Book discussion: Fire and Hemlock, Parts Three and Four (and Coda)

[shimotsuki]

Here is the second of two discussion posts for Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones. This post is currently public, so that anyone interested can read and join in the discussion, but if any of my f-listers would prefer that I f-lock the post instead, let me know and I will do that.

What became blindingly obvious to me in the course of the first discussion post :) is that much of the fun of discussing this book will come from trying to figure out how the story builds up to the climax -- what all the stuff in the first half (and Part Three) means in the context of what we find out in the end. I will start things off with just one discussion topic, because this is the one that is driving me the most to distraction in trying to figure it out: ;)

Why Polly? What is it that gives Polly the potential to spring Tom from Laurel and the Fairy Court? I have to admit that I'm still working on my reread, so I haven't made it all the way through Parts Three and Four a second time and may therefore be missing clues that are obvious answers to this question. But some ideas I had about this are:

• Tom definitely latches onto Polly as if she is his only hope. We are reminded several times that even before Laurel's intervention, Polly would sometimes almost forget about her Mr. Lynn and the Hero Business, but Tom would always keep writing to her and sending her books; clearly he doesn't want her to forget about him, even before he starts sending books that are actually clues to his own situation.
  
• If Polly is Tom's only hope, why is it her? Is it because she is the only outsider to show up at Hunsdon House on the first Halloween? Or is it because she is the one who first brings up the idea of Being Things to Tom? When she and Tom both see the water in the empty pond, is that a sign that she is the one who can help him, or is it that event that makes her be able to help him? What role do the Nowhere Vases play in this, since (here I go beating a dead horse) Seb definitely accuses Polly of "working the vases" (even though she didn't really touch them herself)? -- and yet, the incident with the water in the pool happens before the vases, and may even be what causes Tom to show Polly the vases at all.
  
• Does Granny, or Granny's past, have anything to do with Polly being the one who can help Tom? Probably not; indeed, we know that Granny sends Tom packing at the point where he's about to go to Australia. But, still, how much does Granny know all along? I think right away she knows or suspects that Tom is the current young man in Laurel's clutches; she seems to relax when he tells her that he is a musician in London (so perhaps she understands that he is trying to extricate himself), and before the outing to Stow-on-the-Water, she tells Polly, "I'm not sure I like it, Polly, but if he's free to ask, I suppose he must want to see you." And yet, when Granny and Polly are working out what Polly has to do to try to save Tom, Granny says she wishes she'd known all that in time to save her own husband -- so when Polly was young and Tom was starting to befriend her, did Granny already know he would need a girl to help him break free (even if she hadn't known that in her own youth)? And if not, why was she willing to let Polly see Tom, despite her unease about him being from That House? (Pity is another possibility, I suppose.)
  
• What role do the two photos play in the magic that connects Polly with Tom? If I understood the ending correctly, the "Fire and Hemlock" photo is part of the magic that originally enslaved Tom to Laurel, so it must be significant that he gets it out of Hunsdon House and gives it to Polly. It also seems important that Polly is looking at that photo when she begins to recover the memories that Laurel, or Mr. Leroy, had taken away; is that (along with the changed version of the quartet's book?) part of why she is suddenly able to remember? Then there's the photo of Tom; some kind of magic let Polly see it in the mirror at Hunsdon House. Is that another consequence of the fact that she is the one who can save Tom? Or is some benign magic in Hunsdon House deliberately showing her that to help out? Surely it's significant that she takes the photo out of the house, even though Laurel or Mr. Leroy apparently steal it back later.

Now that I've started, it's hard to stop, heh. I have so many more questions, too, but I guess I'll raise those in a comment below, later tonight or tomorrow sometime.

So there are some questions to possibly start the discussion going, but don't feel you have to address those in order to post. Anything at all is fair game. What did you like or not like about the book? Are there any cool things you figured out about how the magic worked or about how the threads of the story came together? What questions do you still have about what happened? (I'm really hoping that as a group we can figure some stuff out.)

Finally, here are some extra links for fun and more information:

• Here's a link that gilpin25 found to an essay by DWJ about what her influences were in writing Fire and Hemlock (scroll down to links at bottom of that page). [I haven't had time to read this yet, so it's possible that I have just embarrassed myself completely and all the questions I tried to raise in this post have been neatly answered by DWJ already, heh.]
  
  
• I really wanted to post a link to the Steeleye Span version of the "Tam Lin" ballad (from "Tonight's the Night Live"), but it doesn't seem to be online anywhere. :( Here are a couple of other versions:
  • Tam Lin - Fairport Convention (classic folk-rock version)
    
  • The Tale of Tam Lin - Bill Jones (vocal and piano; reminds me of Kate Rusby, or a less-lushly-produced Loreena McKennitt)
    
  • Bonus extra link -- there's also an instrumental Irish/Scottish trad reel called "Tam Lin," which my Irish session group plays, and I found a version on cello ;) (it takes her a little while to get the tune up to "normal" speed; start listening at 1:30 to get a taste)

Let me close by saying that I really enjoyed reading this book, and that would have been fun on its own, but it made it even more fun to have a bunch of people on LJ to read and discuss it with. Thanks, all. ♥
.

Comments

[huldrejenta.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this book a lot, and it's a book I probably hadn't found or thought of by myself.

