Tag: the last unicorn

This time for Once Upon a Time, I’d decided to read some of those books that I find people from other corners of the world raving about, starting with The Princess Bride by William Goldman. I spent my childhood reading an assortment of fairy tales, then Enid Blyton, later Harry Potter and the occasional Roald Dahl. I can’t say I enjoyed many classics. For the last couple of years, I tried my hand at all the books, especially fantasy, that fellow readers read as they grew up – from modern authors like Diana Wynne Jones to good oldies like C. S. Lewis. So with that in mind, I decided to read The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. 

Instead of a dull summary and review, here’s what you get. FIVE Reasons You Must Read THE LAST UNICORN by Peter S. Beagle:

1. There’s a horrible king, a curse by a wicked witch, there’s a wizard and a forest full of magic, and then you have an immortal unicorn. But this book is still not your typical medieval fantasy. When the last unicorn in the world sets out one day to find out where the rest of her kind went, she is trapped by a travelling carnival of sorts, where she is displayed along with other creatures, a lion magicked into a manticore, a poor dog disguised as the mighty Cerberus; a spider tricked into believing itself Arachne, a magician who can’t control his magic and a real harpy. But the unicorn is freed by the not-quite magician Schmendrick, who accompanies her on her quest to find the Red Bull, who has chased all the unicorns out of the world. The twists and turns make the story enchanting, but it’s most rare because it knows itself, it’s an unusual fairy tale that is self-aware.

2. But then, it also has tradition. It has rhyme; songs and ballads; at one point, it has Robin Hood, though we all know he’s not real. There are singing birds and a butterfly who can make sense of nothing but poems his whole short life. There’s Madame Fortuna, who runs a carnival and sings the song of old age.

Song of Elli

What is plucked will grow again

What is slain lives on,

What is stolen will remain — 

What is gone is gone.

What is sea-born dies on land,

Soft is trod upon.

What is given burns the hand —

What is gone is gone.

Here is there, and high is low;

All may be undone.

What is true, no two men know —

What is gone is gone.

Who has choices need not chose.

We must, who have none.

We can love but what we lose — 

What is gone is gone.

3. And it has descriptions that make you heady. 

Her neck was long and slender, making her head seem smaller than it was, and
the mane that fell almost to the middle of her back was as soft as dandelion
fluff and as fine as cirrus. She had pointed ears and thin legs, with feathers
of white hair at the ankles; and the long horn above her eyes shone and
shivered with its own seashell light even in the deepest midnight.
.

4. But it’s not only the imagery that grips you. It has characters so real you’ll find yourself in them. They are human, and I guess unicorn and wizard and eccentrically butterfly, but even in their dissimilarity, you find what it is to be human. You could owe it to the narrator who makes all characters unlike your fantasy tropes. Prince Lir, the hero, is valiant as only a prince can be, and he’s compassionate, but you’re not told it. 

5. But more than anything, it has insight. Such great insight into people, mortality, selfless love and dwindling belief; that you wonder how a kid is supposed to understand it, then you realize he would and then you recognize that the book is right up there with the bests of fantasy; the books that tuck away great meaning under layers of intrigue, so that when you’re done, you’re overjoyed and also kind of melancholic, and filled to the brim with thoughts you wouldn’t have imagined an entertaining adventure could bring to mind.