Fire and Hemlock (1985)

It's strange. I was sure at first that I'd read this when I was younger, and bits still chimed with me, but a lot of it felt like new discoveries. Strange parallels with the main character, here! I can't decide whether it counts as a new read or a reread. Hmm. Anyway! I just read a handful of reviews and they all mentioned the idea that when Diana Wynne Jones writes for children, magic doesn't need so much explaining as it does for adults. I think that probably is true, to some extent, but there are plenty of adults who can get on the ride too, and I did. Okay, I made my frowny face of confusion sometimes, but...

The characters are fun. I especially like Granny, I think, with the biscuity smell and the cat called Mintchoc and her matter-of-fact ways. And her sailing out to court battles, and winning them. I wanted to kick the rest of Polly's family. I do kind of wonder why there was rather a lot of emphasis on Polly's family woes, although I guess it does make it that much more realistic. Polly's a real fleshed-out sort of character, with the same kinds of worries as other kids -- nobody coming to her play, wondering whether a certain someone will show up to her sports day, wondering when she'll get a decent figure, worrying about her parents' divorce...

I definitely identified with the love of reading stuff. In case anyone wondered.

The plot is fun, too. It's based on old legends of Tam Lin/Thomas the Rhymer, etc. Makes me curious to go and pick up the other book I've got on my list about Thomas the Rhymer -- by Ellen Kushner. Hmm, maybe. Anyway, it's a legend I've always been somewhat interested in. Particularly since I heard Karine Polwart's take on it, in the form of a song, "Tongue That Cannot Lie". (Here on Spotify, lyrics here.) It's a modern take on it, really, an extension of the old legend into the present.

The main trouble with it is how much it picked up pace in the last quarter or so of the book. It lost me a couple of times, there. But I liked it overall, big grown up adult (nearly twenty omg omg omg omg omg) or not. ( )

I'm not a huge fan of Diana Wynne Jones, but I enjoyed this variation on the Tam Lin/ Thomas the Rhymer legends. Polly is the Janet character, and she's a pretty sympathetic lead. There's a lot of extraneous spookiness and several dangling strings left at the end. The minor nitpick that actually made me 7 kinds of crazy is the fact that the band The Doors is referred to as Doors throughout. ( )

Definitely one of my favorites of hers so far. It's a retelling of two Scottish ballads... sort of. I felt the realistic elements, though, were the heart of the story - the chronicle of the protagonist's painfully dysfunctional childhood, the vivid descriptions of England in the eighties, and the warped yet compelling love story at the center of it.

There was also a lot of interesting themage about storytelling, reality, and power. It was in fact written the year before [b:Howl's Moving Castle|6294|Howl's Moving Castle (Howl's Moving Castle, #1)|Diana Wynne Jones|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327887365s/6294.jpg|2001], and I felt the two had a lot in common in terms of plot and concerns. And yes, themage is a word now.

My only complaint is that her plots are just so twisty, and I'm still a little confused about some elements of this one. But then again I was up until three in the morning finishing it - although I did reread the last two chapters during waking hours, for clarity's sake - and that might be responsible for my missing some things. Still, some of the implications of her plot were hard to sort out because of its complexity. On one hand, it's awesome that she doesn't talk down to her audience; on the other... aggh, my brain!

ETA: Reread January 2013. Reading DWJ's essay about the mythic elements and (now staggeringly obvious) Four Quartets references certainly gave the book more texture and helped me to notice how the structure shapes the story. I still don't understand the last page, but that's okay.

Upping it to five stars, not because it's without flaws, but because I'm recognizing how much it has influenced and crystallized the kinds of stories I want to tell as a writer. ( )

Generally, I really love Diana Wynne Jones, and this book had the same sense of fun and magic that all her work does; however, as it was set in the "real" world, the magic was left unexplained for much of the book and left me wondering if it was magic at all. The end of the book felt rushed, as though she realized she'd left the explanation of the premise until too late and had to cram it in, which also meant it was a bit confusing as to what exactly was going on. This was in contrast to a lovely, slow moving story that made up most of the book and unfortunately undermined much of what had come before. ( )

Muddy plot and muddled conception. Not up to Wynn's standard. Kind of creepy in conception of relationship between grown man and young girl: her grandmother and mother suspicious, but still naively trusting (nothing untoward happens, of course). ( )