Tam Lin, or...Once More, With Feeling

[flyingskull]

First, take a peek at my icon. That thing really existed, hundreds of millions year ago, in the Cambrian era. Which makes me wonder why Fantasy author never bother to go look at past reality for their beasties, but such is Fantasy, never let it be tainted with real things, no matter how definitely extinct. Anyway, they've found fossils of it and they've named it Anomalocaris which means Odd Crab which also means they didn't get it right the first time. It was a winged lobster with double grabbing shrimp-like appendages and a circular bone-crushing maw. I rather love it and I decided this one's name is Tam Lin. Why? Because he used to wreck havock, back in the old days when humans were not, and Tam Lin is a hell of a havock wrecker on writers.

Which elegant transition brings me to my

Why resurrect old tales of Magic and Otherness, Pamela, if you're going to write a Freshman Scandal bad romance?

I mean, I admit that the story of Tam Lin is a popular and lovely thing: after all it's got Evil Elves, which always pleases; it's got a Beautiful Young Man, which never hurts; it's got a Feisty Tenacious Heroine, which young gels everywhere can identify with; it's got a powerful storyline with suspense and romance, it's certainly got SEX! There are several version of the basic plot, but they are all about a Thomas (Tam's the Scot version of the name) who's too sexy and musical to be left in peace. Enter the Queen of Elfland and... voila! One sexy beauty in the hands of a pagan goddess gone to the bad. Enter young heroine who is not one to be set aside for immortal hussies, thankyouverymuch, so she grabs young Tam and the poor boy has never got a chance, has he? So between going to Hell, going to the Twilight or going to be married I don't know what to wish him, really. Anyway the story's Matriarchal and older than the current Patriarchy (which is why I presume the pregnancy is not always present and was pastede on yay! later) so the fact that the poor sod hasn't got a say in what happens to him - TAM *whingeing* "But I WANT to be celibate, you sodding harridans!" - is not very off-putting.

Pamela Dean takes this basic plot and rewrites it as a Young Girl Romance Series, I have NO idea why. The woman can write. She wrote the Secret Country Trilogy which is very very good. Then she ups and writes this interminable piece of drivel. I use interminable advisedly, though I freely admit it's not boring, not if you like college romance, American style, that is.

I was trying to give the plot, but really there's none that makes sense, given the book is Tam Lin by Pamela Dean and not My Life and Loves While at College by a Young Lady. As I said, four fifths of the book are about Janet's love story with Nicholas, an Elizabethan actor who's been seduced by the Queen of Elfland and is now, for reasons known only to an Elizabethan actor who worked with Shakespeare and got seduced by an immortal crumpet, an everlasting student at a minor American University. The only reason he would submit to such an everlasting boredom is that he spends his time screwing Young Girls Of Impeccable Reputation and Putting A Spoke In His So-Called Friend Tam Lin's Wheel of Being Rescued.

The Immortal Crumpet assumes the name of Professor Medeous (Ware the Punnish Names! She's supposed to recall Medea. Good grief! And what's Medea got to do with Tam Lin or anything except she was a witch? She also killed her babies, y'know? o very literate Dean!) and for quite incomprehensible reasons teaches Ancient Greek. Why Ancient Greek? Why not? What's Ancient Greek Literature got to do with Elves? Who happen to be a Gealic myth? Who cares? Am I the only one who got so thouroghly pissed off at Pamela Dean for her atrocious and pompous dissertation on Literature? That said - er... ranted - she's just hard as nails and also bi and that's it for the Queen of Elfland. This doesn't actually grate all that much because she's supposed to be a shadowy figure, a powerful force never quite seen as a person. But Ancient Greek Literature! And wouldn't you know our SuperHeroine would learn Ancient Greek in less than a term? HA!

That's more or less it. In the last fifth or sixth part Janet suddenly decides she wants to bonk Tam, she does, she gets preggers, she saves him, end of story. Can readers believe this second and WAY TOO LATE romance? NAH! There's a sort of retcon reference when one of her friends - but more about them later - says 'you wanted him for months' (not a precise quotation, I can't be arsed to re-read the thing) but, Pamela dear, it won't wash.

Not to say there aren't intimation of Eeriness and Mystery, 'cause there are. Actually the first time Janet goes to see Melinda Wolfe - yes, all names of professors are atrocious puns. *sigh* - we get a nice horror atmosphere which convinces us all who know the ballads or the story to think she's Elfland Queen, but alas, she's but an elfess and not even a lycanthrope, now I ask you, Wolfe!