I definitely want to read it again at some point, and maybe some things will be clearer then. But for now I've read it once, so please excuse if I say anything that's fairly obvious for you who've read it again;)

Tom does say explicitly to Polly that she were his only chance, and that he had to keep getting in touch with her because of it. I've assumed that Tom knows enough about his own situation that his words can be trusted on this. (Although he doesn't know everything in the final scenes, so who knows... - but then again, who understands everything of the final scenes..? ;))

Why it is her though is a different matter.
Polly thinks to herself when her memories come back that she became connected with Laurel's gift when helping Tom to invent Tan Coul. The hero, with abilities to break free from Laurel? And since Polly was a part of inventing the hero, her presence was needed for Tom to keep on doing it.

If Tom realises already when they invent Tan Coul (or when he understands that she is an outsider that somehow was able to enter the funeral) that Polly may be his answer, I saw the part where he turned the vases as some sort of confirmation on his part. Maybe he needed the right person to be able to turn them (and maybe Seb knew they weren't able to turn them by themselves and therefore thought Polly was a part of it). I see the vases as a gate to the magic, if that makes any sense, something Tom knew he could do now that the right person had entered. And when he indeed could turn them, he knew the door to the solution was opened, and that he needed to hold on to Polly. Or so I've read it.

Mr. Leroy and Seb when realising that Polly could help Tom escape, desperately try to keep them apart. It seems that they share Tom's opinion that Polly is Tom's chance.

Polly also thinks that when Laurel did set her up to agree letting Tom go before she lost her memories, Polly ruined Tom's chances - by not being a part of his life anymore? ("Until she stepped in and destroyed him"). Was this a part of the bargain Tom says he drove with Laurel to keep Polly safe?

I do believe Granny knows quite a lot about Tom's situation from the start. She was scared back when she first met Tom, her cat reacted badly to him, and she thought
"He's one of Hers, that one. He'll be lucky if he can call his soul his own. And I was right, wasn't I?" "You may have been then," Polly said. "But he was getting free somehow (...) until I stopped him."


An abrupt stop to this - -Oh my, time to pick up the kids, and I am totally rambling so much here. Will try to collect my thoughts in a more coherent post later:)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Tom does say explicitly to Polly that she were his only chance, and that he had to keep getting in touch with her because of it.

True, by the end of the story it's clear that Polly has become Tom's only chance, but what I find interesting about this is that Tom seems to know immediately that Polly is the one. She can't have been the only -- person? woman? girl? -- he'd ever talked to from outside, so how did he know she was it, and why did he know right away? (And why Polly? Probably it couldn't have been Ann, whose mother was a Leroy, but why not someone else in the orchestra, for example?)

And since Polly was a part of inventing the hero, her presence was needed for Tom to keep on doing it.

That's an excellent point. Another one of my questions is whether Tom had already started to break free before Polly. He must have, a little bit, in order to divorce Laurel and move away, but Granny and Mintchoc definitely thought he was still connected to Laurel's people at the beginning, so maybe it was Polly helping Tom create Tan Coul that really started things changing.

I see the vases as a gate to the magic, if that makes any sense, something Tom knew he could do now that the right person had entered. And when he indeed could turn them, he knew the door to the solution was opened, and that he needed to hold on to Polly.

That interpretation makes a lot of sense -- maybe Tom wouldn't have been able to turn the vases either, if Polly hadn't been there, and that was why Seb thought the vases were important. Maybe the initial vision of the water in the pool was part of what spurred Tom on to check about the vases, since that did happen right before.

Mr. Leroy and Seb when realising that Polly could help Tom escape, desperately try to keep them apart.

Definitely. And I think this is also why Seb tries so hard to court Polly -- he wants to marry her. I bet he does think she's pretty, but I think he mostly wants to make sure she doesn't free Tom, because (Seb thinks) that means he'd be the one to have to go.

Polly also thinks that when Laurel did set her up to agree letting Tom go before she lost her memories, Polly ruined Tom's chances - by not being a part of his life anymore? ("Until she stepped in and destroyed him").

I haven't reread this part yet, but what I thought was, when Polly used magic to contact Tom, that alerted Laurel to the fact that Polly was helping him (I think until then it was only Seb and Mr. Leroy who were working against them, and even Mr. Leroy warned Polly that she didn't want to get Laurel involved.) So I think Polly being manipulated by Laurel to forget Tom was indeed specifically the factor that was going to doom Tom to his fate, because he couldn't get free without Polly's help. But I think what Polly sees as her terrible error was doing that magic in the first place and attracting Laurel's attention.

Was this a part of the bargain Tom says he drove with Laurel to keep Polly safe?

Must be! And this must be why Tom tries to ignore Polly, even on the train at what he thinks is the end of his life.

I do believe Granny knows quite a lot about Tom's situation from the start.

I agree -- she knew what had happened to her own husband, for one thing. It seems Laurel can put a spell on people so that they can't remember, or can't talk about, her and her goings-on (this is something I'm trying to understand better on my reread), but Granny does know what's up with Tom. But I wonder whether Granny knows that Polly is his key to escape, and if so, if that's why she (grudgingly) lets Polly contact him despite her worries. I'm unsure because when Polly and Granny are reading the ballads, Granny says she wished she'd known all that in time to save her husband. Still, maybe she'd learned about it afterward; it may not have been new information to her in Polly's day.

