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Fire and Hemlock

Diana Wynne Jones,

Garth Nix (Goodreads Author) (introduction)

3.97 · Rating details · 9,498 ratings · 820 reviews

Polly has two sets of memories...

One is normal: school, home, friends. The other, stranger memories begin nine years ago, when she was ten and gate-crashed an odd funeral in the mansion near her grandmother's house. Polly's just beginning to recall the sometimes marvelous, sometimes frightening adventures she embarked on with Tom Lynn after that. And then she did something ...more

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Paperback, 438 pages

Published April 12th 2012 by Firebird (first published 1985)

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Jan 24, 2014 Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own, fantasy, ya-fantasy, fairy-tale, faerie

Polly is a capable young woman who has lived a completely ordinary life. Or so she thinks, until one day she's cleaning out her old bedroom and starts to remember - in great detail; it takes up most of the book - a different life, a second set of memories revolving around a somewhat older man, Thomas Lynn, who had been her friend while she was a child, and with whom she shared some very strange, otherworldly experiences. Polly realized (view spoiler) Polly is a capable young woman who has lived a completely ordinary life. Or so she thinks, until one day she's cleaning out her old bedroom and starts to remember - in great detail; it takes up most of the book - a different life, a second set of memories revolving around a somewhat older man, Thomas Lynn, who had been her friend while she was a child, and with whom she shared some very strange, otherworldly experiences. Polly realized (view spoiler), but something happened and she forgot she ever knew him, until these old memories were triggered. Had these memories been erased from Polly's mind? How, and why?

I'm really torn about this one. It's a modern fantasy that's a retelling of Tam Lin, which ordinarily is like literary catnip for me, but it just didn't particularly grab me: Thomas Lynn was kind of bland and rather old for our heroine. Polly spent too much of the book as a pre-teen and young teen (ages 10-16, with a sudden leap to age 19 at the very end), and the ending was abrupt and kind of confusing. I thought it was a solid 3-star read, no question.

But then I read some Goodreads reviews from people who love this novel (though there are plenty of others who felt like me). And then I found Diana Wynn Jones' essay explaining all of the different ideas and mythologies woven into the plot - seriously, the list includes T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets - and it's clear this novel is a lot more layered and complex than I initially gave it credit for. And I love layered and complex. So I'm going to reread the last part of this book and reevaluate my feelings and my initial rating. Stay tuned!

ETA: I reread the ending. Maybe 3.5 stars? I'm still having trouble feeling the love for this book. The vastly ugly painting of the main characters on the cover of my paperback isn't helping, at all. These are supposed to be attractive people! And Tom, who is supposed to be in his early 20's, looks like he's in his 50's. Because of that I had put Tom firmly in the father figure category, and ultimately that's not where he's supposed to be, but my imaginary view of Tom is proved quite difficult to shift. Sometime I'll read this entire book again. BECAUSE I WANT TO FEEL THE LOVE, DANGIT. ...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Jessica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: good kids

Shelves: favorites, wee-ones-and-bored-teenagers

(Pre-1985-) Dianna Wynne Jones is my absolute favorite writer of all time. Since I've gotten this far with cataloguing much of my reading history, I had to make sure this fact is recorded here somewhere. I actually haven't read this one -- my favorite -- in years, mostly because I'm terrified I'll discover it can no longer do for me anything like what it did when I was a kid.

I really wish I could read anything now that would give me the kind of experience I had as a child reading Ms. Jones's boo (Pre-1985-) Dianna Wynne Jones is my absolute favorite writer of all time. Since I've gotten this far with cataloguing much of my reading history, I had to make sure this fact is recorded here somewhere. I actually haven't read this one -- my favorite -- in years, mostly because I'm terrified I'll discover it can no longer do for me anything like what it did when I was a kid.

I really wish I could read anything now that would give me the kind of experience I had as a child reading Ms. Jones's books. Somewhere she has an essay or an interview where she talks about the difference between writing for kids and writing for adults. What she says is that you don't have to explain every little thing to kids the way you do to grownups, because they just intuitively understand the unwritten logic of the world you're describing, which I really think is true. It's because she exploits this that her books are so amazing: they hook into some kind of childhood mental processes and content, so that much of the story doesn't need to be written, and is actually being told in collaboration with the wee, developing mind on a much more vivid and intensely personal level than would be possible just from reading a regular book, if that makes any sense... I guess as you get older, all that fluid, multicolored, unlimited swirly stuff in the immature brain dries up, and whatever's left gets dammed and filtered into these confining narrow, crusty little channels. I can't engage with fiction at all the way I did when I was a kid, which is the chief reason why I don't read much anymore, now that I'm grown. Now I sit there and think, "Here I am, reading this book," or "This book is well-written," or "that doesn't seem plausible." How deeply unsatisfying is *that*?