There's a striving for normalcy which is odd in that the heroine seems to always have feelings, intimations and odd things happening, but she never once deviates from her chosen Young Girl Romance path. This is because the sodding story takes FOUR years to happen and if Spunky and Literate Janet were to sit and reflect on things with any kind of efficiency, said story would end in one term.

Now in DWJ's Fire and Hemlock which may not be one of her best book, but it sure as Death and Taxes is a profoundly disturbing and fascinating book, the whole thing takes what? Ten years. Yet you get told why and her Janet, who's actually named Polly, is made to forget by MAGIC! And MENACES! And TERROR! Also, as her Tam Lin has apparently set out to seduce her when she was ten, she HAS to be lots more grown up for the grand finale. Which is not really really happy as it shouldn't be. IMO, it's well worth a read AND a re-read.

Back to our poor Pamela. Now, Janet's friends: Molly. Molly is Zany! Molly wants to be a Marine Biologist, but with lots more literature and lots less science in it! Molly is Not Pretty, Nor Beautiful! Molly is an Optimist Who Has Always A Smile Ready! Molly Reads Fantasy and Sci-Fi and Children's Books! Molly has a Teddy Bear! Molly is Practical and also a Tower of Strength when she needs to be. Molly Smashes Bunkers With Her Field Hockey Stick (which, BTW, was a scene I really could have done without, because it's utterly pointless and tells me NOTHING about any of the three friends, excepts that the Author is trying too hard)! Molly gets the other Shakespearian actor, none other than the great Armin! Gosh, isn't Molly really super fab?

The sad thing is that no, Molly isn't any kind of super or fab, Molly is a poorly written character who fails to impinge on the reader in any way except as a mild irritation when the book goes on and on about her. The other one, Christina, somewhat randomly called Tina (Dear Pamela, a tip: you don't have to actually type the names of your character, there IS such a thing as a Remember Things Function in all the wordprocessors I know, it saves lots of time and aggro. Please remember to use it when you feel tempted to use nicknames because you can't be arsed to type the whole name. Thank you.) is a sort of placid cow, only not really, but yes, deeply down she IS a placid cow and all conventional and things. Her only reason for existing seems to be the one who Tam Lin is fucking for a lot of the book, though we MUST think he secretly lUUUUURVES Janet, and who gets to dump him for no apparent reason except he has to be dumped if he is to be saved by Janet, now, don't he? She's also Suddenly A Drama Queen For Reasons Of Plot. Still, it's the one I liked best, at least she's got Sense.

Janet is a rampant Mary Sue. 'Nuff said.

Tam Lin is Beautiful But In A Manly Way And Also Supposedly Kind Even Though He's Got Draco's Colours (I mean white blond hair, grey eyes and pale skin, not that he's green and silver, which I'd have preferred for reasons of originality). Actually he's... not. A cypher if I ever read one. A nothing. A name. On second thought, he's quite self-seving and a tad hysterical at times so maybe he's not only got Draco's colours, he's got a little of a Howlish personality as well. Or he would if he were. Anything.

To conclude a quote from Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer. the novel is divided into four parts each of which is in first person POV from respectively: Gavin, thomas the rhymer, Meg and Elspeth. Who are they? Read the book! This quote is from the Gavin section:

Then the dog at my feet, Tray it would be, son of old Belta that was, Tray goes stiff like he's heard something, though my ears caught nothing over the racket of wind and rain. "Soft, there, lad," I say, like you do to a dog that's spooking. "Easy lad. Silly hound, scared of a bit of weather."

See? STYLE and plenty of it. :-D

Well, methinks perchance me's ranted enow, good fellowes. Now to Shakespearian tragedy and love immortal...

Comments

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

the person on my livejournal who decided to utter death wishes for Cassie made me blindly furious

That does seem... excessive. ^_^;;

The only author who I've ever wished dead is Terry Goodkind, and that's not because he's a talentless hack. It's because he's a scary, insane person who figures socialists should be tortured to death. Given who I voted for in the last election, I don't feel safe with that kind of people running loose, especially not when they're writers. Goodkind may live on the other side of the world, but what if someone in my neighbourhood gets inspired by his books and decides to put his philosophy into action? ^_^;

Oh, and we also seem to agree on The Lies of Locke Lamora (http://baeraad.livejournal.com/36070.html), it would seem. :) Wonderful book. And I see what you mean on the character death in the middle, it really came as a shock... though I of course maintain that it wasn't more shocking than any of Martin's, only as shocking. ;)

(I really liked that character too. So if Lynch wanted me to hate the Grey King and want him to die for the rest of the book, he succeeded. =])

I look forward to clashes and calms in the future.