Will try to collect my thoughts in a more coherent post later:)

This is great fun! Thanks for all your interesting and insightful thoughts, which are perfectly coherent by the way. I want to post more questions and thoughts myself, maybe after I get further in my reread... (I'm just starting Part Three.)

[huldrejenta.livejournal.com]

Tom seems to know immediately that Polly is the one. She can't have been the only -- person? woman? girl? -- he'd ever talked to from outside, so how did he know she was it, and why did he know right away? (And why Polly? Probably it couldn't have been Ann, whose mother was a Leroy, but why not someone else in the orchestra, for example?)

I agree, he seems to know right away.
I think he knew, or at least suspected, the moment he began talking to her at the funeral. He talks to her as an outsider from the start, as someone who has no idea what's going on. The vision with the water in the pool may indeed have made Tom see more clearly that there was something special with Polly.

Why Polly, that's indeed a good question.
Is there something with Polly that connects her with the heroine in the ballads?

I've also wondered whether it needed to be both Polly and Tom also on this issue. Tom did, as you say, manage to escape Laurel on some level even before he met Polly, he seems to have some powers of his own that may have made him more susceptible to Polly. So maybe it was something with exactly these too people; that Polly couldn't have saved anyone but Tom, as well as her being his only chance. It seems to fit with other times when they both need to be there.
(And it is of course hopelessly romantic... but with a man not too different from Remus, not to mention who plays the cello, a romantic explanation seems to come naturally to my mind..;))


I think this is also why Seb tries so hard to court Polly -- he wants to marry her. I bet he does think she's pretty, but I think he mostly wants to make sure she doesn't free Tom, because (Seb thinks) that means he'd be the one to have to go.

Or be the one to take Mr. Leroy's place, yes.... Phew, poor Seb too. Laurel is indeed an intriguing, cruel character.

I wonder what, if anything, Polly and Tom could do about the whole situation after Tom was rescued. It seems they're still up for the impossible.

I think Polly being manipulated by Laurel to forget Tom was indeed specifically the factor that was going to doom Tom to his fate, because he couldn't get free without Polly's help. But I think what Polly sees as her terrible error was doing that magic in the first place and attracting Laurel's attention.

This makes a lot of sense!


I wonder whether Granny knows that Polly is his key to escape, and if so, if that's why she (grudgingly) lets Polly contact him despite her worries.

I believe she does. Granny is Polly's anchor of good sense as opposed to her parents, and I doubt that Granny would have allowed the contact between Tom and Polly when not knowing Tom very well, without believing it to be really important.

I've wondered about (with the Fire and Hemlock picture in her house) if Granny in some way had anything to do with the timing of when Polly starts remembering again. The timing is very convenient and hardly a coincidence.

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree with huldrejenta on the vase thing--Tom obviously suspected that she was an outsider, and therefore Significant, from the very start, and during their talk he was only getting more and more hints (Polly's favorite thing is being things, is it?) -- but the vases could have been confirmation.

I would love to feel more certain I understood the water vision, though. Understanding this might clear up the end, too. ;) Is water significant anywhere else in the book? Wasn't Polly at a swim meet, when Tom held the umbrella for Granny and Granny scared him off? (My room is dark right now, can't/don't want to check. ;)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

It was a track-and-field meet, I'm afraid -- but it sounds like it was raining hard enough that it might as well have been a swim meet. ;)

The only other thing I can remember about water is the part where Granny warns Polly that water will ruin an opal. And of course Polly ends up deciding that, not only has Mr. Leroy defeated the protection in the opal, he's even found a way to use it to track her movements. So that seems sort of suggestive, maybe -- but it's not really about water, literally.

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

The whole question of what Granny knows and how she knows it is intriguing. She has that comment towards the end, when the ballads sort of "bring her to," that she has a way of knowing things without really thinking about them, hence able to hide things in her memory even from enchantment. I'm not sure if there's more to it that I'm missing.

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

she has a way of knowing things without really thinking about them, hence able to hide things in her memory even from enchantment.

Aha, and maybe this is even the same as Polly's hero-gift of knowing things, as Tom points out when she first meets the quartet? I hadn't made that connection before -- maybe gifts run in families.

(Sorry for reply-stalking all your comments here, but I'm having a lot of fun thinking about all this.)

(This comment doesn't actually include any book discussion - just folk music...)

[katyhasclogs.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad that there's a link to that essay - I have a copy of it myself in a book of DWJ essays, but I'd never been able to find it online before that. It's good to know everyone else can read it too. :)

I've just checked my iTunes library, and I have no fewer than 9 versions of Tam Lin! I have to admit to not being that fond of the Steeleye version - it just can't compare with the guitar bits on the Fairport one. I'm re-listening to the Bill Jones right now, and what a treat - it's been so long since I listened to any of her albums. I'd really recommend checking her out if you don't know her stuff already - Panchpuran is a particularly good album.

Thanks for the link to the tune, btw. I know you asked in the other thread, and I haven't yet answered, whether I knew it. I didn't, only the song (9 versions, apparently, lol). It's really lovely though.

I did discover though, completely by accident while trying to bring some sense of order to my iTunes this weekend is that Hunsdon House is a tune and a dance. The version I have is mixed in with Steeleye's 'Queen Mary'.

Finally, another Tam Lin link - poet Benjamin Zephaniah's modern retelling with The Imagined Village (the people who brought us 'Cold Haily Windy Night with sitars), 'Tam Lyn Retold'.