Dianna Wynne Jones's best books follow one brilliant pattern, which I'm not really going to get into here except to say that the endings are always the same: huge, chaotic, messy implosions in which the characters, time, space, and a thousand different worlds all reach some frenetic pitch and then collapse in on themselves with a hugely satisfying crash. Hooray! When I was younger, my dream was to travel to England in an effort to meet Dianna Wynne Jones. I sort of let go of that dream, though, when I realized I couldn't think of anything to say. Maybe now I could tell her: "Oh, screw Harry Potter!" And then I could thank her.

Thank you, Ms. Jones! ...more

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Sep 07, 2019 Spencer Orey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mg-fantasy

This book is wonderful! It's a cool remix of two old fairy stories in an 80s setting. It's also a coming of age story about a girl Polly who gets pulled into some magical drama because of a dude she meets when she accidentally crashes a funeral. If it's magic at all? There's a great tension around whether anything is really going on.

It's also a story about surviving bad families. Polly's parents are haunting, great characters with depth that change in little ways.

My one real negative is that on ...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Elena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: great-books

I had a lot of fun reading Fire and Hemlock, and if you like DWJ, don’t miss it. I won’t review it, but I’d like to make a reading guide that will allow me to remember how things work. The mechanics are not simple, but the book doesn’t need the exposure of its guts to be enjoyed. Except perhaps for the ending. That bit is confusing.
For DWJ's thoughts on her book, read her essay on heroics in Fire & Hemlock. I rehash lots of what she says there.

Let’s start with the underlying myths: 1) Tam Lin an ...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Kat Kennedy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

When I tried to think of a way to describe this book I kept having a GIF go through my head. One that I'd seen recently and felt summed up this novel perfectly:

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This novel is just so... damn uncomfortable. It's hard to pinpoint why it reminds me of two androgenous ballet dancers having a suspended representational sex/dance off while a Japanese man humps his way to oblivion, some things are just beyond the realm of human expression.

The easy answer would be to yell, "Pervert!" and run ...more

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Aug 26, 2011 Chris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, dwj

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Fire and Hemlock is one of Diana Wynne Jones’ more haunting books, with characters, situations and references that linger long after a first reading. It’s well known that the plot outline is taken from Northern ballads recounting the stories of Young Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer, especially as she heads each chapter with quotes from the ballads and refers explicitly to the tales in her text. The tales of a young man lured to the Otherworld by a fairy, and in the case of Tam Lin then rescued by ...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Amai rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own, favorites

One of the best and most incomprehensible books I've ever laid my eyes on. It makes my heart ache, physically, literally, it's so good it hurts. My long long LONG time favourite, Howl's Moving Castle, became a runner-up after I finished with Fire and Hemlock. It just really messes with my insides. I want to be this book.

Right after finishing the book I was just really frustrated – the ending made my face screw and I just had to throw the book god-knows-where (I'm sorry, Tom, the poor book was pr One of the best and most incomprehensible books I've ever laid my eyes on. It makes my heart ache, physically, literally, it's so good it hurts. My long long LONG time favourite, Howl's Moving Castle, became a runner-up after I finished with Fire and Hemlock. It just really messes with my insides. I want to be this book.

Right after finishing the book I was just really frustrated – the ending made my face screw and I just had to throw the book god-knows-where (I'm sorry, Tom, the poor book was probably in great agony for the whole night) and curse myself to sleep. I went through such a load of feelings and emotions throughout the book, and in the end I felt like the tension was never truly released. Which makes this book, in my eyes, both unbearable and genius. In a way it reminds me of Laird Koenig's The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane in that it makes you absolutely fall in love with the characters and you wish them all the best yet you can never be certain whether they got their happy ending because there's an eternal cliffhanger (don't we have a law against those?). Only this was a great, enormous load better.

I was trembling by the time I got to part four. Like literally shaking all over and desperate.

Now, despite the fact I've loved DWJ for years I've only read the Castle series and the Chrestomanci series before because I only recently got my hands on some other books of hers. But I'm kind of glad I only read it now. It's quite clear Fire and Hemlock is more mature compared to her more kiddie-ish novels. Much longer, much more complex and detailed, and much more relationship driven. I'm not saying kids couldn't enjoy it – I certainly would have, had I read it when I was younger – but personally, I think I benefitted from the perspective my age gave me over Polly's growth and character development.

I loved Tom Lynn, and his relationship to Polly. I loved how incomplete and selfish Tom's feelings and motives towards Polly turned out to be. And how – in the end – perfectly and devotedly Polly still loved him. I loved the way Polly grew to him and good god! The frustration! I mean, I'm okay with age differences and lolita-ish material in literature (because, you know, fictional characters, no harm done) but this was so different from anything else I'd read! It wasn't just a few years, which would have made it into sweet little puppy love, which is cute. It wasn't exactly a perverse, unhealthy, unbalanced pedoesque "relationship", which would have made it interesting in a dark, sad way.

