Tam Lin while in High School and immediately decided to go to the college in the book. Dean's charecterizations of college life, studies, and then general weirdness that goes on at a small liberal arts college are spot on. When her deft interweaving of the fantasy elements is added--this is an incredible book. The story is well done; the plot elements are consistent and interesting and the sheer presence of literature and books in the novel is sure to be enjoyable for anyone who enjoys books and reading. A wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: A decent novel, so-so retelling of 'Tam Lin'
Review: I've recently started reading every version of Tam Lin I can get my hands on, and this is the most recent discovery of mine. As a novel about college life, 'Tam Lin' worked fairly well. I started my college career at a small private liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, and I was happily reminded of my experience there throughout the course of the book (my first crush there reminded me frighteningly of Nick; both were intelligent Irish musicians with tousled hair and small frames). I caught many of the subtle references to the original ballad, and some of the most subtle references made me laugh out loud (ex: Janet asks Thomas what type of woman he's looking for, to which he replies "A motherly type".).

I have a few criticisms, still. There are a lot of unsolved mysteries when the story ends, which made me a little mad. The character of Janet isn't at all like I imagined the heroine of this story should be; I guess I'm stuck on the sort of fiery, strong-willed Scottish lass I've seen in other interpretations and translations. Janet didn't seem all that enthusiastic about saving Thomas from the Fairy Queen, which made it hard to see the deep love they supposedly felt for one another. I guess a better developed relationship ahead of time would have made up for this, but for most of the book Thomas is with Janet's roommate, and while he does seem to have a very different relationship with Janet than with anyone else, it's lacking something to indicate that they were secretly falling in love. Finally, I wasn't that fond of most of Robin and Nick's dialogue, finding it just a tad too unrealistic, but once their true identities were revealed, I forgave them for it.

For a more interesting modern spin on this tale, I'd suggest Diana Wynne Jones's 'Fire and Hemlock'. Patricia McKillip's 'Winter Rose' is the most startlingly beautiful version I've read, but the very best version you can possibly find is Elizabeth Marie Pope's 'The Perilous Gard'. Pamela Dean's work falls just below these other three, but it's still an interesting and original retelling of my favorite ballad.

Rating:
Summary: Flaws? Who cares!?!
Review: Terri Windling's Fairy Tales Series has had an uneven history: some breathtaking riffs on classic stories and themes (Tanith Lee's White as Snow, for instance, or Jane Yolen's Briar Rose) alongside some relatively pedestrian, if still enjoyable, retellings (Patricia Wrede's Snow White & Rose Red, Charles de Lint's Jack the Giant-Killer). Tam Lin somehow manages to belong to both categories at once.

OK, first the criticism: Here is a book that has some serious pacing problems and was badly in need of editing for internal consistency. One character's hair color spontaneously changes from red to brown midway through the story and nobody seems to notice. Other characters pop up who are supposed to have already graduated from the Midwestern college that is the setting (and largely the raison d'etre) for the novel, still attending classes and eating at the cafeteria. Main character Janet's first year at said college seems to take more time than the other three combined. The supernatural elements, after a promising start, largely disappear until the last few pages. In fact, for a novel of some 400 pages covering 4 years, not much really happens.

Now the praise: Somehow this book manages to be much, much more than the sum of its parts. The depiction of college life, while it probably will only resonate with those who have themselves attended a small liberal arts college, is appealing enough to make you wish Blackstock really existed so you could visit the campus and see buildings like the "modern malaprop" Fine Arts center. English major Janet sees life through the perspective of the (many) books she reads, tinging her internal narrative with a wry and engaging sense of humor reminiscent of Austen and peppering it with lovely, intriguing literary quotes ranging from Lewis Carroll to T. S. Eliot (with, of course, loads of Shakespeare). And, most importantly, the characters are rich, warm, funny, and endearing, even when they're busy making the other characters (and the reader) want to scratch their eyes out. Maybe it's the would-have-been English major in me, or the fact that I first read the book just as I was beginning my own college studies, or simply the suspicion that, if the Queen of Faerie and her court really do haunt the contemporary world, they probably do it just about exactly the way Dean proposes they might, but flaws and all, this is one book I will always have on my shelf.

Rating:
Summary: An undeniable treasure
Review: Some people say Tam Lin is a bit 'slow'. I find the book to be at a perfect pace for me. You get time to know all of the characters and you get a real feel for the college and for the way life is there. I have read this book several times and I'm always stasified with the ending, which is rare for me. Too often I feel that books chicken out on the ending, not letting the book fall into a natural ending it deserves. But Tam Lin ends perfectly and doesn't sacrafice the characters, the situations, or the ballad for a cheap ending.
I think that the book needs to be as long as it is in order for it to fufill everything Dean sets out to do. The book is slightly more enjoyable when read over because you pick up on a lot of things you missed the times you read it previously. Also, I don't believe one can accuratly judge the book until one has read the whole thing; The book may seem odd and off at times but it all comes together in the end. So give it a chance and don't give up hope. Are you a lover, a lunatic, or a poet?

Rating:
Summary: "...A Double Rose, A Rose but Only Twa"
Review: _Tam Lin_ is the sort of book that grows on you. You can read it once, grumble that you wasted your time on a book that seems to have little to do with the actual ballad, and then find yourself sitting around on a moody evening wanting to read it again.

Yes, it's mostly dorm soap opera with only hints of the supernatural, but it's fun--and funny--anyway. Laughter intersperses with a desperate hope that you, the reader, are a Molly and not a Tina. You know a novel is affecting you when you begin to wonder whether the protagonist would allow you into her circle of friends.

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