TAM LIN

If I were judging purely by the number of times I’ve read it, this obscure fantasy novel by Pamela Dean would be my favorite book in the world—and by any measure, it’s right up near the top of my list. When I was sick last month, too tired to pay attention to anything with my whole brain, desperate for distraction and comfort, I pulled it off the shelf for a long-overdue reread. A retelling of the Scottish ballad set at a small liberal-arts college in Minnesota in the 1970s (and containing some of the best descriptions of my home state’s weather and landscapes I’ve ever read, as well as being a thinly veiled portrait of Carleton College in Northfield, where consequently I desperately wanted to go when I was 17 until I was accepted and realized just how much it would cost), it’s a paradise for English majors—particularly Shakespeare fans—and anyone who likes their book characters to be dazzlingly, almost unrealistically, smart. It’s also responsible for setting my teenage self up for major disillusionment when I arrived at college and discovered that it was not, in fact, inhabited exclusively by beautiful young men and fascinating, intensely scholarly women who could read Greek and quote entire passages of classic literature in everyday conversation (granted, I went to a women’s college, so there were no beautiful young men at all, but I spent plenty of time at the nearby coed campuses and didn’t catch any rampant erudite quotation going on there, either). This is one of the few books I loved as a teen that holds up equally well for me as an adult—sure, my adoration of it is based on teenage infatuation with the characters and their brilliance, but there are so many literary references that you can catch a new one every time, and it still doesn’t feel pretentious to me, even though it so easily could.

I’m almost afraid to recommend this book, though, because it definitely isn’t for everyone. Dean’s writing is so beautiful and full of unique personality that I would happily read her narration of an IRS audit, but I’ll admit her style is eccentric and dense, and, it might feel slow at times if you’re not totally committed to it. Much of the book focuses on the routine of everyday life, with the fantasy/mystery plot unfolding incrementally in the background. That’s what I love about it—it’s grounded in a real world I would happily dwell in, so cozy and comfortable and detailed, and the magical elements are so sparing that they feel totally believable—but if reading a dozen-page description of a production of Hamlet sounds less than thrilling to you, you may want to pass this one by. And if you check it out and don’t like it, I don’t want to hear about it. (About the only negative review I’ve enjoyed was the one from my mother after I pressed it upon her when I was 16: “I didn’t like it, but I can see why you do.”)