No, it was too gentle, too okay, and too realistic for me to bear. It just felt like they were meant to go through all those stages and all those feelings. It was clear from the beginning there was going to be a romance between those two, but there was never anything wrong about it. Tom was always reasonable about it (except for the SILKEN BACK SMUT oh my god the scolding he gave her! The lady doth protest too much...) and Polly had the right to be a little unreasonable because, well, she was young and in a way very naïve. And I can't seem to go on about this subject, because my heart feels like it's about to break. Yes, I was utterly touched by their relationship and uh oh yeah alright. Wow. I just really don't get it why so many people saw it somehow creepy or gross, because there was never anything truly inappropriate going on, at least from Tom's side. It was just beautiful and so true and so desperately touching I almost lost it.

Overall, I think Fire and Hemlock was one of the most rereadable books I've read, even compared to Diana's other novels which I've always loved rereading because I've felt like there's always something I didn't catch last time. This book was like Diana multiplied by ten. And after I felt like I really understood the ending, it became even better. It's just what I call absolute literary perfection. The essay at the end of the newest edition was also perfect. I felt like I was going to faint whilst reading it because of all the little details Diana included to sculpt it into absolute flawlessness.

This book is mint. I want to give it way more than five stars. ...more

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Aug 01, 2007 Deepthi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: childrenslitforadults

I wish I could give this book infinite stars.

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Aug 23, 2014 Deborah O'Carroll rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-reads, fantasy, contemporary, 2020-reads, ya, memory, faves, romance, own, retellings

Re-read March 25, 2020

SO GOOD! Even more amazing on a second read! <3 I may add updated thoughts...

Original review

(First read January 1, 2016. Original review posted here: https://thepagedreamer.wordpress.com/...)

This is more like an essay than a review, I’m afraid, but it’s what I could come up with…

I’ve tried to write this review a couple times now, and I am in despair over it because Fire and Hemlock is simply too vast and… well, as Eleanor Cameron said (of a different book) in “The Green and ...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Melora rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-aloud

This one had a promising start, but it rambled around too long and came to a muddled sort of end. Some of Jones's books (Howl's Moving Castle, for instance) I've loved, some (some of the less stellar Chrestomanci books) I've liked, and a couple have just been disappointing for me. This one falls into that last category. The characters are really excellent -- fully portrayed and distinctive -- and the concept is intriguing. But a couple aspects spoiled it for me. One was the ick factor of (view s ...more

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Jun 20, 2008 Mir rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, fantasy, memory, books

I was disappointed in this when I was 10, but all my friends seem to have loved it so I gave it another try. It makes more sense now, although it is still rather confusing, especially the end. I enjoyed it this time around but it is still not among my favorite or even second-tier favorites of DWJ's books. There were just too many elements that didn't work for me. I didn't like Polly that much as a character, even though I thought her depiction was excellent. I liked the parts about reading and w ...more

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May 26, 2008 Jennifer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I've been on a DWJ re-reading kick lately, after not having touched most of her books for 10, 15+ years. The Chrestomanci books are still fun and essentially as I remembered them. Fire and Hemlock, however, definitely does not read the same way it did when I was 15.

This is one weird, complex, richly allusive, and altogether singular book. It's billed as a take on Tam Lin, but it is by no means a retelling, despite a central character named Thomas Lynn. Instead, Diana Wynne Jones draws from a hug I've been on a DWJ re-reading kick lately, after not having touched most of her books for 10, 15+ years. The Chrestomanci books are still fun and essentially as I remembered them. Fire and Hemlock, however, definitely does not read the same way it did when I was 15.

This is one weird, complex, richly allusive, and altogether singular book. It's billed as a take on Tam Lin, but it is by no means a retelling, despite a central character named Thomas Lynn. Instead, Diana Wynne Jones draws from a huge body of mythology, ballads, and fairy tales to build a story told mostly in flashback whose events don't make much sense until the final quarter of the book. Polly, 19, has two conflicting sets of childhood memories: in one foggy, dim set, she had a lively and unusual friendship with an adult cellist named Tom, who takes her on grand adventures (both real and fictional), sends her books and stories, and enjoys her company - at a time when her own parents, mid-divorce, are distant and bitter. In the other, Tom never existed outside of her imagination.

I like the way DWJ plops you in the middle of a story and reveals things to both reader and characters as she goes, but it does make the first 1/2 (at least) of Fire and Hemlock relatively sedate. It's mostly about Polly's childhood, narrated with DWJ's usual keen eye: outgrowing a childhood friend, surviving her parents' break-up and realizing that they are deeply flawed, reading books and making up stories with Tom. But there's a growing sense of urgency and apprehension as small incidents - a most peculiar funeral in an even stranger house, a few close calls that weirdly parallel Polly and Tom's made up stories - start to add up into a much bigger and more dangerous whole. Things aren't fully spelled out, but enough clues are given for readers to put things together on their own. There's a lot to reward careful reading and analysis, too. I don't think I fully picked up on parallels to one of my favorite fairy tales, 'East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon' the first time around, but Polly's initial reaction to reading the story herself is pretty entertaining in retrospect.

