Fire and Hemlock

From the cover, the title and what I have read of other Diana Wynne Jones novels, I expected a blantantly magical world - different, confusing and not my own. What I found was reality, and somehow I have to say that's the book's greatest strength.

To quote Amazon: A photograph called "Fire and

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Hemlock" that has been on the wall since her childhood. A story in a book of supernatural stories - had Polly read it before under a different title? Polly, packing to return to college, is distracted by picture and story, clues from the past stirring memories. But why should she suddenly have memories that do not seem to correspond to the facts?
Polly's 'flash-back' memories start at age 10, when she accidentally crashes a funeral and meets cellist Thomas Lynn. Together they make up stories in which they are heroes, Tan Coul and his assistant Hero. However, their stories have a strange way of coming true, and Tom's ex-wife and her family appear to have sinister designs on Tom - and Polly, when she refuses to give Tom's friendship up.

Set in England during the 80s, the story follows Polly's relationship with Tom Lynn (through letters, books and occasional meetings), her struggles with her divorced and negligent parents and the usual complications of adolescence, inter-weaving them with the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer.
The story is very real - Polly's family issues painfully so, and are countered by the story's vitality, warmth and wonderful characters (Polly's parents and the bad guys excluded, obviously). One of the wonderful aspect of Mr Lynn's relationship with Polly as a child is the way takes her seriously and is honest with her creative endevours. (I also love the way he sends her books.) The reflections and insights into the pains of growing up are honest and acute, and Polly's strength in surviving them admirable.

Fire and Hemlock is captivating and wonderful, vividly described and told in four parts and a coda - with each part cleverly given a music speed (allegro vivace, andante cantabile, allegro con fuoco, presto molto agitato and scherzando). Like an onion (or is it an ogre?) it has many layers. One of its strengths is that for the most part, things aren't explained - the fantasy element is also a mystery one, and in consequence of being vague, is sinister and intriguing. It's not blatantly a romantic story, either - for the most part, things are subtle and refreshingly so.

But, the subtly does cause difficulties with the ending. There is no tidy, clear explanation of what happens, and instead of the reality with hints of fantasy that is most of the book, this is fantasy (with hints of reality). The ending is rushed, vague, and disconcerting - it requires a few readings to get it all straight, along with a lot of guesswork and reading between the lines. Polly rushes in, instinctively knowing rules which are not explained and combined with a few twists and the parallels (or parallels twisted) with the ballads and Faerie Queen, confusion puts it mildly.
However, the ultimate conclusion is necessarily subtle, as it involves a paradox and finding a loophole - and would be counteracted by being more explicit. The story would also lose something by being spelt-out - working things out for yourself is part of the appeal, as is the cryptic manner they are presented in. There is also a reason why Polly knows, mentioned much, much earlier.
Luckily I knew a (very) little bit about Tam Lin, and between that and the quotes preceeding each chapter, had enough of an idea. I suspect knowing more would help.

Which is the long way of saying this mixture of reality and fantasy is wonderful and brilliant, and highly recommended.

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I started Fire and Hemlock yesterday afternoon and stayed up until five this morning to finish it. I quite liked it, but looking back at the book the only things that I can think of to say are criticisms. Let me start with the things that made it a really good book, then, and then I'll move on to

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what bothered me about it.

There's a certain way things work in Diana Wynne Jones books. There's the ordinary world, and then there's a magical world, and the two overlap in a more or less fuzzy way. The main thing that I enjoyed about this book was the fuzzy way the world overlapped. The storytelling was superb. The narrative vehicle of the forgotten memories was very well done, and added to the story immensely. And I just liked how ambiguous everything really was. You really did not know why these things were happening. By the end of the book, explanations were there if you really wanted to seek them out, but it remained fuzzy around the edges, too. To the extent that I sought out the explanations, they were very well executed, too- everything tied together with no loose strings, in a way that still didn't define the rules precisely - exactly my favorite kind of magic.

The characters, also, were very well written. All of them, even the relatively minor players, were well-rounded and seemed like real people. And I also quite liked the story. It kept me reading until 5 am. The wonder and discovery of each new episode, combined with the continual attempt (along with the narrator) to piece together what was actually going on made it very engaging.

So, what was wrong with it? Mostly the ending. Almost certainly it would have made more sense if I were more familiar with the legend/fairy tale it invokes, but even so, it felt like Jones ran out of ideas for how that confrontation would actually go down and instead just wrote a magical confrontation scene that could have been the conclusion of any of her books. It wasn't bad, per se, it just felt out of place, and the magic in it felt like it would have been more at home in the Crestomanci series than in this previously much more subtle creation. Which to my mind felt like a cop-out and didn't do justice to what had been up until then an excellent novel.

