Of course when I say that, I’m being disingenuous. My biggest complaint is that I could see the twist coming and knew what would happen. There is so much that I like about the book and these characters that critiquing elements feels almost rude. Beagle, those details, those lives, can also be the foundation of a work of fantasy. He’s not interested in writing that book, though.įor Peter S. He could probably gain a lot more readers and make a lot more money if he did that. To find and depict the quotidian in new ways, to capture colorful people falling in and out of love, having adventure, struggling to maintain the status quo and abandon what they’ve built. He could write a series of realistic novels with complex characters with messy lives and immerse us in the drama of their ordinary but colorful lives. The way that Beagle writes them for chapter after chapter without fantasy intruding – and then for many more chapters with the fantastic at the edges of the action – demonstrate that if he wanted to, he could write a completely realistic novel.
These are not fable-like characters, they are precisely rendered, quirky and unique individuals with rich full lives, walking contradictions, and struggles. The book is about Abe and Joanna and her daughter Lily. The Last Unicorn is this lovely fable, but the truth is that Beagle’s great talent lies in the fact that he writes fantasy stories that are not fairy tales. I don’t say this to be petty, but I was reminded of this fact reading the first chapter of Summerlong. Maybe I should admit up front that while I like The Last Unicorn, it’s never been my favorite book of Beagle’s. He was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where he overlapped with people like Ken Kesey and Larry McMurtry. His second book was I See By My Outfit, a nonfiction account of traveling cross country by scooter. His first novel was A Fine and Private Place, which todays is considered a modern classic of fantasy, but it was an unusual book that stood out for many reasons both then and now.
Of course it’s easy to forget that he wasn’t always thought of in those terms. Over the years he’s written for film and TV, short stories and novels. His second novel, The Last Unicorn, has become a classic and has been turned into an animated film, a play and a comic. Beagle is a writer whose name has become synonymous with modern fantasy.
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