Philothea
Life in the JVC

Tam Lin

May 13, 2003

I changed my diary colors to purple and white in honor of Kenyon. I went to Shutt�s ghost tour tonight because I had never gone before. He was getting over pneumonia so he just sat in the church and told us the stories. I don�t think I like ghost stories. It seems disrespectful to the dead. When he was telling us about the guy who fell down the elevator shaft in Caples in the 70s, he said he couldn�t tell that one to alumni since some of them knew him. A few years from now will they be ghost stories about Emily Murray and getting a pleasurable shiver listening about her murder? Plus Cassie the �Episopo-pagan� who wanted to raise spirits at Kenyon last semester was sitting right next to him and nodding her head all the time.

I went to the Red Door last night to have hot cocoa on my Senior tab and then I got home at about midnight. I decided to read a few chapters from my interlibrary loan book Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. It had been recommended on the Fametracker fantasy thread about a good fantasy novel set in modern times. It was based on the Scottish ballad Tam Lin. That was all I knew about it. Then I found out it was set in a small liberal arts college with the main character being an English major who was also interested in Classics. There�s an Olin building and a high voiced Shakespeare professor named Davison. They even have a Greek professor who seduces her students, although I don�t think Dr. Hahnemann is an evil otherworldly being. It was so good evoking the mood of Kenyon that I got pre-nostalgic for college. I stayed up until 5 a.m. and read all 468 pages. Then I slept until dinnertime. I love Senior Week.

The whole thing reminded me of college, where the fear of getting pregnant collaborated with the conviction that you weren�t nearly as smart as you�d thought you were, that you would never amount to anything practical even if all the professors thought you were a genius, and that the world was going to hell so fast you�d be lucky to have a B.A. to show the devil when you got there, to produce a sub-clinical state of frenzy; where juggling your love life with anything else was almost but never quite completely impossible; where we all did any number of foolish and peculiar things while surrounded by and occasionally even absorbing the wisdom of the ages.

That�s from the Author�s Note. I wish I could write like that. I don�t want to give away what happens, but I recommend it to everybody. It doesn�t get very fantastical until about halfway through the novel, so even people who don�t like fantasy will probably like this book.

10:08 p.m.
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