It would be easy to be squicked out by the friendship/maybe romance between Polly and Tom (10+ years her elder), except that DWJ manages to create something that comes across as genuinely affectionate and unique in the way that real friendships are. While rereading, I was surprised at how compromised and morally ambiguous many of the characters (and not just the villains) in this book are, acting out of fear, selfishness, self-delusion -- and the repercussions that result. Fire and Hemlock is considered young adult, but some of the ideas it plays with are far more adult than the newest wave of sex-and-violence filled YA fiction.

I still don't think Fire and Hemlock is perfect. The ending is rushed and unnecessarily vague, and I don't think it works as a romance. Regardless, I'm glad I reread this. I found it a lot more interesting and thought-provoking than I did the first time around. ...more

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Dec 17, 2020 rosamund rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, ya

This book is very strange! It's unlike any other Wynne Jones I have read because it's set firmly in the south of England in 1985, and though there are fantasy elements, they are minimal. Yet it leaves the reader with a feeling of weirdness and creepiness entirely disproportionate to the events described. Polly is a lonely girl whose parents are divorcing. Her grandmother is the only figure of stability in her life, as her mother and father ignore her or use her as leverage between them. When Pol This book is very strange! It's unlike any other Wynne Jones I have read because it's set firmly in the south of England in 1985, and though there are fantasy elements, they are minimal. Yet it leaves the reader with a feeling of weirdness and creepiness entirely disproportionate to the events described. Polly is a lonely girl whose parents are divorcing. Her grandmother is the only figure of stability in her life, as her mother and father ignore her or use her as leverage between them. When Polly is visiting her grandmother, she accidentally gatecrashes a funeral, and is befriended by Mr Thomas Lynn, a concert cellist and a man many years older than she is. Polly, age 10, suggests they play, "Let's pretend!" and spins a story in which Tom is a hero, and she is his sidekick. He appears to be utterly charmed by her, and gives her a strange photograph called "Fire and Hemlock".

Over the next five years, the friendship between Tom and Polly deepens. I first read this when I was 12, and saw nothing strange in the friendship between Tom and Polly, but rereading this as an adult, it reads very much as though Tom is grooming her. He sends Polly letters and books, brings her out to lunch, takes her for rides in his car, and compliments her on her appearance. There is never any hint that he does anything inappropriate, but the narrative makes clear that their friendship is unusual, and the reader gradually comes to the realisation that Tom is using Polly for his own ends. He is not simply a kindly avuncular figure: he needs Polly to help him with a supernatural problem. Meanwhile, hints of the uncanny creep into Polly's life in the form of mysterious photographs, the gaze of a strange woman, and a gradual feeling that her memories aren't quite her own. At the same time, Polly's parents leave her more and more alone, and her father abandons her while her mother becomes completely hostile and kicks her out of the house. Polly's Granny steps in, but Polly is understandably betrayed and vulnerable. (As an adult I was thinking, "This kid is going to need some therapy!") It's not surprising that she longs for Thomas Lynn's occasional affection, and she is exactly the kind of child who would be particularly vulnerable to grooming. Part of what makes this book so uncanny is how utterly believable everything is: the mixture of Polly's dislocation and sense of betrayal with her growing obsession with Thomas Lynn, who gives her occasional affection and encouragement. The supernatural elements creep into this mixture, and seem as real as Polly's strong emotions.

Wynne Jones's writing is fantastic here: clear, sensitive and imaginative, she captures the mysterious threats around Thomas Lynn's life, and the dangerous position in which he has put Polly. Though I enjoyed this immensely, I have a few caveats: while I like that the friendship between Polly and Tom is depicted as very odd, it makes the ending ambivalent: are we supposed to like Tom? Do we dislike him for the ways he has manipulated Polly? It's hard to know what Wynne Jones' intention is, and while leaving things up the reader's interpretation can be good, it doesn't entirely hold together here. The last few scenes also feel rushed, and while they're very gripping, some elements are confusing, which is a shame when the rest of the book is so well realised. This left me feeling very odd, but I'm glad I reread it and would recommend it. ...more

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Aug 08, 2009 Nicky rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: children-s-and-ya, fantasy, based-on-myth-saga-etc

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 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. ...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Res rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: sff

The contemporary Tam Lin retelling where ten-year-old Polly accidentally gatecrashes a funeral and gets involved in Tom's attempts to free himself from a faerie queen figure.

I liked both Tom and Polly, and I enjoyed the book, but I had a lot of problems with it.

My chief problem was: I have a ten-year-old, and my suspension of disbelief, which handled all the magic stuff without difficulty, totally choked on the idea that anyone (even people as irresponsible and immature as Polly's parents) would ...more

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Dec 14, 2009 Margaret rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: children-s-and-ya-fiction, fantasy-and-science-fiction, tam-lin, 2011-read, authors-ij, 2013-read, mythology-and-fairy-tales, favorites

As nineteen-year-old Polly is packing to go away to college, she looks at a picture on her wall called "Fire and Hemlock", a mysterious image of flame and smoke; suddenly, new memories begin to enter her mind -- memories that reveal a childhood full of fantasies, yet full of dangers, a childhood in which she met a man named Thomas Lynn. In order to figure out what's happened to her, Polly must delve deeper and deeper into her new memories and discover where they came from and what they mean.