I have stuff to say about the book, honest, but I'm looking at the time and know I have to go to bed if I'm going to function tomorrow - work atm is like a game of whack-a-mole: for every job I get rid of, another pops up just as fast!

Re: (This comment doesn't actually include any book discussion - just folk music...)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

I've just checked my iTunes library, and I have no fewer than 9 versions of Tam Lin!

LOL -- I have at least three versions of the Tam Lin reel, myself. (That cello player really wasn't doing it up to speed, but I thought it was cool that there was a cello version at all, heh.)

I have to admit to not being that fond of the Steeleye version - it just can't compare with the guitar bits on the Fairport one.

Hmm, see, I'm the other way. I really like the "♩. ♩ ♩." rhythm in the first section of the SS version. I also like that they used Bulgarian folk tunes. :) Sometimes it's just a question of what you hear first! (And for what it's worth, I like the SS live version from "Tonight's the Night Live" much more than the studio version they've got on another album.)

I'd really recommend checking her out if you don't know her stuff already - Panchpuran is a particularly good album.

I will! That link I posted was the first I'd run across Bill Jones at all, but she has such a beautiful voice.

Hunsdon House is a tune and a dance.

Oh, very nice, and thanks for the links! The dance video seems to be titled "Hudson House", but that may just be a variant, because it's clearly the Hunsdon House tune. (I don't know what that figure is called where the side couples take hands with partner, advance, take hands with neighbor, and turn and retire out the other direction, while the end couples move in center-wards; the path they're tracing on the floor makes it look like some kind of a hey, but it's all very squared-off and interlocking. Very cool!)

It's a little too cheery for the Leroy Perry house, though. ;)

poet Benjamin Zephaniah's modern retelling with The Imagined Village

Ah, there we go, nice and creepy. :)

(the people who brought us 'Cold Haily Windy Night with sitars)

I listen to those CDs quite a lot, by the way!

Re: (This comment doesn't actually include any book discussion - just folk music...)

[katyhasclogs.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's just a question of what you hear first!

Definitely! By the time I heard the Steeleye one, the Fairport version had already been fixed in my head as definitive. ;)

That link I posted was the first I'd run across Bill Jones at all, but she has such a beautiful voice.

I'm really surprised at myself that I didn't include her in your cd, but I think even at that point she had stopped doing stuff (she made 3 albums and won some awards then got married and had children, at which point I guess all the touring became a bit difficult) so perhaps that's why I didn't think of her. Still so glad you like them though - they're jam packed with my favourite folky stuff (just with a notable exception it seems...)

The dance video seems to be titled "Hudson House", but that may just be a variant

You know, I hadn't even noticed that! It came up when I searched for 'Hunsdon House' so I just assumed, but yes, I think it's one of those title variations you get with the tradition. Here's a cool version that I didn't link to originally because the quality is quite bad, where we get some background and a comparison with 'Grand Square' (which I'm pretty sure I've done at ceilidhs).

it's all very squared-off and interlocking. Very cool!

I know, isn't it pretty! The chap in the video above calls it a 'grand square' I think.

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

My thoughts are kind of jumbled. I'll be back, I'm sure.

There's a sort of urgency to some of the questions you're asking, because there are some doubts in me that to some of them there are no good answers, no subtle but sure clues, and I'm not wild about that. So the book would go down in my estimation if I start thinking too hard and then decide there was no thoughtful answer to the riddles. ;)

Just an observation as I skimmed through Tom and Polly's first meeting with everyone's comments so far in mind. One of the strange things that I hadn't been quite able to articulate before is that, at first meeting, it seems as if "these people" can hardly wait to be rid of Tom, but then later of course we find that, quite the opposite, Tom cannot get free of them if he tries.

Completely opposite -- like how the "real" Thomas Piper is mean and the "real" Edna and Leslie are nice. Sometimes Nowhere/Now Here means topsy-turvy. But sometimes too it's not a mirror image but a near image.

Just to make it hard... ;)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Sometimes Nowhere/Now Here means topsy-turvy. But sometimes too it's not a mirror image but a near image.

Yes! I have another whole set of questions about how the making-things-up works and how the "reality" they create is or isn't like what Tom and Polly imagine, which I will happily raise if no one else does. ;)

There's a sort of urgency to some of the questions you're asking, because there are some doubts in me that to some of them there are no good answers, no subtle but sure clues, and I'm not wild about that. So the book would go down in my estimation if I start thinking too hard and then decide there was no thoughtful answer to the riddles. ;)

Yeah, I suspected that there may not be an obvious answer within the story to some of these questions, either. But I'm also notorious for missing details or not picking up on hints -- especially on a first read-through -- so I thought it was worth throwing all this out there for discussion in case other people saw things that I didn't.

I've been thinking about this point over the last few days, actually. I have a strong sense that in a mystery novel, if some character solves the mystery on the basis of information that the reader never sees before the reveal, the author isn't playing fair. But how true is this in other genres? I'd personally prefer it if DWJ did salt her book with at least hints that could let the reader understand how her universe worked, but is that anything more than individual taste? It may be a legitimate choice for DWJ to leave some things mysterious; maybe she just doesn't care how some of the technical details play out, or maybe she actually likes the idea of readers constructing their own theories about how things worked.