The other thing that makes me squirm about the book is of course that you can't get around that it's a little… pedobear-y. They meet when she's ten, and the later explanation of "oh, he's not nearly as old as I thought he was" falls a little short, to my mind, particularly since he starts out as an absent-father-replacement figure. That's actually addressed within the story; the persistent concern with "strange men", and the cringe-inducing adolescent crush issues. And the out-of-time vibe of the whole thing makes it almost ok. Emphasis on the almost. I suspect that there's an allegorical, and much darker, way you could read the book, though.

The book is quite good, though, for the most part. It's kept me thinking about it, and I think I'm off to read that fairy tale to see if it makes things add up more.

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'Fire and Hemlock' is a definite contender for my favourite book. It's certainly my favourite retelling of 'Tam Lin' although, on reflection, I can only think of two, and I've lost the other one. Apparently a lot of people find it hard to understand, and I can't see why: all the clues are right

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there, either in the narrative or in the chapter headings, and sometimes both. I especially love how DWJ never comes right out and tells us exactly who the villain of the piece actually is (if she is a villain; she is, after all, only being true to her nature), but reveals it in any number of other, subtle ways – particularly in her use of names. It's also one of the few teenage books I know that comes straight out and reminds us just how awful 15-year-old girls can be. I know I was, but even I didn't, like Polly's best friend, run away to Germany in pursuit of a middle-aged businessman. The one thing that might be considered slightly off about it is the disparity in age between the two main protagonists, but even that's accounted for in the narrative. Also, Polly's grandmother is simply magnificent and deserves her own book.

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I stayed up past midnight to finish this marvelous book, and am still pondering it days later. It is full of symbols from ballads and medieval tales like Tam Lin, and even The Odyssey. The plot is haunting, confusing, sometimes creepy, sometimes muddled and very twisty in that special DWJ way, with

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an opaque ending that makes you want to start the book over again to recognize all the clues that she sprinkles throughout. Her use of names is very important, as well as what it means to be a hero in every-day life, but the book is also a story about a young girl growing up and being in love (despite the age difference). Reading her essay “The Heroic Ideal: A Personal Odyssey” in her book Reflections on the Magic of Writing, helps me to better understand it. I loved the character of Granny, I loved the classical music references (the “quartet” in more ways than one), and I loved the painting references. The reader learns things while she reads, but DWJ isn’t obvious about it. Final advice: Everyone should read this book.

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Finished this last night and my brain still aches! Even for a Diana Wynne Jones story this is incredibly convoluted, particularly the last section, and the ending still baffles me (I can see perfectly well what Polly and Tom end up doing, but am somewhat befuddled as to the whys). I did love all

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the talk about stories and the characters are extremely strong and vivid, even if some of the workings of the plot remain opaque. There are easier fantasy novels of Jones to start with, but this one will stay with me for a long while.

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This is the only book by Diana Wynne Jones that I've read that I didn't like.

I was rather creeped out by Thomas and Polly's friendship, especially as this book has a sort of realist feel to it and I know that in the real world an adult man being that friendly with a little girl would not be

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normal. Not that I think Thomas meant anything sinister by it, but it set off my squick radar. That might just be my personal sensibilities, though, so on to the rest of the book:

At times, the story was interesting, but at other times it was just plain confusing - in fact, I'd still be hard pressed to tell you what actually happened at the end, because I read it a good three times and still don't get it. I vividly remember realizing that I'd just read ten pages and had absolutely no idea what had just gone on. I think it was meant to be a very dramatic, climactic confrontation, but instead of being on the edge of my seat I was just confused. I've got no issue with complicated narratives or things where all the information isn't laid out with perfect neatness, but here I just don't feel like I got enough information to understand it sufficiently.

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"Fire and Hemlock" was enitrly different from what I was expecting in so many different ways, and to my surprise I quite enjoyed it anyway. There was what seemed to be a clear age difference between the two main characters, though toward the end it was sort of explained away as how children view

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anyone a few years older than them--but it was never explicitly stated how big the age difference was. It's left me to needlessly obsess, since it wasn't that important to the story.

I loved all the characters. They were all beautifully developed and felt utterly real. My biggest complaint is the ending. I didn't quite understand exactly what happened. It was a kind of magic that isn't the usual hocus-pocus, and I feel like it wasn't explained fully.

Other than that, though, fantastic read. I devoured it in two sittings--two instead of one because at one point I was up until five AM and finally gave up for the night and had to go to bed. :)

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This is a complicated story, apparently based on Tam Lin and and Thomas the Rhymer myths. I found the sequence of events hard to follow and scenes in the final outcome still don't make sense (to me). DWJ has that type of writing that pushes you not to over-analyze. One LT reviewer expresses this

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exactly: "The plot is haunting, confusing, sometimes creepy, sometimes muddled and very twisty in that special DWJ way". However, I never really understood the story despite several readings

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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

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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. Other things in her memory seem to be evidence of other discrepancies... is she going crazy? Or is something more sinister at work?

Remembering, she uncovers a bizarre network of plots and influence that all seems to center on "That House" where she saw the funeral, and the wealthy and strange family that inhabits it.