Fire ...more

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Dec 15, 2007 Jackie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: author-diana-wynne-jones

Explores in a very meta way the mythical trope of hero figures through the interactions of a young girl Polly and a man called Thomas Lynn whom she befriends at a funeral being held at the mysterious neighbouring manor house one Halloween. References to Tam Lin, Thomas the Rhymer and T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets abound and a familiarity with these should enlighten an understanding of the plot, particularly the ending which is famed for its confusing and oblique denouement, but is not essential to ...more

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May 12, 2019 aleks rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-favorites, interesting-concept, pain-and-pain-and-some-more-pain, fantasy, best-love-stories, clever, i-own-a-copy, favorite-main-characters, mystery, retellings

Hello, favorite book. Hello, book I'd take to a desert island. Hello, book I want to be buried with.

(Doesn't it say a lot about the quality of Jones' books' covers when of all the editions, I've had to choose this one in a poor attempt at saving my reading challenge's aesthetic? Yes, I know I'm shallow, but what's up with that other cover for this where Polly looks like she's 40 and Tom looks like he's 60?)

Anyway, God. I don't even know what to say. This was so lovely and nothing like what I e ...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Sam Grace rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: hero-lovers, fans of mythologies

Shelves: middlegrade-ya, she-has-eggs, geeky-mythic-stuff, genre, fantastical

I started reading this last night when I needed something to help me fall asleep. At 4:30 a.m., I finished it. Today, my brain is dead because I stayed up all last night reading this amazing, awesome book and so now I have no substantive review because I am braindead. But it was worth it! So worth it! Really, an excellent book. Also, this may be my very favorite explicit engagement with a myth in ya. Basically, what I'm saying is, if you follow me because you think you share some taste in genre ...more

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Jun 27, 2007 Wealhtheow rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

The best fantasy I've read in some time. I was absolutely captivated. The characters she's created, the world, the plot--it all weaves together in a truly wonderful piece of fiction. The novel tells the story of Polly, who slowly pieces together the clues of her missing memory. Her friendship with the strange Mr. Lynn feels absolutely true, from their "let's pretend" games to his comments on her writing. PERFECTION. ...more

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Mar 16, 2021 nastyako rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

me reading that ending...

p.s. so now I've read her essay "The Heroic Ideal - A Personal Odyssey" and I'm no closer to understanding what the hell happend.

Consequently, the most important threesome is Laurel, Polly, Ivy. Ivy is the mundane parasitical version of Laurel, evergreen and clinging—Laurel as the Lorelei in Suburbia, if you like. And Polly—make no mistake—is intended to be an aspect of Laurel too—Laurel as Venus and the Fairy Queen. But she is the aspect that appears not in “Tam Lin” ...more

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Nov 16, 2020 Ygraine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

two separate thoughts:

one) my supervisor in my nightmarish final year of uni quoted a line from this to me in one of our many, many tearful meetings, "a sort of steely goodness came upon polly." i'd only vaguely remembered that conversation & had never looked for the quote until i found it here entirely by accident, but it felt v precious to read it and immediately recognise those words, hear them in her voice, & be v grateful that she'd given them to me.

two) this is an incredibly difficult book ...more

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Mar 02, 2014 Jenna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, fairytalesque, speculative-fiction

"Tam Lin" is an ancient Scottish legend, told in the form of song and preserved by 19th-century anthologist Francis James Child as one of his "Child Ballads." It is one of the best-known and best-loved of all the Ballads. Over the years, numerous respected folksingers have recorded their own versions of it, including Anne Briggs, Sandy Denny, and, most recently, Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer (the last is my favorite). "Tam Lin" also holds a special place in the hearts of fantasy fiction fan "Tam Lin" is an ancient Scottish legend, told in the form of song and preserved by 19th-century anthologist Francis James Child as one of his "Child Ballads." It is one of the best-known and best-loved of all the Ballads. Over the years, numerous respected folksingers have recorded their own versions of it, including Anne Briggs, Sandy Denny, and, most recently, Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer (the last is my favorite). "Tam Lin" also holds a special place in the hearts of fantasy fiction fans: Diana Wynne Jones, Patricia McKillip, and Alan Garner are just a few of the esteemed genre writers who have penned novels based on the legend.