But this question is interesting on a meta-level, too, given Tom's insistence, on Polly's first visit to London, that she think through how the Tom Lynn / Thomas Piper / Tan Coul magic works -- even when Polly wants to wave her hands and skip over the details. ;) (And I'm not even sure that Tom knows at this point quite how much it will actually matter, but as I said above, the mechanics of Nowhere is a whole 'nother comment thread. ;P )

[huldrejenta.livejournal.com]

It may be a legitimate choice for DWJ to leave some things mysterious; maybe she just doesn't care how some of the technical details play out, or maybe she actually likes the idea of readers constructing their own theories about how things worked.

But this question is interesting on a meta-level, too, given Tom's insistence, on Polly's first visit to London, that she think through how the Tom Lynn / Thomas Piper / Tan Coul magic works

I get the feeling - which may of course change if/when I read the book again - that there are enough clues in the book for the readers to construct perfectly plausible theories and reasonable answers about how the magic works, but not clues that make us certain if our theory is the only correct one.

On a meta-level I think Tom's insistence that Polly figures out how the magic works can be seen this way too. First Polly makes the story, then she figures out the details of why and how - not the other way around. A subtle suggestion that we as readers use what we learn in the story to figure out our version of the details?

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling - which may of course change if/when I read the book again - that there are enough clues in the book for the readers to construct perfectly plausible theories and reasonable answers about how the magic works, but not clues that make us certain if our theory is the only correct one.

I think that's a good way to look at it.

A subtle suggestion that we as readers use what we learn in the story to figure out our version of the details?

Could very well be!

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

It may be a legitimate choice for DWJ to leave some things mysterious... But this question is interesting on a meta-level, too, given Tom's insistence, on Polly's first visit to London, that she think through how the Tom Lynn / Thomas Piper / Tan Coul magic works -- even when Polly wants to wave her hands and skip over the details. ;)

Both excellent points and very calming, thanks. ;)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

You know, I've had another thought. And I really ought to go follow that link that gilpin25 found for us, about DWJ's sources and influences for this story -- but maybe it's the case that if we read what Polly did, like The Golden Bough (which my partner just went and hauled out of a box for me because he was tired of hearing me mindlessly speculate, lol) and "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," and all, we might collect enough context to understand more about how Laurel's magic, and the rest of it, is supposed to work.

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea.

Tangentially, I was thinking a lot about the fairy tales I already knew. One motif that came out very strongly for me was Polly using the magic to "see" Tom (and Laurel!) even though she sensed it was wrong.

When I TA'd for a fairy tale course, we saw this motif in a lot of stories across Europe/Russia -- it goes all the way back, of course, to at least Psyche and Cupid. One lover looks upon the other, or destroys their cover, too soon, and loses the lover, usually with the "wronged" lover (but (s)he's not indignant, just matter-of-fact + sad) saying something like, "If you had only waited one year, I would have been yours forever."

It's been niggling at me because, in the psychological (especially Freudian) interpretation, which for once made a lot of sense, the message or truth was that the lover with something to hide was still growing somehow*, but you can't force people's development -- even if the alternative is you being maddeningly patient, that's the only way; it has to come at their own time or you disrupt and maybe even derail it. And then it's almost impossible (although of course in fairy stories you find a way) to make good the damage you've done to the person -- and your relationship with them.

And, of course, "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" is one of those tales.

Anyway, this may very well be a digression, but I've been going about wondering if it's fair to apply this interpretation to Polly and Tom, or whether this more fleshed-out version of the motif doesn't lend itself.

I guess it mostly fits -- it has the extra detail of giving a mechanism (Laurel) to explain why the violation of privacy results in the separation -- but the implication was that Polly might have been able to wriggle Tom loose from Hunsdon House the way they were going. Except Tom had pushed her away. And I'm still not sure what would have happened in those four years that would have made the difference if Polly hadn't "looked" and given themselves away to Laurel. How else, exactly, were Hero and Tan Coul becoming less Hunsdon-y?

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

it goes all the way back, of course, to at least Psyche and Cupid

Ooh, you're very good. I just read the DWJ essay, and she considers the story of Cupid and Psyche to be a sort of subterranean influence on F&H. (Apparently she once pointed out to her editor that Tom is nearly blind, and works with a bow -- I can't help a little eyeroll at that, but the point is a good one, about the recurring theme of failing by trying to look at what you're not supposed to see.)

I've been going about wondering if it's fair to apply this interpretation to Polly and Tom, or whether this more fleshed-out version of the motif doesn't lend itself.

Despite Polly being the one who "looked," you'd almost think she would be in the role of the one who wasn't finished growing yet, since she was the one who was still a child! For all that the four years' separation must have been brutally hard on Tom, especially if that got him re-ensnared, it does manage to make the idea of a romance between these characters less squicky, since Polly is (more or less) grown up by the time they meet again.

And I'm still not sure what would have happened in those four years that would have made the difference if Polly hadn't "looked" and given themselves away to Laurel. How else, exactly, were Hero and Tan Coul becoming less Hunsdon-y?

That's something I still really don't understand. Maybe part of it was that Tom was increasingly doing, and achieving, things on his own, like the quartet? If so, the conversation between Tom and Mr. Leroy that Polly magically overhears, where Mr. Leroy is trying (unsuccessfully) to force Tom to accept financial backing from Hunsdon House, would certainly make a lot of sense. But Polly must have been at the heart of the process, since it was the connection with her, and not (say) the quartet, that Tom lost as a result of Polly's meddling.

