Book Reviews: Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle

[juushika]

Title: Tamsin
Author: Peter S. Beagle
Published: ROC, 1999
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 370,105
Text Number: 1359
Read Because: fan of the author, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: When her mother remarries, a 13-year-old girl moves from Manhattan to a derelict English farm haunted by a young woman from the Bloody Assizes. This is a hidden gem from Beagle and it reminds me a lot of Dianna Wynne Jones. The protagonist writes as a young adult reflecting back on her adolescence, cringing at herself but so honest about the fundamental unfairness of being a teenage girl; it's a ridiculously immersive and authentic PoV. The setting is rich in domestic detail, and the depiction of a cultural Jew in a mixed-faith family gave me such fellow-feeling.* And then it grows exuberant with British history and folklore, the protagonist madly in love with her flickering, striking young ghost, the Wild Hunt screaming through the sky.

It's not a perfect book, and there are moments when the craft is too transparent, particularly in the tension-building but more unfortunately in the emotional resolution; occasionally it tries to force a lucent emotional resonance more suited for The Last Unicorn rather than being content with the humble, sympathetic emotions of its native scope. But it's incredible fun, likeable and magical and gleefully open to queer readings. This book has been on my TBR for an age, and I love how it feels to finally get to a book and find it totally worth the wait.


* Here's the bit that made me cry twice, first when reading it late at night, again when reading it aloud to my partner.

Julian wanted to know how the menorah worked, so I sent him downstairs to get some candles while I tried to polish it up a bit. We had all kinds of candles all over the place back then, because of the power failing every ten minutes. The ones Julian got back with didn't quite fit, but I made them fit, and I told him about Chanukah—about the Syrians and the Maccabees, and the one last little cup of consecrated oil for the new temple altar in Jerusalem burning miraculously for eight days, until somebody finally showed up with fresh oil. It's a good story, and while I was telling it, I almost forgot that I was pissed at everyone in the world.

When Julian asked me if Jews had Chanukah carols, I went completely blank for a moment—Sally and I weren't exactly the most observant family on the West Side—and then I remembered the blessing that you chant when you're lighting the candles. That one I know, because Grandma Paula taught me, and I sang it for Julian.

"Boruch ata Adonai,
eloheynu melech haolam,
asher kidshanu b'mitzvosav,
v'tsivonu I'hadleek nehr,
shel Chanukah..."

Julian's always been quick with songs. He had this one in no time, his Hebrew pronunciation no worse than mine, and we sang it together while I lighted the lead candle, the shammes, and then lighted the first-night candle from it, just to show him how it was done. So there we were, Julian and me, kneeling on the floor in that cold, cobwebby room, the walls lined halfway around with Sally's boxes, and with tattered old trunks and valises from some other Sally, who always meant to get around to going through them, one day soon. There we were, the two of us, chanting our heads off, praising a God neither one of us believed in for commanding us to light the Chanukah candles. You have to see us, it's important.

Because that was when I smelled vanilla.