Seattle Press on Line - Private, at Last: Peter S. Beagle

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Private, at Last: Peter S. Beagle

By Stephen Herold

Apr 25, 2002 -- Every artist, visual or literary, has a unique essence or feeling they cast over us that is quite distinct from the images or words they produce. We quickly recognize a work by Bosch, Monet or Yeats and our being responds with a deep emotional reaction to the world they create. To a degree we are trained and conditioned to react thus, but much of this "feeling" is the true magic and creativity of the artist. I feel it is even more mysterious with written works as the medium is clearly an artificial byproduct of our civilization.

In recent years one of the most powerful tools of a writer has been to cast a slightly bizarre twist to life and then reap the new and startling viewpoints that world yields about our own hum-drum reality. Tom Robbins is an excellent example of a writer who postulates a strange turn to life and creates thought provoking visions with perfectly crafted verbal imagery. Yet, long before him, Peter S. Beagle achieved equal clarity with a softer and more whimsical style that is so easy to read and hard to forget. The Last Unicorn explores how that last unicorn felt about his life and man's impatient need to hunt them for the empty reasons of magical fulfillment and manly prowess. Every time I read it I feel the timeless sadness, a social criticism and a comfort in the gentleness of Beagle's words.

Deeper and more directly relevant to us today is Beagle's A Fine and Private Place since it builds not on ancient myth but our everyday world, albeit a graveyard. A raven, a gifted misfit and a host of the dead are our actors, and although Jonathan Rebeck does most of the action and reflecting it is the raven who starts, finishes and orchestrates the book. Despite there being no human messages from beyond the grave we have shaped our religion and mythology to pursuit of life after "death." Beagle builds his story by blending the deeper awareness of hermits with acceptance of "ghosts" and hauntings. Rebeck can't handle the world and squats in an unlocked tomb in a NY cemetery. Fed and supplied by the cunning of his friendly raven, the ancient servant of the gods and now man, who plays the role of Sancho Panza to Rebeck's ignoble and gentle Don Quixote.

Separation of the spirit from the body is anciently described and a factor of modern medical "near death" cases. So Jonathan can see and "speak" to people who are clearly dead, but they slowly "forget" and so fade away with time, and they can't leave the confines of the cemetery. Their world is so very, and ultimately, "private" in a social life so lacking in deep privacy, and only Rebeck can penetrate it. Consider the entrance into our scene of Michael, recently deceased:

"He would have liked his own funeral if he could have seen it. It was small and quiet, and really not at all pompous, as Michael had feared it might be. 'The dead,' he had said once, 'need nothing from the living, and the living can give nothing to the dead.' At 22, it had sounded precocious; at 34, it sounded mature, and this pleased Michael very much. Essentially a romantic, he had put away the trappings of romance, although he had loved them deeply and never known."

Seventeen years Rebeck has been there, and our story is of how that hidden life breaks up with the coming of Michael and two women--Laura and Mrs. Klapper, a.k.a. Gertrude. In between we have an exploration of human and paranormal society and come to a warm and nurturing finale as the raven drifts away:

"Mr. Rebeck pointed to where the sky was the color of the bricks in the new houses. He saw a bird flying. It was the only bird in the sky, just as they were the only people walking on the street. It was far away, flying in wide unhurried circles, contemplating the world on which its shadow fell with the arrogance that all flying things have. He thought it might be the raven, and wished that he had had a chance to say good-by, although it would have meant nothing to the raven. But men must always say good-by to things."

Marvelous stuff and a pleasant read, until we say good-by to it. Fairly popular when he was first published in the early 1960s, Beagle sprang to cult status in the early 1970s when inexpensive paperback editions made him available to his natural audience. Younger, hip and laid back, they felt at home in Beagle's world, and you may too.

Stephen Herold is a scholar, poet and calligrapher who spends his life creating books and running wonderful bookstores. He currently runs Books AtoZ, a digital publishing service company, and Wit's End Bookstore & Teashop in Fremont.

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