When asked why they are so fascinated by the legend of "Tam Lin," most people claim it is the fact that the legend, in a rather proto-feminist way, revolves around the deeds of a female hero: a young woman named Janet who goes to battle against the Queen of Fairyland to save the soul of a man named Tam Lin whom the Queen has kidnapped and enthralled. But I think there is more to people's collective fascination with "Tam Lin" than they are owning up to. You see, the legend has a darker side to it; it contains elements that one might argue are rather difficult to reconcile with feminist ideology. In most versions of the song, Janet first meets Tam Lin when, for no good reason, she decides to go flower-picking in a forest that she has been warned to stay away from, under threat of robbery or rape. Janet defies this warning and goes to the forest anyway: not only does she go there, but, upon hearing the warning, she runs there "as fast as she can go" (!). When Tam Lin finds her there, he takes her virginity. The consensual nature of the act is dubious; one cannot help hearing resonances with the Greek myth in which Hades ravishes Persephone. What is clear about Tam Lin's and Janet's sexual encounter is that it takes place with a bizarre suddenness, before Janet even has a chance to ascertain whether Tam Lin is a human being or some kind of forest sprite. Tam Lin vanishes immediately afterward, only to reappear months later when Janet's pregnancy is beginning to show and she has returned to the forest to harvest abortifacient herbs. Only then does he tell her his sob story about being kidnapped by the Queen of Fairyland and enlist her help in securing his freedom.

Most novelists who retell the "Tam Lin" legend conveniently leave these early scenes out (although they may hint at them in subtle, non-overt ways; in Fire and Hemlock, a novel that departs from the original legend in manifold ways, beginning by recasting Janet as a solitary 10-year-old girl, there is an overarching sense of menace, with pedophilic/hebophilic appetites being ascribed to various minor characters -- and loss of innocence, broadly speaking, is a major theme).

Now, I understand that these novelists are well within their rights to omit whatever story elements they choose: different parts of the legend speak more loudly to different people. When I first discovered the legend of "Tam Lin" as a much younger woman than I am now, I was in the process of ending an asymmetric romantic entanglement that I had found myself in, and what appealed to me most about the legend was the fact that it heroized a woman for being (literally) a clingy girlfriend. It made me feel vindicated. Diana Wynne Jones, being more lofty-minded than myself, prefers to focus on other aspects of the legend, such as its representation of the "heroic ideal." Well, fortunately, there is room in the legend for us all.

Wynne Jones is formidably well-read: the source material on which Fire and Hemlock is based not only includes the Child Ballads "Tam Lin" and "Thomas the Rhymer," but also includes Homer's Odyssey, T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Frazer's The Golden Bough, and dozens of other literary texts, encompassing the lofty, fat, and obscure. These literary forefathers figure into Fire and Hemlock in profound but pleasingly unobtrusive ways, leaving you with what seems on the surface to be nothing more than an unputdownable yarn. I read the whole book in a single sitting. The only part I really had a quibble with was the murky ending: after so much build-up, a novelist owes it to her readers to at least let them know what happened!! ...more

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Nov 04, 2018 Lara Mi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-age-gap, 1-romance, 5-contemporary, 5-super-natural, 5-old-houses-and-castles-to-explore, novel-owned, 1-mystery, 6-music-and-actors, 3-united-kingdom, 7-tam-lin

“I don’t think I will get married,” Polly said as she stood up. “I’m going to train to be a hero instead.”

Fire and Hemlock is filled with mystery and suspense, I couldn't help but get absolutely absorbed into it. The plot is so intricate and multilayered that it is sometimes hard to keep up with which things relate to one another. But it is wholly worth catching all the details.

One side of the story focuses on Polly's fantasies and stories which she invents with her friend Mr Thomas Lynn, and whether or not there's anything supernatural going on with it. I think it is always nice to read about characters who enjoy reading and stories as much as oneself does - that made Polly a great character to read about. As we also get to follow her through the ages of 10 through to 19, we see a lot of change and strengthening in her character.

The suspense was wonderfully done and, unlike many of Jones' other works, comes to a proper conclusion. Nonetheless, while nothing much is left unrevealed, it is not an easily grasped ending. Fire and Hemlock is heavily based on and inspired by other works - Tam Lin among others - and not knowing the other works does make it harder to relate to. I myself was only partially familiar with the other works and, quite honestly, had to read some articles in regards to those to actually perceive what happened in the end.

For better or for worse, romance plays an important role in this novel, even though it only shows towards the end. However, personally, I don't mind age gaps provided the younger of the pair is old enough. Polly's story starts with her as a 10-year-old and although her affections grow gradually over the years, I must say that, despite thinking of them as a cute couple, the age difference is really borderline in what I find acceptable.

Another important aspect is Polly's family background. I can't quite decide whether that part of the story muddles with the mystery part of it all, or whether it's its own separate storyline. Either way, Polly's family circumstances are alarmingly difficult - her mother is one of the worst kind you can come across in fiction (and I am certain in reality as well). Goodness, I wanted to give that woman a thing or two! Unfortunately, Polly's father doesn't prove to be much better, which leaves Polly meeting multiple adults which are really no good for her. Whether they are her parents, her parents' lovers who either dislike her or like her too much, or simply other people from around the neighbourhood. Polly has an awesome grandmother, though, and Mr Lynn is an equally crucial figure for her.

