A Fine and Private Place

It's rare that I find a book that speaks to me on the level this book did. It's a quiet story. The kind that would make a terrible movie. The hush of the grave is over every paragraph of this book except Mrs. Klapper whose very name disturbs the otherwise melancholy tone.

I knew Beagle has a gift with language that is really unparalleled in any other modern writer. I'm still a bit amazed that this book was written over 50 years ago because so little of it is bound to that time period. The characters are as real and present as anyone I have ever met or lost, and they surprised me as anyone I have ever met or lost.

However, I think the real strength of the book is in its mood, in the attitude it casts over the reader and the questions it forces you to ask yourself. At one point, Rebeck stops and yells about how he's not a good man, not a great man, not anything. He never lied about it! He makes honesty into an excuse. It reminds me how often I've played that card, how often I sit on the steps and wait for whatever is intimidating me to move along. Yet it does all this at a whisper while you feel the ivy growing over the headstones.

I hesitate to lump this book on a fantasy shelf, because its really more of a parable that uses fantastic elements to get its points across. The book makes no excuses for any of its fantasy, but just asks the reader to accept it and move on, which is, I suppose another point of the book. The book is strange and beautiful and heart-wrenching and hiding a great number of secrets, just like the world it subtly insists we can live in, if we like.

This book is a charming, slice-of-life type exploration of several very different characters' lives – the many difference between them being that some are no longer alive at all. I found Rebeck and the other living characters (even the raven) very sympathetic, and I rooted for them throughout the book. I didn't especially care for Michael or Laura at first, but they grew on me. The plot is quiet and philosophical for the most part up until some interesting twists at the end. Knowing Peter Beagle (I adore his other books), I expected that and was happily along for the ride. To a friend I would probably recommend Beagle's other stories first (especially In Calabria and, of course, The Last Unicorn), but this book is a lovely reflection on life, especially for someone who prefers less fantasy and unicorns in their magical realism/fairy tales. :)