Hear, hear. :)

Here I am, intruding like a very intruding thing

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

First, thankee both for your largely mistaken assumption I know things. Of course I know some things, but then, so do you both.

Though I admit I know a fair bit about old myff and legends because I really am into cultures - prolly translates into mind-sets and mind-landscapes into today net-cognizant speak - and the Tam Lin thingy tells the story of a time when men ruled not and there was - GASP! - human sacrifice to keep the earth fertile and things. So Tam Lin is the Summer King, the Fertility King, the Disposable But Oh So Useful Phallus and happy to be. I mean, he'd have to have entered a contest of sort and won it just to be King of Life and shag like a rabid otter for six months after which he's have been offed in a particularly extemely bloody way and his blood - and bits - would have made the earth fertile. Which is right as blood and human bits are quite good fertilisers.

When Men got power they were rather 'orrified by said sacrifice thingy and retold the story as one of captivity and rather horror-noir ending. BUT WAIT! someone thought, what if we introduce a model of Modern Femininity - one who would not dance up to her elbows in blood - who saves said poor King of Love from a monstrous fate? Why not, let's hear it! The others said. And he sang and it worked well enough. I suspect the preggers bit was added much later to make all good Christian happy. I mean I have a bibliography on this, y'know? It's really not fumes of me deranged brain! :P

BUT the pregnancy bit really pissed me off no end. And I'm looking at you Daniel the Viking! You and your insufferable Donaldson The Catholic fixation! HUMPH! I can't abide with that miserable man and you know it! :P

Right, seriously. Well, it's easy enough to write a female who would kill all living things if she din't get big with sprog, innit? The whole sorry tale just tells me that that Stuck Up Bastard Breast Beating Donaldson is sexist as well as a Catholic fascist.

To talk of real things. I asked me mum about pregnancy and why in hell did she have us three and she told me that A) she wanted children but she ì0d have preferred two; B) she had two abortions while in her late teens and early twenties acuz the condom was faulty and she rilly rilly wasn't ready for children then and so wasn't me father and presumably the other would-have-been father; C) she decided to have me even if I was rather surplus to qualifications because... actually she said 'just because, don't be forever harping on about it Jane' - not that I'm complianing, mind you.

The best preggers story I ever read was by Reginald Hill. Pascoe's wife ultra-feminist, ultra-socialist Ellie has a hell of debate about letting it be born or not and her hubby, Pascoe the Cop, is also quite uncertain. The really good part of this is that is not at all the focus of the book - a whodunnit, mistful - but it's wonderfully human and also intelligent and civilised. They have the baby, Ellie's chuffed it's a girl and they are decent normal parents. THAT is a wonder in fiction.

I can't think of any pregnancy in Fantasy that did not piss me off to slavering rage except Magrat's and Sybil's. But then, Pterry is my love.

To intrude some more here's me tuppenny ha'pence: a really rounded character IMO is one whose mind-set, mental processes, culture, emotion and backstory we should know or be able to extrapolate as we read. I mean, that's what I like and demand and BTW, mistful, that's mostly how you write them, so cheers and huzzahs and no NO complaints on that. baeraad I know you hate me for not having sent you the betaed first part of chpt 1, but I was truly too busy. Am soing it now and it's too early for me to tell if you are as good as Maya at character creating, but nothing makes me think you aren't as well, so... we shall see won't we?

Sorry for the ramblings and spitting and intrudings but it's latish and I wanted to comment on all your comments at once. :-D

Re: Here I am, intruding like a very intruding thing

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

You're not intruding, for all sorts of reasons. :)

See, this is what I mean. You know cool stuff. =] And of course I know some interesting tidbits too, but I tend to tell people all about them at the slightest provocation. You just sort of hint at them. ;)

This being you, I'm guessing it's because you don't want to presume that people want to listen. Well, allow me to clarify - I always want to listen to mythological freakiness. :D And to sociological theories and historical oddities and whatever else you've got up your sleeve. Okay? =]

I can't abide with that miserable man and you know it! :P

:P Yes. I'm aware.