This is an ambitious and complicated book, and by far the darkest I've read by Jones, as she brings the Tam Lin legend into 1980's Britain. It's a YA book, but deals with difficult themes such as neglectful parents and relationships with both older men and pushy peers in a tasteful but emotionally unflinching way.
Although it's written in a very subtle way (nothing at all obviously supernatural or occult happens for nearly half the book), it's a tense, compelling read - hard to put down.
However, the end, where Polly finally uncovers the truth, and discovers what she must do, is very confusing - and, from reading other reviews, I'm not the only one to find it so.
We are told that Polly has figured out her course of action from reading about Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer, but we aren't told exactly *what* she read, so her strange, logically-backward approach is rather mysterious. The reader just kinda has to say, "Okay, I guess that made sense for some reason.... not sure why!

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Retelling of Tam Lin, though I'm not familiar with the fairy tale. Polly realizes that she has two sets of memories from the previous decade. She must recall the hidden memories and discover which ones are real.

Fire and Hemlock is darker and more complex than the other books I've read by DWJ. I

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enjoyed it - I could hardly put it down - but at the same time it was confusing and often I was unsure if what I was reading was the past or the present. I would recommend it if you like complex and twisting stories of this sort, but not if you're expecting another light fantasy tale.

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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

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the strange Mr. Lynn feels absolutely true, from their "let's pretend" games to his comments on her writing. PERFECTION.

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It seemed so unlikely that I hadn't read this book, but I couldn't remember it, and reading it now it felt like the first time. There are lots of DWJ tropes, including the fact that it is the slightly problematic story of 'Man meets small child, man needs small child to save his life, man grooms

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small child to love him, small child grows up, loves him, saves him, and they sail off into the sunset as a couple'. There is more self awareness that this isn't necessarily very nice than in many books, but it still is what it is. But oh, I couldn't put it down, and stayed up far too late to finish it. The relationships between Polly and her parents are particularly finely drawn, with a light touch but heartbreakingly spot on.

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Loved it, although the romantic aspect squicked me slightly, because of the young age of the main protagonist, and I thought the denoument was a little too rushed.

This is one of my all-time favourite books - I first read it when I was about 14 and was obsessed about mythology and magic, and have since re-read it countless times and discovered something new every time. It also struck a chord being the child of divorced parents, and DWJ handles the

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subject-matter sensitively, but without being obtuse about the loneliness of Polly's childhood.

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Thie multilayered work has many rewards for the thoughtful reader, especially on re-reading. It touches on folklore, the English class system, memory, family.

I love the atmosphere in this title--my favorite of Jones in many ways--but the rather lame ending ruins it. Not enough to remove it from my collection though!

The most fascinating book I've ever read.

I had to buy this because I lost my original copy. One of my favourite books as a teen was Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, so this story always suffered by comparison. But it is still a wonderfully crafted tale of growing up, of memory, and the ways reality can be shaped.
I'd give this to fans of magical

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realism/urban fantasy.

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Polly Whittaker is getting ready to go back to college when something triggers a memory she didn’t realize she had. This starts her on a search to discover what had happened to her in the past that she no longer remembers.

Diana Wynne Jones has crafted an exciting and mysterious fantasy novel

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using the legends of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer as the basis of her story. Polly discovers her past has many layers and a best friend that she doesn’t remember. The riddle of the past must be solved before she can go onto the future. Although this is a YA book, readers of any age who love of good fantasy tales will enjoy this book. 3 ½ stars

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I read this book sometime in middle school, back when I as reading a new book every week from the library :) I remember loving it. It was compelling in a completely different way than any other novel I had ever read. Now, seven or eight years later, I wish that I owned a copy just so I could read

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it again. It's one of the few books I've remembered the name of over the years, and I still can't get the story out of my head. I highly recommend it!

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Summary: 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

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frightening adventures she embarked on with Tom Lynn after that. Part adventure, part love story.

Opinion: The story is gripping: keeps you wondering—what’s going to happen next? The biggest problem is the occasional lack of description on what is going on. The author switches moods or resolves problems w/o explaining why. The ending of the book is particularly confusing. Also, it takes a while to warm to the fact that Polly is falling in love with such an older man. I would have given 4 stars, but for the confusing ending.

Objectionable material: Occasional language. Tom Lynne is divorced (but his ex-wife turns out to be a sorceress who has him under a curse; she is also married to another).

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I never bought into the setup: for one thing, I found the age difference distracting and kinda creepy. Jones had some nice touches of the sinister. Ironically, Jones (and others) apparently considered this book one of her best. Gave this book away, as at the time I could not stomach the thought of

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reading it again. Now that I've learned Jones was so proud of it, I'd almost like to read it again to figure out why. Almost.

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Seriously, this was the worst book I've ever read. It was very uninteresting to me.

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

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made me 7 kinds of crazy is the fact that the band The Doors is referred to as Doors throughout.

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