Fire and Hemlock is one of those Jones' books that will make wonderful rereads for finding even more details that one might have missed the first time around. I think this is one of Jones' best stand-alone novels and it definitely deserves to be picked up!
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Aug 03, 2010 Heather rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Heather by: Megan

Shelves: library-books, kids-ya, fantasy

19-year-old Polly is supposed to be packing, getting ready for another year of college, but she's been reading instead. As she reads, she pauses and realizes a funny thing: though the cover on the book, which is similar to a picture that hangs above her bed, is familiar, she's sure the book used to be called something different, and she's sure that it used to contain different stories. She flips through it and can't find half the stories she remembers having read in it, which makes her panic a b 19-year-old Polly is supposed to be packing, getting ready for another year of college, but she's been reading instead. As she reads, she pauses and realizes a funny thing: though the cover on the book, which is similar to a picture that hangs above her bed, is familiar, she's sure the book used to be called something different, and she's sure that it used to contain different stories. She flips through it and can't find half the stories she remembers having read in it, which makes her panic a bit: she wonders if she's dreamed those other stories, or if, somehow, she has two sets of memories, like one of the characters in the book does. But this makes no sense: "Why," she wonders, "should she suddenly have memories that did not seem to correspond with the facts?" (p 4). So she leaves the suitcase empty and tries to remember, thinking back to the pictures that hangs above her bed and how she came to have it. It started when Polly was ten, with a strange and dream-like adventure: Halloween, and too little sleep, and running through back gardens with a friend. Then, somehow, a funeral, and a game of make-believe with a friendly stranger, a man named Thomas Lynn.

Without saying much more about the plot, there is so very much to like in this book, which has roots in the stories of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer. There's a great story-in-a-letter, early in the book, and indeed a whole often-epistolary friendship, and lots about storytelling, imagination, and heroism and choice. I like how, when Mr. Lynn gives Polly a book of fairy tales, she's unimpressed, though he promises that each story "has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look" (p 177). And there is lots of really pleasing writing, whether ordinarily/satisfyingly descriptive or thought-provoking/interesting thematically.

I feel like I cannot properly express how good this book is: the plot is exciting and the end is wonderfully satisfying (like: can't stop reading for the last 60ish pages) and the whole thing is just so well put together and well-described; all of it feels like a story very well told and well integrated: the ordinary school and home bits, Polly and her awful parents and her excellent grandmother and her various friends, and then also strange magical bits and sinister bits and adventure-y bits. And without saying too much about the end, how much do I love books that remind you that there isn't just either/or, that there are other ways and other places, if you're only looking for them? I love them lots, yes.
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Jun 02, 2015 A.D. Jansen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I’m impressed that Diana Wynne Jones was able to market this as a young adult novel. Evidently she was enoying a great deal of artistic freedom at this stage of her career. The plot of Fire and Hemlock is considerably more layered and complex than that of your average literary novel, and Jones rarely spells anything out for you. The result is a book that risks incomprehensibility at times and pretty much requires multiple readings to fully grasp. I confess I was often bewildered throughout the f I’m impressed that Diana Wynne Jones was able to market this as a young adult novel. Evidently she was enoying a great deal of artistic freedom at this stage of her career. The plot of Fire and Hemlock is considerably more layered and complex than that of your average literary novel, and Jones rarely spells anything out for you. The result is a book that risks incomprehensibility at times and pretty much requires multiple readings to fully grasp. I confess I was often bewildered throughout the final chapters.

But, you know, I didn’t really mind all that much. Jones is so confident a storyteller that you are always sure she knows what’s going on. And sure enough, if you persevere to the end, and you are lucky enough to be reading the version with the essay by Jones printed at the back, you learn that she really did construct the story in an extremely deliberate way, and there’s a reason it feels like everything is falling into place as you near the climax, even if you have no idea what those things are or what places they are falling into. (Into Nowhere, most likely.) Often the book seems to be operating on the same kind of emotional logic as a piece of music, but there is a rigorous fairy tale logic underpinning the story as well, and just some plain-old-logic. That’s the only reason I’d hesitate to classify Fire and Hemlock as magical realism, although it has more in common with that genre than it does with Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, etc.

Diana Wynne Jones and I really clicked with this book. Reading her essay at the end convinced me that we are on the same wavelength when it comes to fantasy literature. She understands how the imagination intersects with reality and how heroic narratives continue to be relevent to our daily lives. She knows myths are powerful and important. But, crucially, she is smart and skeptical and not a romantic. She can tell when myths are limiting, or plain false, and she knows what heroism in the real world entails. I plan to revisit Fire and Hemlock once every decade or so just for the pleasure of spending some time in her head. And because I still can’t figure out what was up with that horse at the end. ...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Althea Ann rated it liked it · review of another edition

At the age of seven, Polly accidentally wanders into a funeral and meets Thomas Lynn, a professional cellist who become intertwined in her life and emotions, both as the father figure that Polly, the child of a broken home, needs - and later - it seems - as the recipient of a teenage crush.

