Pg 37-38t“Tam Lin got off his horse and went over to the girl. On his way he saw a rose and picked it for her – figuring she’d be less afraid if he gave her a present. He pricked his finger on the thorns, though, and cried out. He was pretty embarrassed that the girl saw him hurt himself, but then she got out her handkerchief and wrapped it around Tam Lin’s hand and made a fuss over him. You see, that’s how she knew he wasn’t really a dairy. Because he bled.t“Come with me,” the girl said, when she’d stopped his bleeding.tBut Tam Lin heard the fairy horses returning and knew the fairy queen would kill both of them.t“I can’t,” he told her, “ but if you come back here next Halloween maybe you can save me.” Then he told her to bring holy water from the church and dirt from her garden. “When you see me ride past you pull me from my horse and hold me tight no matter what happens. Then I’ll be free of the fairies and we can get married. But if you don’t save me, the fairies will kill me because it’ll be seven years I’ve been with them.”tThe girl looked doubtful, but she said she’d wait for Tam Lin and be at the well next Halloween and then Tam Lin had to go. I always thought that last year must have been the worst for Tam Lin, wondering whether the girl would come back or had she found someone else or would she be too afraid to keep her promise and knowing if she didn’t he’d be eaten alive by fairies. It’s like when you’re almost up for parole and you don’t want to screw it up but you kind of relax cause you start thinking about being home and that’s when you’re screw up.tOf course I didn’t know anything about parole back then, but I do now, which I guess is another reason I thought about this story.tBecause things worked out for Tam Lin. The girl – Margaret I think her name was – was there at the well and when she saw Tam Lin she pulled him from his horse and held him so tight he half thought she’d choke him. The fairy queen was furious when she saw Tam Lin and the girl.t“Let him go,” she said, “And I’ll give you all the silver in the world.”t“No,” the girl said. “I’ll hold onto my Tam Lin.”t“Oh,” says the fairy queen, “That’s Tam Lin you’re holding, is it?”tAnd when the girl looked she saw she was holding a huge snake – or it was holding her! Still she didn’t let go.t“Let go,” said the fairy queen, “And I’ll give you all the gold in the worlD.”t“No,” the girl said. “I’ll hold onto my Tam Lin.”t“Oh,” says the fairy queen, “That’s Tam Lin you’re holding, is it?”tAnd the snake turned into a huge lion who roared in Margaret’s face. Still she didn’t let go.tThe fairy queen was so mad then that she tore her white hair from her head and screamed, “I’ll teach you!” and she turned Tam Lin into a burning brand that singed the girl’s skin. Still she held on till she could smell her own skin burning. Then she took out the bottle of holy water she’d brought and sprinkled it in the well and she threw the burning brand in after and there, instead of the burning brand, was Tam Lin, naked, I’m sorry to have to tell you, because the clothes had burnt right off of him.tSo Margaret pulled him out of the well and gave him her cloak. She sprinkled the dirt from her garden in a circle around them and even though the fairy queen screamed and raged there wasn’t a think she could do. Tam Lin and Margaret went back to her castle (she turned out to be a princess) and…well, you can imagine the rest.tI think you can figure out too why I picked this story. I’ve been Here at Rip Van Winkle for seven years – I was twenty-two when I was convicted – and now I’m up for parole. I didn’t think I’d ever get out of here, but now that I’m going to be free I can’t help thinking about what it’ll be like outside.tI think that sometimes when you get used to a bad thing – like being in a prison or getting kidnapped by fairies – it’s better to live with that bad thing than try to change it. Because what if you get a chance to change things and you mess up? What if it’s your last chance?”
