Fire and Hemlock
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| Fire and Hemlock | |
 Cover from the American edition. |
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| Author | Diana Wynne Jones |
|---|---|
| Country | Great Britain |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Harper Collins |
| Publication date | 1985 |
| Media type | |
Fire and Hemlock is a modern retelling by British author Diana Wynne Jones of the Scottish legend of Tam Lin and the Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer.
It was first published in 1985 in Great Britain by Methuen Children's Books, reprinted in 1987 and again in 1990. It was published in America by Harper Collins.
Fire and Hemlock was a Phoenix Award Honor Book in 2005.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
Looking at a picture in her room at her grandmother's house before leaving for university, Polly is hit by a cascade of forgotten memories that go on from when she was ten and onwards.
[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
"Fire and Hemlock" is the name of a large color photograph that hangs over Polly's bed that is instrumental in triggering her lost memories.
[edit] Plot summary
As Polly thinks back to her "second set" of memories, she recalls stumbling into a funeral in an old mansion, Hunsdon House, and being approached by a man named Thomas Lynn who takes her back outside and keeps her company.
Over the subsequent years Tom and Polly create a fantastic relationship that endures many hardships. Tom sends her books and letters with stories in them, and he supports her through her parents divorce and her mother's subsequent dysfunctional behavior. Together, the two come up with stories about a hero named Tan Coul and his assistant Hero, who are Mr. Lynn's and Polly's alter egos, respectively. These stories all eventually come true, after a fashion. For instance, after discussing Tan Coul's horse, they encounter a horse disrupting traffic in the street of London. All the while Polly encounters members of Tom's ex-wife's family who seem to be threatening her and trying to break off her relationship with Tom. Polly explains this to herself as though Tom's ex-wife - Laurel - still "owns" him in some way. As Polly turns sixteen she develops a crush on Tom and when she feels rejected by him she sets out to discover the dark secret of his relationship with the sinister Laurel that is somehow connected to all the supernatural events that happen to Tom and her. After she performs her voodoo-like ceremony she is summoned to Hunsdon House where Laurel tells her Tom is dying of cancer and wants to be left alone by her. Mortified, Polly agrees to forget him.
Three years later, sitting in front of the picture she now realizes was a gift from Tom, Polly starts investigating and finds out that all memory of Tom has been erased from her life and eradicated from the memories of anyone who should have known about him. She tries to solve the mystery of this man she knew and still loves. In this she is aided by reading the two ballads - Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer - which help her figure out that Tom has entered into a deal with the so-called queen of the fairies - Laurel - and that the time has come when he must give his life to prolong hers. Using the information in the ballads as an instruction, she arrives at the ceremony over which Laurel is presiding, and manages to outwit her and secure Tom's life, and, depending on the way you interpret the strange happenings of the ending, his love.
[edit] Characters in Fire and Hemlock
- Polly Whittacker is the main protagonist.
- Thomas Lynn who shares a special relationship with Polly, and whom Polly must rescue from Laurel.
- Granny is Polly's paternal grandmother whom Polly goes to live with at the age of ten.
- Laurel is the antagonist, or the "Queen of the Faeries" in this retelling.
- Ivy is Polly's mother.
- Nina is Polly's childhood friend. In Polly's "revised" set of memories, her friendship with Nina was erased.
- Fiona Perks who becomes Polly's good friend and later her flatmate, and is instrumental in verifying the existence of Tom later on.
[edit] Major Themes
Feminism - The original story of Tam Lin is one of a resourceful and brave young girl named Janet who rescues her lover from the faeries. When Jones was writing this novel, she knew that she needed "a narrative structure which did not simply put a female in a male's place"[2]. However, through most of the book Polly is a tomboy, casting herself in the role of "Hero", Tom Lynn's boy assistant.
[edit] Allusions to other works
This story explicitly mirrors the folktale of Tam Lin, which existed since at least the mid-sixteenth century. Diana Wynne Jones wrote that her goal was "to write a book in which modern life and heroic mythical events approached one another so closely that they were nearly impossible to separate."[3] The funeral building represents Carterhaugh. Tom Lynn is Tam Lin, who is being used as a tithe to Hell. His ex-wife Laurel represents the Queen of the Faeries. Polly directly identifies herself with Janet, after reading the Oxford Book of Ballads, and thinks she "can only hope she might manage to do what Janet had done"[4].
[edit] References to other works
As Polly grows up, Tom Lynn sends her a number of books, many of which are intended to inform her indirectly of his pact with Laurel. He says at one point, regarding a book of fairy stories, "Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact in it, you know, which you can find if you look."[5].
These include The Golden Bough, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and The Oxford Book of Ballads (which contains both Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin).
After reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, Polly refers to herself as Porthos (her favourite character) in the clandestine letters she mails to Tom. Later in the book, Tom and his friends form a string quartet under the name of The Dumas Quartet, and assigns aliases to each member; Tom is Athos.
Polly reads The Lord of the Rings and writes a long story in which her alter ego Hero bravely destroys a dangerous ring. She mails it to Tom and is crushed when he tersely writes back "Use your own ideas."[6]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Honor Books from previous years
- ^ "Retelling Stories, Framing Culture: Traditional Story and Metanarratives in Children's Literature." Stephens, John : 224
- ^ "Retelling Stories, Framing Culture: Traditional Story and Metanarratives in Children's Literature." Stephens, John : 222
- ^ Fire and Hemlock. Jones, Diana Wynne : 307
- ^ Fire and Hemlock. Jones, Diana Wynne : 144
- ^ Fire and Hemlock. Jones, Diana Wynne : 157
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