I am working on the review of Tam Lin for my September column, which is all about ways to either impress or piss off your English teacher (depending on the way you want to share your knowledge). I think that this time I enjoyed the novel the most - really sinking into the Shakespeare and Keats and everyone else and absorbing all of its liberal college goodness. Aside from the fairy tale aspects (as wonderful as they are) I do think this was the college experience that I was most suited for and do miss on occasion.

But the easy way to solve it is just to write about characters who love literature and review books like this one. Actually it's even better this way as there is no grading!

The rest of the column is proving to be rather girl-centric (books on Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath discussed thus far with the Lady of Shalot on the TBR pile) so I'm including Christopher Grey's mystery Leonardo's Shadow even though Leonardo Da Vinci isn't really technically literary, I don't know when anyone is supposed to learn about him in school. (Are only the art students supposed to know about Da Vinci?) Grey's book is part mystery, part thriller and all historical drama. The addition of alchemy gives it a bit of a supernatural flair (which teen readers should enjoy) and there is also a fair amount of discussion on painting and creativity, as well as revelations about Da Vinci's flying machine. As he was so prolific in keeping his journals and writing letters it seems that English class would be the perfect place to discuss the painter but he never seems to make it there. And really there is only so much time to talk Shakespeare to death and make all teens everywhere hate him forever.

Can't take away from our over-analyzing of all things Will-related now can we?

If it's not Shakespeare then it's the "big three" Americans: Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner. I grew to positively abhor Scott Fitzgerald because of my tenth grade American Lit class. We did Gatsby (of course we did Gatbsy) and also had to read and analyze one of his short stories (from a list of three choices - why only three? I have no idea). The worst though was the green light on the dock - we discussed the green light to death and had to memorize the symbolism of it and everything else in Gatsby. We could - must not - come up with ideas of our own as to what the book might have meant. There were rules about how one read Gatsby, very important rules.

So much about that class turned me off of all things Fitzgerald for life.

I'd love to have learned about the Murphys or about the true relationship between Scott and Zelda (or even Scott and Hemingway) instead of beating that green light to death. (I mean really - are we all sure that Scott meant for it to symbolize freedom? And does that matter so much - can't you just read the damn story and enjoy it without worrying about the light?!)

My English classes (every one of them - junior high, high school and college) were all very disappointing. It's odd because reading and writing is what I love to do, but those teachers really made reading very unpleasant. I would have loved Tam Lin back in high school - it would have kept me going for months as I struggled with all those literary rules. Of course I took my college classes at what was fundamentally an engineering college and our English department was sadly lacking - all the teachers were adjuncts as there was no way to major in the program and one never knew what to expect when walking into class. Mostly I remember having to write short two-three page papers on various subjects. I think we used the Norton Anthology as a textbook. There were no novels (or even full length plays) assigned. To say those two classes were dismal is a vast understatement.

Literature classes should never be boring; there's really no excuse. And it is bizarre that I should be reading books for a YA column in order to learn what I should have known twenty+ years ago. Yet here I am, and here is another explanation for how that Bookslut column ends up the way it does.

(Do be sure to check out the Firebird publication schedule - Sharyn November really has some great stuff in store for us, including more from Pamela Dean.)

Post title from Tam Lin, of course!