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

Maybe you'll find out where "Tan" comes from? #ignorance #reallyhardtoGooglethisone

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

Then there's the photo of Tom; some kind of magic let Polly see it in the mirror at Hunsdon House. Is that another consequence of the fact that she is the one who can save Tom? Or is some benign magic in Hunsdon House deliberately showing her that to help out? Surely it's significant that she takes the photo out of the house, even though Laurel or Mr. Leroy apparently steal it back later.

Same as the magic that let Polly get inside at all, and let her listen in on Tom and Mr. Leroy... I think you could write a good "flipped perspective" fanfic pitying Laurel, "queen" of a kingdom that sometimes actively works against her (I wonder could she escape either, if she tried?)

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Same as the magic that let Polly get inside at all, and let her listen in on Tom and Mr. Leroy

Right, or that gave the other string quartet the flu ;) or let Polly (and Granny) remember in time.

I think you could write a good "flipped perspective" fanfic pitying Laurel, "queen" of a kingdom that sometimes actively works against her

That's a pretty cool idea! I bet you could even write her as ruthless-but-sympathetic, ensnaring outsiders as she does to try to protect her own family as much as she can.

[huldrejenta.livejournal.com]

I think you could write a good "flipped perspective" fanfic pitying Laurel, "queen" of a kingdom that sometimes actively works against her

This I'd love to read!
There're really so many things I find appalling about Laurel, so reading this perspective would have been interesting.

Comment thread for cool minor details

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Notice anything trivial, but cool? Here's a place to put it. :)

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

I just got to the beginning of Part Three on my reread last night, and noticed something that I had missed on my first read, when I didn't yet know whose photo Polly had stolen from Hunsdon House. (Though maybe I'm just obtuse and DWJ expected me to have figured out about the photo already, heh.)

Anyway: It must have been Polly who gave that other string quartet the flu!

She was at Reg and Joanna's, and couldn't sleep, so she got out the stolen photo and fell asleep holding it. And then, lo and behold, those poor unknown musicians are felled by the flu, and the Dumas Quartet stays in town one day longer than planned, and they are there when Polly needs help.

I suspect this is why Mr. Leroy found Polly in Bristol, too, that he knew that some magic had been worked there on Polly's behalf.

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[jobey-in-error.livejournal.com]

Anyway: It must have been Polly who gave that other string quartet the flu!

She was at Reg and Joanna's, and couldn't sleep, so she got out the stolen photo and fell asleep holding it. And then, lo and behold, those poor unknown musicians are felled by the flu, and the Dumas Quartet stays in town one day longer than planned, and they are there when Polly needs help.

That's... kind of awesome.

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

She was at Reg and Joanna's, and couldn't sleep, so she got out the stolen photo and fell asleep holding it. And then, lo and behold, those poor unknown musicians are felled by the flu, and the Dumas Quartet stays in town one day longer than planned, and they are there when Polly needs help.

Oh my. That's one heck of a catch. :D

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Hit me over the head, it did. This is why rereads are fun.

THANK YOU for getting things going around here again! I'd been hoping someone might start a discussion about the end of the story. I stopped in my reread just about at the start of Part Four, so I need to pick that up again, but I'll be back with thoughts in another day or so.

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

I'd hoped to get back sooner, but fitting a proper reread in and marshalling my thoughts took longer than planned.

I've thought of a couple of other things I forgot to mention. The ending I find vaguely dissatisfying, but it's hard to pinpoint quite why. On my first read, I assumed it was because I was simply trying to work out what on earth was going on; on the second (and third and fourth, lol) the climatic scene and resolution all seems a bit...quick? I'm not sure that's the right summing up either, but I do feel it's the romantic/love side of things that suffers from the speed. Though they're grasping hands at the end in a committed fashion, reminiscent of some other couple. ;)

One of my favourite things about the book - and I'd have DEVOURED this as a child - was the idea that you can let your own imagination take flight, and basically create the narrative of your own life. And that there is no reason why girls can't be heroes.

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

I'll be back later with more time to spend here and comment, because reading the thread is as good as the book. :)

Leroy is from the old French form of Le roy. Modern French translates as le roi, which is the king.

Interesting info towards the end of the DWJ essay about some of the other name choices, especially Polly's own. And how the characters are arranged in groups of 3. Most of those went straight over my reading head at the time, but I did see Laurel, Ivy and Joanna. Ivy is the paranoid, clinging side of Laurel, who confuses fact with fiction and see betrayal. Joanna manages Reg with a strict set of rules, which he cannot deviate from. (The part where he's not allowed home till she's recovered from work makes me snort like mad!)

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[shimotsuki.livejournal.com]

Leroy is from the old French form of Le roy. Modern French translates as le roi, which is the king.

You're quicker than I am! ;) I didn't think of the name that way until the very end, when I realized how very Golden Bough-ish things were getting...

Interesting info towards the end of the DWJ essay about some of the other name choices, especially Polly's own.

That is interesting! And not what I was expecting -- I was thinking more along the lines of Terry Pratchett in Monstrous Regiment, about how Polly is sometimes the name of the girl in the old folk-songs who's been wronged. (On the same Steeleye Span album that was where I'd heard the Ballad of Tam Lin, there's also a song called "Gentleman Soldier" in which a young girl called Polly is indeed loved and left, heh.)