But, as a college student, Polly suddenly comes to the realization that she hasn't thought of Thomas in ages, although he was terribly important to her. And no one she talks to seems to remember him at all. Ot ...more

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Sep 10, 2010 Archee rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

This book means so much to me. Firstly, it reminds me of a time when I used to read in the dark - I won this as a speech night prize and proceeded to demolish it in the next one and a half hours until we were safely home. It reminds me of the culmination of my obsession with the British children's fantasy greats - both Diana Wynne Jones and Susan Cooper studied under CS Lewis in England, and have this distinct way of story-telling that's half myth, half-reality, unbelievably ominous yet addictiv ...more

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Aug 18, 2008 C. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to C. by: Mrs Burt!

Shelves: children-s-young-adults, own-or-access, ab-fav, 2011, 2015

Diana Wynne Jones is my absolute favourite children's author, and this is my absolute favourite of her books. However, the first time I read this, probably at around age nine or ten, I was monumentally confused by everything about the plot, though everything else about the book was good enough to make up for it. At the time I thought I'd re-read it again when I was older and I'd understand it better because I would be smarter, but I kept re-reading it periodically and I still didn't get it. Afte ...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Karyn Silverman rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reread, 80s-reads, 2020-reads

I know these five dates aren't all the times I've read this. But I definitely read it every year for the first few years after I discovered it, and I definitely read it in college (when I discovered the bookstore would order any book in print for me, so I ordered pretty much all the DWJ books I could find in their paper volumes of Books in Print. No wonder I was chronically broke) and again post grad school, at minimum. I love this book. It's engraved in my head and heart. It launched a love aff ...more

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About Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones

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Diana was born in London, the daughter of Marjorie (née Jackson) and Richard Aneurin Jones, both of whom were teachers. When war was announced, shortly after her fifth birthday, she was evacuated to Wales, and thereafter moved several times, including periods in Coniston Water, in York, and back in London. In 1943 her family finally settled in Thaxted, Essex, where her parents worked running an ed Diana was born in London, the daughter of Marjorie (née Jackson) and Richard Aneurin Jones, both of whom were teachers. When war was announced, shortly after her fifth birthday, she was evacuated to Wales, and thereafter moved several times, including periods in Coniston Water, in York, and back in London. In 1943 her family finally settled in Thaxted, Essex, where her parents worked running an educational conference centre. There, Jones and her two younger sisters Isobel (later Professor Isobel Armstrong, the literary critic) and Ursula (later an actress and a children's writer) spent a childhood left chiefly to their own devices. After attending the Friends School Saffron Walden, she studied English at St Anne's College in Oxford, where she attended lectures by both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien before graduating in 1956. In the same year she married John Burrow, a scholar of medieval literature, with whom she had three sons, Richard, Michael and Colin. After a brief period in London, in 1957 the couple returned to Oxford, where they stayed until moving to Bristol in 1976.

According to her autobiography, Jones decided she was an atheist when she was a child.

Jones started writing during the mid-1960s "mostly to keep my sanity", when the youngest of her three children was about two years old and the family lived in a house owned by an Oxford college. Beside the children, she felt harried by the crises of adults in the household: a sick husband, a mother-in-law, a sister, and a friend with daughter. Her first book was a novel for adults published by Macmillan in 1970, entitled Changeover. It originated as the British Empire was divesting colonies; she recalled in 2004 that it had "seemed like every month, we would hear that yet another small island or tiny country had been granted independence."Changeover is set in a fictional African colony during transition, and begins as a memo about the problem of how to "mark changeover" ceremonially is misunderstood to be about the threat of a terrorist named Mark Changeover. It is a farce with a large cast of characters, featuring government, police, and army bureaucracies; sex, politics, and news. In 1965, when Rhodesia declared independence unilaterally (one of the last colonies and not tiny), "I felt as if the book were coming true as I wrote it."

Jones' books range from amusing slapstick situations to sharp social observation (Changeover is both), to witty parody of literary forms. Foremost amongst the latter are The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, and its fictional companion-pieces Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) and Year of the Griffin (2000), which provide a merciless (though not unaffectionate) critique of formulaic sword-and-sorcery epics.

The Harry Potter books are frequently compared to the works of Diana Wynne Jones. Many of her earlier children's books were out of print in recent years, but have now been re-issued for the young audience whose interest in fantasy and reading was spurred by Harry Potter.

Jones' works are also compared to those of Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman. She was friends with both McKinley and Gaiman, and Jones and Gaiman are fans of each other's work; she dedicated her 1993 novel Hexwood to him after something he said in conversation inspired a key part of the plot. Gaiman had already dedicated his 1991 four-part comic book mini-series The Books of Magic to "four witches", of whom Jones was one.

For Charmed Life, the first Chrestomanci novel, Jones won the 1978 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime award by The Guardian newspaper that is judged by a panel of children's writers. Three times she was a commended runner-up[a] for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book: for Dogsbody (1975), Charmed Life (1977), and the fourth Chrestomanci book The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988). She won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, children's section, in 1996 for The Crown of Dalemark. ...more