Comments on: Tam Lin, Pamela Dean

By: Tam Lin by Pamela Dean, or, when books disappoint… | Capricious Reader

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:00:25 +0000

[…] Jenny says: I found this book rather unputdownable the first time I read it, particularly as the end drew near, to the extent that I did something I never, ever, ever do at university, which is I read it during my Christian and Byzantine art class, under my desk, even though I was sitting up in the front row in plain view of my professor. Great review, this one. […]

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:37:52 +0000

In reply to Schatzi.

Oo, that would be nice, annotations. That would be helpful for me. I could be fond of the characters who quoted Milton, and sneer at the ones who quoted Wordsworth. But I see your point about Molly and Tina – I think I’m reacting strongly against them, because part of me thinks it would be so nice to hang out with a bunch of snobby bookworms for a while, and that makes me feel snobby. 😛

By: Schatzi

Schatzi — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:29:31 +0000

I have to be pretty lenient with some of them, though, since they (Nick, Rob, etc) had very good excuses for their excessive quotation (INSERT MASSIVE SPOILERS HERE); Janet was the intolerant one, far more so than anyone else, but she did develop over time. And remember, Janet got along with Molly very well simply because Molly read some of the same books (mostly children’s lit), though until they took Shakespeare together, Molly wasn’t much for quotation. The fact that Tina hadn’t read things wasn’t the major problem, it was that she was equally intolerant of many of the books Janet loved, calling them silly.

There’s a wonderful site I encountered once, The Annotated Pamela Dean, with wonderful references for Tam Lin, but I don’t think it’s up anymore.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:23:05 +0000

In reply to Schatzi.

I definitely agree people can get a little contact high in college when they meet like-minded people – but even with that, I found these characters aggravating. Which didn’t stop me from reading Tam Lin twice when I had it out of the library, and then getting myself a copy on Paperbackswap, and then rereading it several times thereafter until it became an official comfort book. 😛

By: Schatzi

Schatzi — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:18:03 +0000

About the snobbishness, I think it nicely reflects how “OMG WHEE, I’M A SMARTY INTELLECTUAL-PANTS NOW THAT I’M IN COLLEGE” some people get when they, uh, go off to school. And it also captures the feeling of finding people who do like and read the same things you do, and those people can be few and far between in high school.

I’ll probably re-read this again sometime soon because I love love love it. I blame Pamela Dean for my being a Classics major at a tiny Midwestern liberal arts college for a time.

By: jennysbooks

jennysbooks — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:50:23 +0000

Well, I meant intellectually snobby. I wasn’t crazy about how everyone felt superior to people who didn’t recognize quotations. Not everybody likes to read. But I still did enjoy the book a lot. In fact I might read it again.

By: Jeane

Jeane — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:34:22 +0000

I loved this book. Of course I missed many of the references to lit and Shakespeare, but enjoyed them nevertheless. I didn’t feel like it was being snobbish. Well, maybe a bit elitist. Is that the same thing?