I have just finished rereading Pamela Dean's utterly addictive novel Tam Lin (reissued as a trade and perfect for my Sept column) and I am suddenly aware of the lushness of language and plot and possibility that so many of the novels I have read recently seem to be lacking. Nicholas Christopher's The Bestiary and Emma Bull's Territory are similar to Tam Lin in that they create these worlds of smart and creative characters who think before they act - who ponder their actions and exercise thoughtfulness and depth.

And shockingly - they aren't boring either. But they seem to be the exception lately and not the rule and I'm wondering why that is so.

Ugh - I'm having trouble explaining this. In Tam Lin, Janet and her roommates age from college freshmen to seniors in the course of the novel and over time several odd things about their college, classmates and professors begin to add up to something fantastical. The key words there are "over time". Nothing happens fast in this novel - no screams or car chases and even the rather creepy or bizarre moments are handled carefully. There is a ghost but rather than run away from it, Janet wonders why she is haunting the college and what she hopes to gain; she even goes so far as to figure out more about the ghost's past. (And she talks to people about the ghost - I hate it when someone sees a ghost, gets freaked out but then keeps it to themselves because they think others will think they area weird.) While the mysteries are lining themselves up for solution (fantastical solution), Janet is taking some amazing classes, pondering deep thoughts and having a complex love life. The story is the journey and that is what makes the payoff so grand for me. By the end I truly love Janet, and not just the plot she has been part of.

Nicholas Christopher does the same thing with Xeno as he hunts the Caravan Bestiary through museums and libraries all over the world and as for what Emma Bull does with the inhabitants of Tombstone, AZ - well she made me stop wondering about the Gunfight at the OK Corral and instead try to figure out why Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp were friends. I never cared before - but her novel made me care and it made me think a lot more about the Chinese in the Old West as well. (Both of these books should be reviewed in the August Bookslut.)

All of these books have made me think deeply about YA fiction. I read and review YA novels as an adult and often have to struggle with whether a book appeals to me more or less because of my age and not because of its ability to resonate with its chosen audience. Right now I'm reading Lily Dale: Awakening and thus far it is an appropriately quirky and somewhat spooky novel about a girl discovering her family's psychic past. But it feels rushed a bit to me - to me - which does not mean that it won't be a delight for the average 14 year old. But I think that maybe some more attention to the background of Lily Dale, some more about why the town is the way it is, would have enhanced it and given the novel some more depth.

But maybe teenagers don't want or need that enhancement. Or maybe not enough writers think they do and thus skip it to get to the payoff. (Do teens have short literary attention spans or do we assume they do, in other words? And when are you supposed to get a long attention span if you don't learn to have one as a teenager?)

And of course this all comes back again to my own sadly neglected YA novel* which I felt for a long time needed to be cut and dried and yet now I think the WWI aspects (revealed via a diary) could be richly told, and the night at the church, and the ghost (who is not creepy but sad) and the mythology that seemed at first needed to be glossed over in favor of action now all seem to be demanding more time from both me and the characters.

The big question is do I add the time and care so I can relish in the addition of a words like those of Keats or do I move along, move along, to the ending?

Tam Lin is 468 pages of poetry, plays and all manner of personal drama. Is that a mix to emulate or fear - should my own longing for what I did not study enough at 17 affect my writing now?

Big thoughts for a book still hovering on the steps of the halfway point. But big thoughts I can not ignore.

* Latest possible titles: And Planets Were Their Eyes or Winter Called Him Far Away. The point is not to make the book about dragons, because it is about a lot more than that. But both are probably far too poetic, but blame Siegfried Sassoon; he wrote the most amazing words.