(The part where he's not allowed home till she's recovered from work makes me snort like mad!)

Yes! As if he were a troublesome puppy, or child... I almost feel sorry for Reg. But, not quite. ;)

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[katyhasclogs.livejournal.com]

Not so much trivial and cool, this one, as tangential but interesting.

In the book where I have the 'Heroic Ideal' essay is also a piece written by one of DWJ's sons after her death. One of the several things he talks about is DWJ's difficult relationship with her own mother and how this informed some of the darkness in DWJ's books.

He describes his grandmother as "a formidable woman", a scholarship girl who pulled herself up by her bootstraps and did not particularly want to be a parent. "She certainly could be cruel", he writes, "and very much liked to be admired by men". He goes on to describe how she seems to have informed a number of DWJ villains and then writes this about himself:

"I liked my grandmother, and I got punished for this in several of my mother's books. When I was a teenager I listened to The Doors and did a lot of photography. No doubt in my mother's eyes I was a chilly kind of thing. In Fire and Hemlock there is a chilly public schoolboy called Sebastian who likes The Doors and photography. He also happens to be in league with the glamorous and un-ageing Queen of the Fairies, with whom he tries to erase the heroine's memories and perform a human sacrifice.

"Well, thanks, Mum."

And then my heart breaks.

BTW, while we're on the subject, did anyone else flinch slightly whenever the book referred to "Doors" rather than "The Doors"?

Re: Comment thread for cool minor details

[icastlecaptured.livejournal.com]

two things!

One of my favourite tiny details is while deciding on an outfit to meet the quartet in (this is when they've come back from Australia), Polly rejects a green shirt on the grounds of bad luck - when she sees Tom a few pages later however, the narrative notes he looks tanned in his green shirt, and we all know how well that trip to the carnival went.

Another is the paintings Polly helps Tom pick out in the beginning, not only do their subjects correspond to encounters Tom and Polly have but the reclaiming of some of the paintings by the Leroy's matches up with which situations they had the upper hand in. (I've thought that the Harlequin picture is what helped Mr Leroy get at Polly the night of the pantomime)

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

Oh, the layers in this! A really good recommendation by katyhasclogs as not only did I enjoy the story and puzzle over it, but I've been listening to the music links, reading essays, and then there is this thread, where things have been picked up I hadn't even considered. So, certainly no complaints on the amount of entertainment provided. Mostly, I like that DWJ thought older children could handle this book, and that adults would do much head-scratching on LJ over it!

If Polly is Tom's only hope, why is it her? Is it because she is the only outsider to show up at Hunsdon House on the first Halloween? Or is it because she is the one who first brings up the idea of Being Things to Tom?

It's implied that not everyone can simply wander into Hunsdon - Leroy says that Mary Fields is no threat because she hasn't been there - which makes Tom watch her from the start. She doesn't drink anything in the fairy world, despite being pressed to, and I'm guessing that, in common with most fairy myths, if you don't eat or drink in their world, they can't take anything from you in return? (She doesn't take the photo till afterwards.) Tom actually whips her out of there - his look said, "Come on out of that" - just as she is about to drink and saves her.

I presume Tom, who must be desperate after witnessing the funeral, sees her as some kind of slim chance, even if he doesn't know of what kind, and talks about them as heroes, kick-starting his gift and hers. The part with the vases I've changed my mind over several times, but there is a nod to T.S Eliot with Now Here and Nowhere (in Four Quartets, there is the implication that what is and what might have been can co-exist at the same time), and the final turn by Tom takes them to Here Now. At the end of the book, that's what they need to find, their own world, in effect, for their relationship to stand a chance of surviving.

Does Granny, or Granny's past, have anything to do with Polly being the one who can help Tom? Probably not; indeed, we know that Granny sends Tom packing at the point where he's about to go to Australia. But, still, how much does Granny know all along? I think right away she knows or suspects that Tom is the current young man in Laurel's clutches;

Presumably, Granny could have been the original Janet, but didn't understand about holding onto her love in order to keep him.* Also, presumably, Laurel has messed with her memories about losing her husband, but she can still remember bits. I think it's the books Tom sends that triggers this unease, because she mentions the men are unable to talk about the fairies or their powers, and Tom is revealing the truth the only way he can. Leroy manipulates her into making Tom feel guilty about Polly's crush, and, again, I'm presuming that he disappears to let her grow up and lets go of the love he needs to survive, because he knows from the 'sentimental rubbish' that she wrote that he has used her, even if he didn't intend to use her in quite that way at that time. I think. ;)

* The irony here is that Polly is finally clever enough to realize that Laurel's lethal truth gift means she has to love Tom enough to let him go. Tom can despairingly throw this lack of love at Leroy, and Leroy can't fight back this time because he doesn't have any love himself and therefore goes to hell. But the twist at the end is that in setting Tom free to be his own man, Polly has freed him to chose her. (I'm not sure, though, because wouldn't he feel so beholden to her for what she'd done that he'd chose her anyway? AAGH!)

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

What role do the two photos play in the magic that connects Polly with Tom? If I understood the ending correctly, the "Fire and Hemlock" photo is part of the magic that originally enslaved Tom to Laurel, so it must be significant that he gets it out of Hunsdon House and gives it to Polly.