Well, it's easy enough to write a female who would kill all living things if she din't get big with sprog, innit?

I am very sorry to disagree with you, but no, it isn't. Not if you want it to make sense on a character level. And as evidence I'd like to point to every other writer I've ever read who tried to do this, and who made me throw the book down in disgust.

I mean, look up there at the start of this thread! See how completely hysterical this whole issue makes me! ^_^; And Donaldson still managed to make me accept that in this case, it made sense. Wouldn't you say that that means something, even if it just means something about what I will and won't accept in a story?

The whole sorry tale just tells me that that Stuck Up Bastard Breast Beating Donaldson is sexist as well as a Catholic fascist.

(*WAILS IN DESPAIR*) But he ISN'T A CATHOLIC! I draw a reversed pentacle over my heart and hope to die! Please believe me! ^_^;;;;

As for sexist... what about his female characters who got redeemed all on their own, no pregnancy necessary? What about his female characters who are apparently committed bachelorettes and who didn't need redemption in the first place? That's a big part of the reason why I accept this kind of thing from him - I know that he doesn't use a plot device like this for lack of anything better, he uses it as one possible device. Once. In between lots of other ones. That, in the world of me, means he's entitled. :)

To talk of real things...

Yeah, my mom had an abortion when she was young, too. I... note with some surprise that I say this with a certain amount of filial pride. ^_^; But, yeah. I've got a mother who has the guts to be in charge of her own body. I'm proud of that. :)

she decided to have me even if I was rather surplus to qualifications because... actually she said 'just because, don't be forever harping on about it Jane'

Given that your mom considers birthpains to be "orgasmic," I'm not sure I want to know why... ;)

Me being a smartass aside... =] I would guess it had something to do with there being a big difference between having a kid when you don't have any, and having another kid when you already have two. :)

Re: Here I am, intruding like a very intruding thing

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

The best preggers story I ever read was by Reginald Hill...

Okay, first of all I'll say that Reginald Hill is one heck of an author. He made me like a romantic subplot. This is an accomplishment. Perhaps he is also capable of making me like a "will I or won't I?" pregnancy subplot. I can't know without reading that book.

But having that said... I would consider that kind of thing, with a big discussion and all, worse than the character being some twit who just goes along with it (or who does it because it's her only chance, like Donaldson's Morn Hyland). Because it's cheating. Fictional characters don't have abortions. Okay, this has less to do with any conservative bias on authors and more on the fact that if an author doesn't want his character to have a baby, he can just make sure she doesn't get pregnant in the first place, but still, there you have it.

So the whole discussion thing... to me, that's just covering your authorly ass. It's establishing your liberal credibility. You've already decided that this character's gonna breed. Fine, she's your character. But stop pretending that there's any doubt what she's going to do. You want to pretend there's doubt? Show me some characters having huge discussions, and then coming down on the side of abortions. Then you can show me some characters coming down on the side of carrying to term. That's fine. That's life - given a choice, people go different ways. But you can't just tell me the choice is there, you're damn well going to have to show me.

I'm sorry. I'm bitter about these things. Told you I hate pregnancy plots. :(

I can't think of any pregnancy in Fantasy that did not piss me off to slavering rage except Magrat's and Sybil's.

Magrat's I agree with. That was just treated as, well, she's gotten married, it's going to happen. Sybil's I'm not so sure about... there was still that big revelation moment, which didn't come as much of a surprise to me. I still do consider The Fifth Elephant to be one of the weaker DW books, you know. ;) But yes, Pratchett deals with everything in such a matter-of-fact way that makes it easy to accept.

baeraad I know you hate me for not having sent you the betaed first part of chpt 1, but I was truly too busy.

I could never hate you. :) No matter how hot and bothered I get in my defence of my favourite authors. Hopefully you won't hate me for getting that way, either. ^_^;

Am soing it now and it's too early for me to tell if you are as good as Maya at character creating, but nothing makes me think you aren't as well, so... we shall see won't we?

