A Fine and Private Place
by Peter S. Beagle
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 360)
Read in October, 2007
When I first read this book I began reading it while waiting for the subway train to arrive and I continued once I got on. By the time I had reached my stop I was still reading and decided, with a glance at my watch, just to keep riding and reading for a while longer. Essentially, I continued reading until the train reached the end of the line and then returned from the other direction back to my stop - at that point, I finally surrendered to the painful reality that I would have to pause my rea...more
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Read in April, 2008
I picked up this book on the street because it's written by the same guy who wrote The Last Unicorn, a book that I absolutely loved as a kid. This one is about some people who are dead and hanging around the graveyard as ghosts while they slowly forget everything about living and when they finish forgetting they will just go to sleep forever. And there's a living guy who is the only one who can see them, presumably because he is more occupied with death than life (he lives in the cemetary and ...more
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Read in May, 2007
I love "The Last Unicorn"--I've probably re-read it at least half a dozen times. When I saw "A Fine & Private Place" in the bookstore yesterday, a special re-released version of a yet unread Peter Beagle book, I had to get it. I flew through it on a stunning day at the beach. There are a couple of lines in here that were particularly gorgeously crafted and followed me throughout the book. Apt, since it's a book about ghosts and hauntings.
Surprisingly, it doesn't r...more
Surprisingly, it doesn't r...more
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Read in November, 2005
This is a very interesting and original story, with a lovely mix of humor with thoughtful ideas, written in Beagle's unmistakably magical style. A story of ghosts who cannot and refuse to give up their lives, memories and feelings. A story of living people that go through life in a strange, fearful existance, with little communication with the outside world. And a story of a raven, which is the most delightfully funny creature in the book.
Granted, reading each chapter of this look took me as...more
Granted, reading each chapter of this look took me as...more
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"He knew very well that the great majority of human conversation is meaningless. A man can get through most of his days on stock answers to stock questions, he thought. Once he catches onto the game, he can manage with an assortment of grunts. This would not be so if people listened to each other, but they don't. They know that no one is going to say anything moving and important to them at that very moment. Anything important will be announced in the newspapers and reprinted for those who ...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
ann coyle, bruce caster, janet pickel, sue tanner,
I read this book decades ago and loved it. That paperback edition is now brittle as crackers, so I ordered the latest edition to read again. I've already got three books on my "currently reading" list, but started to peek at this one over breakfast one Saturday morning, and couldn't peel myself away before I'd gotten well into it. I am very glad I did Sweet, sad, funny, and wise, "Fine and Private Place" left much more of an impression on me than Beagle's much better-known Th
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Read in January, 1975
recommends it for:
Anyone
How many authors can set a romantic comedy in a cemetery, with a cast including some of the residents, and make it work? Beagle is a wonderful storyteller, and I loved this book. He makes his characters feel real and makes the reader (me, at least) care deeply about them and their joys and hurts, and he balances it with a light and funny streak of absurdity. As a writer, this is the kind of thing that makes me jealous, at the same time it makes me want to be a writer more than ever.
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I read this over the summer and I cannot let go of it. This is probably one of the most important books I've ever read, and so beautiful ... it's a story about ghosts, and the finiteness of the things we hold dear, and the pursuit of happiness, and how powerful fear is, and how doing the right thing is necessary and damn inconvenient and irresistible, like love. My favorite character is the raven, with his raven-logic and perspective and upfront language.
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recommends it for:
everyone
I may actually like this book more than "The Last Unicorn." It's smaller in scope, set more in reality than fantasy (once you get over the premise of the main characters being ghosts and talking ravens), and humble, but it's also beautiful. I'm amazed at how young Beagle was when he wrote this. I can't help but cry my eyes out at the end, every single goddamn time, and I must've read it at least five times over the years.
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Read in November, 1996
recommends it for:
fans of romance and fantasy
Most authors first novels are not their best, but I like this almost as much as The Last Unicorn and much more than Peter S. Beagle's more recent works. Believe it or not, it's a love story set in a cemetery, and if that sounds morbid to you, I promise that it isn't. Some characters are living and some are dead, but they way they communicate makes this a really original and special book.
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Read in January, 2000
I've tried, but haven't really enjoyed anything else I've read by Peter S. Beagle—my inner 12 year old girl just wasn't strong enough for The Last Unicorn—but something about this book is incredibly affecting. Sad in that makes-you-smile sort of way. One of those books that I would actually be a little nervous to read again, in case in doesn't live up to my memory of it.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
recommends it for:
fantasy lovers
I like this book. It's a good one. A man basically decides to live in a cemetary (the title of the book is a line from Andrew Marvell's poem, "To His Coy Mistress"). He has a few companions - a raven that stops by to visit him on occasion, and I think there might be ghosts in this, but I can't remember, it was a while ago.
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Yes, this is the guy who wrote The Last Unicorn. This book is about a man who dies, comes back as a ghost, finds out that he can only “haunt” the cemetery he’s in, and falls in love with another ghost. It’s a lot less hokey than it sounds, and in fact, it’s downright gorgeous. A modern-day fairy tale.
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recommends it for:
people who like ghostly love stories and smart-ass, cantankerous corvids
It's a pity that Peter Beagle got somewhat pigeon-holed into writing about unicorns, with the success of The Last Unicorn, because he writes ravens so very well. In fact, you could expand that to 'he writes all things on the fringes of reality so very well,' but I happen to be particular to the raven.
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Read in January, 1995
recommends it for:
anyone
This is one of my favorite books, from one of my favorite authors. I love Peter S. Beagles' writing. He just has a beautiful way of putting... everything. This is a sweet tale of ghosts, and a man who speaks with ghosts, and a crow. It's.... perfect. Just perfect.
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Read in July, 2008
Gentle, sad, depressing-as-hell-while-somehow-uplifting.
I don't know that I enjoyed this book. Respected it? Admired it? Hell yeah. And compelled to finish. But I didn't ever take it into my bedroom to read. I didn't trust it enough to befriend it.
I don't know that I enjoyed this book. Respected it? Admired it? Hell yeah. And compelled to finish. But I didn't ever take it into my bedroom to read. I didn't trust it enough to befriend it.
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Read in February, 2007
If Unicorn is a Hyacinth, then this book is a daisy. In that it is lighter and more subtle, but it is beautiful in its simplicity and freshness. I don't know, there's nothing more I can do than compare his books to flowers.
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Because I so loved The Last Unicorn I also bought this book. And while I did enjoy it, it's not as good as TLU. It plods a bit and the ghost characters are somewhat vague. There are some great bits in there though.
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Read in June, 2008
This book was very sweet, but also rather tedious. I suppose for a first novel, and written at the age of 19, it's very impressive. I really enjoyed its insight into the human condition.
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Read in March, 2008
Eh. It was ok. Definitely very melancholy and stuffed full of supposedly deep philosophical thoughts, but not a book I enjoyed overmuch. Took awhile to get through.
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