More head-scratching! I thought Laurel wanted Tom, but could only seduce his brother, Charles, and struck a bargain with Charles for Tom's soul. (Polly and Tom have some of the worst family members ever.;)) Charles took the Fire and Hemlock picture, which Tom had originally taken, and a lock of Tom's hair, and gave it to Laurel who enchanted it to gain control of Tom's soul. It's the Obah Crypt, and I'm guessing it must be how she gives him the truth/protection gifts. Polly, the first time she overhears Laurel talking to Tom, is furious because she's bullying him - later on, Polly deliberately goes up against the school bully as part of her hero training - and tricks Tom into taking the picture out of there as payback for Laurel's nastiness, which he is able to do because it truly belonged to him. And then he gives it to her - and so literally gives her his soul to hold onto. Which I presume is why Leroy becomes paranoid about her soon afterwards.

I have some questions of my own:
The necklace is an opal and there's a myth that opals brought the gift of fire to mankind. In the essay, DWJ talks about the fire being the imagination and redemption, and the hemlock is a spiritual void. Does Granny give Polly the necklace to try and protect her imagination, and stop them messing with Polly's memories? But I suppose Leroy's magic is far stronger, and so it becomes a kind of tracking device for them to know when Polly is contacting Tom?

The horse. Tom tries to call it up at the end in the duel - because he's calling on his physical strength after the music has failed? - but the horse belongs to Leroy, anyway. And Mary know this, so wouldn't Tom? I don't understand the horse part, though I presume that it was doomed to fail because Leroy is so weak by now that it's just used against Tom.

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

I was going to comment on the age difference issues at length, but I've rambled on enough. I did notice how DWJ used references to Polly's hair throughout: Tom starts off by admiring it and then mentions it in the one physical declaration of love near the end; Mr O'Keefe and David make remarks about how they'd thought about her and her hair when she was 15 or 16, and Polly completely ignores this. (Though maybe Ivy had a point about David!) But the best reassurance comes from Polly herself, who shoves Seb away and tells him she's too young for any of that. The age factor is probably more questionable in Laurel's pursuit of good-looking and musical teenage boys. Tom was 16 when she first went after him?

Finally, I found a Tumblr dedicated to DWJ, and it would have been her birthday last week:

http://dwj2012.tumblr.com/post/58417413636/today-would-have-been-dianas-79th-birthday

[katyhasclogs.livejournal.com]

Right, so here's my answers, such as they are, your very excellent 'Why Polly?' questions.

(Apologies if I'm repeating anything anyone else has said as I've not quite read it all yet and also suspect I'll get myself in a fearful muddle if I attempt anything more than just getting my interpretation down on the pagesorry! screen.)

If Polly is Tom's only hope, why is it her?

The way I see it, Polly is Tom's only hope in the sense that she is the only opportunity that has presented itself to him, rather than being the only person who could help. I think what happens is that she is the right sort of person in the right place at the right time, and that provides a chance that she can be Tom's salvation if all goes well. To my mind, it's a bit like the way that the divine intervention/free will thing works in The Curse of Chalion.

Now, I think several factors in that first meeting indicate and/or set up Polly as a person that can help Tom. I suspect it's hugely important that Polly even finds her way into Hunsdon House, while Nina didn't, and I think there's a twisty thing going on whereby her act of trespass enables her to help and she was able to trespass because she's the sort of person who can help. I see the house as existing both in the 'real' world (here now?) where Nina just walked up the drive back to the road, and elsewhere (nowhere?) where Polly gatecrashed the funeral and it all began.

I do rather think that it pretty much had to be a child that ended up in the position to save Tom. There's a suggestion of children=clever, adults=stupid running through the book (and the DWJ essays I've read) and one point that does seem to be made fairly clearly is that the "penalty of being grown-up" is that your thinking becomes rather muggle-ish when it comes to magical, otherworldly, nowhere stuff. Polly as a child well practiced in imagination and making things up was well placed to perceive the elsewhere part/layer of Hunsdon, and had skills that worked well with Tom's 'gift' to provide a way of helping him.

I see the water in the pond as an indication and/or confirmation that Polly can perceive the nowhere/faerieland layer of Hunsdon. And I've wondered whether the vases indicate something about what layer of reality you're in, but I've not really managed to form that idea into any kind of coherent theory yet...

The photo stuff...I don't really understand. Except to say that when Polly sees Tom's photo in the mirror, I think the prefect's mirror superstition is working for real and it's a demonstration that in the world of the book superstitions do work for real rather than just being nonsense (says Katy the grown-up, lol).

As for Granny, I pretty much had the same thoughts as you about how much she knows, though I think some of it is probably not certain knowledge (since she wasn't in-the-know enough to save her chap). I don't know whether she's even very sure that the young men can be saved, and her sending Tom away suggests she doesn't think it ought to be Polly's job to do any saving, so perhaps she's reassured at him living in London and being "free to ask" because it indicates he's not quite under the thumb, or no longer entranced by That House and its occupants, which makes him less threatening? Maybe she thinks there isn't much she can do about it all?

(As a sideline, how is she ok with Seb, who *is* from That House?)

Ooh! I've just read this bit from towards the end:

"It's laid on them not to say, nor me to remember, but I keep what I can in my head by living where I do. She likes them young, she likes them handsome, and musical when she can get them."

So perhaps what she knows is a bit fluid or unreliable? Perhaps a lot of it is subconscious or instinctive?

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