(*looks a bit nervous*) As good? Eh. Let's put it this way - I think I'd enter my characters in a competition against hers and not feel ashamed, but I'd be very surprised if I won.

and another late and quick one

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

Re: R: Hill's pregger background happening. My fault for not having explained. It's not a pro-choice/pro-life thingy. Ellie, having married Pascoe because he's a cop (she'd have loved and lived with him in a marriageless state otherwise, but cops on the fast lane to promotions are better married than living in sin), has no probbos with children in themselves - okay, one child. She's capable of using conraception - but with the fact that hubby won't be a very present father to said children and she's teaching at uni so mummy too won't be there 24/7 and said children would suffer because of parental absence.

Not a huge ethics thing, more a practical probbo married working people have. As I said it was very background to the investigation going on at the time. What I liked was the matter-of-fact approach to the thing. 'We want children, but is it fair to them as we won't change our life?' sort of thing.

Get as much hot and bothered as you like, luv. As you noted in a previous comment, I'm not much for half-measures either. :-D

Re: and another late and quick one

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhh, I see. Yeah, that does sound kind of interesting. Also very cerebral and matter-of-fact, which seems to fit Hill. :)

In fact, that's partly true about Brittish literature in general, isn't it? All the English authors I've read have kept very calm about what they were writing, even when they were writing about people getting horrible massacred. =]

Re: and another late and quick one

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

All the English authors I've read have kept very calm about what they were writing,

Are they? Methinks not, luv. Actually methinks that under the surface civility and decency of their writing - talking about the best of course - there's an undercurrent of VERY strong emotion, the stronger for being kept under the text. Intense passion, anger, fury even, hatred... and, of course, also love and JUSTICE crying out. I love it when it's all in the subtext because very few author can sustain it in the text for a whole book, y'know?

A critic once defined Austen's books as 'regulated hatred'. I heart that definition and not only for Austen. Think Pterry. Think Diana Wynne Jones, think Hill... :-D

Re: and another late and quick one

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Really? Well, if you say so I believe you, but... Austen, regulated hatred? I admit that her characters are very complex and that there are almost certainly subtleties there that I haven't noticed, but, uh... where do you find regulated hatred, exactly? ^_^;

Hill? But he's so cerebral. So's DWJ.

The only one I can understand is Pratchett, who does appear to feel extremely strongly about everything he writes about, but who nevertheless keeps it very lowkey. It's sort of like being on a ship in the middle of the ocean - after a while, you don't think about the sea, but it's still all around you and it affects you at every turn. :)

I guess that might be because Pratchett is the one I've got a lot of experience with and if I knew the other ones better, I might see the same thing in them? =]

And yes, I agree about subtext. Good authors don't need to tell you what to feel. They know you'll feel it anyway. =]

Re: and another late and quick one

[flyingskull.livejournal.com]

I think I've partially replied about Austen in my reply to your reply to my post. :-D BUT... well, she clearly HATES some of her characters, they are monsters. I mean it's quite easy to make a Sauron, y'know? Evil bugger with HUGE powers and all that. But try and live as a son with Mrs Bennet. Imagine it, I dare you! And not just now, nonono, try and live with that in the past when children could be turned out of the house naked without a reason and have to survive with nothing - no money, no family, no psychological support... Or imagine it as if you were a son of such a person in a poor country or the poor parts of our oh so civilised countries. Or... No, I take it back. That kind of abuse goes on and on and on everywhere. Austen makes Mrs Bennet comic, but it's a comic monster written in the blackest humour. I could go on and on, but I'll spare you. I know you have the brains and imagination to apply it to several of her characters who STIFLE people to death. What Austen wrote is claustrophobic novels.

Same goes for both Hill and DWJ, I think you're confusing intellect with atarassia (absence of all feelings). I know it's a Brit cliché: sitff upper lip and never show what you feel, but, in a sense, it's true of the best Brit lit - yea, even unto Shakespeare - write intelligently and let all the rage, love, pain, joy and things swim underneath.

Re: and another late and quick one

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I take it this is in fact the commonly accepted view? Hmm. Seems a bit iffy to me. I mean, yes, objectively these things are horrible, but did Austen seem them as horrible?

(*shrugs*) But if you say so. Not like I've studied these books that deeply. :)

I can certainly think of a couple of characters that would be fairly nightmarish if taken seriously. Catherine du Burgh comes to mind... =]

I do see what you mean about subtext. Like I said, I suspect the reason why I can see passion in Discworld books is because I'm so used to them - I can read between the lines. On the other hand, I've read one book by Hill and, eh... three books by DWJ that I can remember. With them, I'm still reduced to reading literally. =]