![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Books - Pamela Dean, Tam Lin
I just finished the book Tam Lin by Pamela Dean, and I have a feeling I need to read it again, to figure out what exactly I think about it.
I started out immediately enchanted – I loved everything – setting, people, words and images, I was falling in… something with Nick in the book, and I adored the way they were all speaking – those constant poetry citations that could feels artificial from outside, but it also can be pretty natural for the one who is talking. In fact those speech patterns in the books did more for my "getting the English poetry" thing I wrote about a while back, than actual reading English poetry.
I loved the small mysteries and big unsaid things; I loved the interactions between characters and the characters themselves, I exercised my will not to go and see the end ahead of time but let the book take me with it. Ok, I knew how it will end – it is Tam Lin, after all, but the details were unclear, and besides, I really loved Nick.
College setting was fun, though rather alien for me- I've never lived on campus neither in North America nor Russia, being lucky to have the university I wanted in my city (and dorms were only for out of city students – my husband always mocked me that I never knew real life. Probably. I was satisfied with the life I knew.) Fascinated with the college life I never noticed (until the year was spelled in the book) that it all was happening thirty years ago. No, the absence of fancy gadgets never surprised me. Who knows how those colleges should look like? Maybe the ones in Toronto are all wrong?
There are many small things in the book to pick up and enjoy or ponder. However, as the book went into its second half, and the story into its second and third year, I grew restless. That's all good and nice, but when will all shit hit the fan and the big trouble starts? I was asking myself. It never did. Even the final revelations weren't that revelatory. Mostly because I expected all that, and secondly, because not everything I wanted to know, I knew by the end. That's one of the reasons I feel the need to read it again. Maybe I am just that stupid and couldn't see it.
For example, what was about Nick's reaction to Keats? Was Keats another seven-year sacrifice? Or there is another connection between Keats and Shakespeare? I can tell you lots of anecdotes about untimely deaths of great Russian poets, but I am not that familiar the history of English literature.
Was Peg Powell normally crazy or not? Why did she need that hockey stick?
In the end I left happy for Janet and Thomas – I liked that a lot, but more curious about Nick and Robin – did they change in any way? I liked them. And I keep wondering about Molly and Robin, too. And all other stuff.
Now I want to read other people's posts about the same book. Feel free to recommend.
I started out immediately enchanted – I loved everything – setting, people, words and images, I was falling in… something with Nick in the book, and I adored the way they were all speaking – those constant poetry citations that could feels artificial from outside, but it also can be pretty natural for the one who is talking. In fact those speech patterns in the books did more for my "getting the English poetry" thing I wrote about a while back, than actual reading English poetry.
I loved the small mysteries and big unsaid things; I loved the interactions between characters and the characters themselves, I exercised my will not to go and see the end ahead of time but let the book take me with it. Ok, I knew how it will end – it is Tam Lin, after all, but the details were unclear, and besides, I really loved Nick.
College setting was fun, though rather alien for me- I've never lived on campus neither in North America nor Russia, being lucky to have the university I wanted in my city (and dorms were only for out of city students – my husband always mocked me that I never knew real life. Probably. I was satisfied with the life I knew.) Fascinated with the college life I never noticed (until the year was spelled in the book) that it all was happening thirty years ago. No, the absence of fancy gadgets never surprised me. Who knows how those colleges should look like? Maybe the ones in Toronto are all wrong?
There are many small things in the book to pick up and enjoy or ponder. However, as the book went into its second half, and the story into its second and third year, I grew restless. That's all good and nice, but when will all shit hit the fan and the big trouble starts? I was asking myself. It never did. Even the final revelations weren't that revelatory. Mostly because I expected all that, and secondly, because not everything I wanted to know, I knew by the end. That's one of the reasons I feel the need to read it again. Maybe I am just that stupid and couldn't see it.
For example, what was about Nick's reaction to Keats? Was Keats another seven-year sacrifice? Or there is another connection between Keats and Shakespeare? I can tell you lots of anecdotes about untimely deaths of great Russian poets, but I am not that familiar the history of English literature.
Was Peg Powell normally crazy or not? Why did she need that hockey stick?
In the end I left happy for Janet and Thomas – I liked that a lot, but more curious about Nick and Robin – did they change in any way? I liked them. And I keep wondering about Molly and Robin, too. And all other stuff.
Now I want to read other people's posts about the same book. Feel free to recommend.
no subject
no subject