How Pamela Dean changed (and also saved) my life.

[seanan_mcguire]

(I thought a lot about whether this needed a trigger warning, and decided that it was better to err on the side of caution. So...TW: very oblique and carefully worded mention of a suicide attempt.)

I don't think it's any secret that I am a voracious reader. I read constantly. My friend Michelle has commented on more than one occasion that she,

Comments

[oneminutemonkey]

Like you, I am a reader. (Surprise) And I have read THOUSANDS of books. For fun, for work, for school, for review purposes. And it's nigh-impossible for me to pick favorites. Even just asking me "what's good?" or "what have you read lately?" sends me into a brain-freeze as I try to sort through the over-abundance of data I have in that regard

[seanan_mcguire]

Yes.

Good.

[anderyn]

I grew up too early for this book to be there when I was a teenager, but I, too, recognize the voracious reader and escaper into books. I didn't often get to a library (my father disliked them) but I had a few books, and I reread them a lot (until my father made me burn them all when I was in high school -- a few escaped the fire due to being at my great-grandparents' house, but... yeah). My house now is covered in books, and I love Pamela Dean.

And, yeah, thank god that you had a good friend and a way to ask for help. I've lost a few friends to that black dog, and I'm happy you escaped.

[morningapproach]

oh my gosh, your father made you burn them? That is horrible!

[anderyn]

Yes, he caught me reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, and he was livid. He marched me out to the trash can (it was allowable to burn your trash at the time) and made me put all of my books in and then light the match and watch them all burn. He also bitched out the principal and the librarian and my teacher for allowing me to order that kind of trash from the school book order (this was when I was in high school).

[siege]

Gads. Were I that teacher, librarian, or principal, I'd have bitched right back at him and written to the local paper about the predictable results of censorship of books and knowledge.

[nyxalinth]

I'm glad of this.

[seanan_mcguire]

Me, too.

[katyakoshka]

The three Early Modern plays in Tam Lin were the subjects of my undergrad senior thesis. I probably own a dual-language (Old French/Middle English) edition of The Romance of the Rose because of Tam Lin. Since I entered grad school for English Lit in 2009 (for one year--got pregnant, had terribad pregnancy, early delivery, and even more traumatic for non-med reasons NICU experience after that, which led to my ultimately-wise departure from the program), I haven't done my annual fall rereading, but I think I'm ready now. Overdue, even, since it's suppsed to be a September read.

I am so glad Janet saved you, too.

[seanan_mcguire]

I am sorry to hear about your bad stuff, but delighted for the good.

[katyakoshka]

Well, the bad stuff is largely past, except for the mental housekeeping (which is underway already)--and 2013 has been full of new good stuff, which is why I'm ready for a reread (even if any future school for me is *not* likely to be literature and/or folklore).

I'm pretty happy for your current/recent-years good stuff, too! :)

[ext_2204651]

Oddly enough, that book is sitting on my bedside shelf right now.

I don't love it the way you do, I didn't discover it until I was an adult...gotta love alt.poly for letting me meet Pamela Dean. I am not sure I have a pink curtain friend. But I agree that the library and books in general gave me a way to survive, and still do.

[tylik]

I'm wondering how it would strike me now. I think, having returned for my doctorate as a second career, and spending a lot of time with undergrads with sunnier backgrounds than I had at that age, I may well find more resonance than I did when it first came out an I was an undergrad myself.

[seanan_mcguire]

I don't think everyone needs to love everything exactly the same. It's enough for us to love at all.