"The Seduction of Water" is a novel I came across a while after I read Carol Goodman's "The Lake of Dead Languages", the latter one of my favorite novels to date for its potent imagery, school-based stories of past and present, and careful character interactions molded into a tight mystery/suspense."The Seduction of Water" has an interesting premise regarding a woman named Iris Greenfeder, who decides to publish the story of a tale her mother, a published author, had once told Iris as a little girl. The piece gathers the attention of a literary agent, who suggests the existence of another manuscript that Iris's mother may have written in the time before her death. Iris returns to the Hotel Equinox, where she grew up, to find clues to the manuscript and recover information about her mother's death.I like Iris's narrative voice and it was very easy to follow her thoughts throughout the work. As constructive criticism, however, I think it took a while for the novel to hit the primary mystery. I would say that this was a give and take criticism for me - on one hand I appreciated the development and the care taken to set the background and atmosphere (especially the bits of romance peppered through the story), but on the other, I didn't like how long it took for the story to hit its full stride. It seemed slower than the progression of "The Lake of Dead Languages," and there were many characters to keep up with, some of them stood out very well (Aidan - whose name I love!, Hedda, and Joseph were among a few) while others were either not developed enough or were introduced in the story a little too late to care about them as much.I loved the fairy tale dynamic/theme through the story, even in the beginning where Iris's students were telling their assigned tales. It gave the book a mystical tone at times, and Goodman's diction and attention to detail further emphasizes this merit. However, I felt that the excerpts of the Selkie's story were a bit much towards the end - I understood that it was meant to parallel events in the story, but I saw it as more of an overemphasis and it would have been communicated better if it were more subtle in description.Overall, I enjoyed this novel, and would say that I'm apt to read it again. I'm looking forward to reading more of Carol Goodman's works in the future.Overall: 3.5/5
What do You think about The Seduction Of Water (2003)?
I've been reading some pretty dark suspense/mystery books, and my soul felt rather battered. This book was a wonderful antidote to hard-core realism -- a story within a story, mystery, and, despite some violence in it, a gentle tale of a daughter in search of her mother, or of her mother's story, both personal and a manuscript written before the mother died twenty years before. I loved the setting in the Hudson Valley, which made me want to return there for a visit, if only to catch that light once more before I die. I wish I could have seen the Hotel Equinox in its heyday, and to have seen the gazebo/chuppas built by Joseph. Thanks to Rebekkila for sending this book along to me. I'm going to leave my copy in Palo Alto, California, while I'm out here for our son's Stanford graduation, for someone to find via BookCrossing.
—bookczuk
The first book by Carol Goodman I read was The Lake of Dead Languages and that one was by far my favorite. I liked The Drowning Tree more than I thought I would, despite it lacking from the setting several of the things that really hit my sweet spots in The Lake of Dead Languages - namely, Latin, very cold weather and a lot of loving descriptions of ice, and a lesbian romance subplot. The Seduction of Water ranks third on this list for sure. Because of the order I was reading the books, it seemed as though each plot was a more simplified and obvious derivative of the last. I could predict everything that was going to happen in The Seduction of Water and the romance felt annoyingly a little forced in for me. I couldn't even enjoy the more lyrical parts of the book, and the initial setting of New York City felt completely out of character and fake to me. I was not "there" at all. Now I am realizing (or actually I knew this at the time but am only beginning to think about it as i write this) that I've read these books in the complete reverse order from which they were written. I think Carol Goodman has become more subtle and more skilled as an author. If you liked The Seduction of Water at all you will probably love the other two books, because they are on the whole, I think, a lot better.
—Megan
The book opens as Iris Greenfelder is recalling how she would feel when her mother told her her favorite bedtime story, "The Selkie's Daughter." The story is Iris' main connection to her mother. Iris was the daughter of Kay & Ben Greenfelder, who ran (not owned) the Hotel Equinox, a grand place high up in the Catskills in the woods. The selkie is a seal who, twice a year, shed her skin & became a woman for a night. The catch is she can be caught by capturing her shed skin & taking it home. This happens, in Kay's story, and the woman is released by her only daughter after years of being married and having children. The woman weaves her daughter a beautiful net of tears made from sea foam. Pay attention, readers -- what Goodman has done has used the "story within a story" device here so you must pay attention to detail.Iris squeaks by on a meager salary, teaching a class here & there at a local college & at the nearby prison. She decides through a series of events that maybe she could write about her mother, perhaps a memoir. Her mom was an author, who wrote two books of fantasy based on the Selkie story and evidently, there was to be a third which gave the conclusion of the story, but before this could happen, Kay was killed in a fire. Many people thought there was a third story, but it never surfaced. Iris thinks that if there is a story, it is hidden at the hotel somewhere, and she wants to find it, read it, and use it in her work about her mother. She actually writes a short story based on the story her mother told to her, it gets published in a literary journal and Iris' life begins to change from there. It seems that Iris is not the only person who is interested in her mother's final work.Suffice it to say that the search for the book & Iris' quest for answers about her mother bring herto some startling revelations.The book flows very nicely until the end, where everything seems rushed! However, to her credit, the author's ending is not predictable. You'll find yourself left wondering about some things, but overall it was a very good read. Actually, now that I think about it, I liked this one better than Lake of Dead Languages.highly recommendedread: 11/18/2005
—Nancy Oakes
