A Fine and Private Place, by Peter S. Beagle
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A Fine and Private Place, by Peter S. Beagle
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For 19 years, Jonathan Rebeck has hidden from the world within the confines of the Bronx’s Yorkchester Cemetery, making an abandoned mausoleum his secret home. He speaks with the newly dead as they pass from life to wherever spirits eventually go, providing them with comfort, an understanding ear, and even the occasional game of chess. But Mr. Rebeck’s reclusive life is soon to be disrupted. An impossible love has blossomed between two ghosts, and Rebeck himself is drawn to a living woman. Helped along by a cynical talking raven and a mysterious cemetery guard, these four souls must learn the true difference between life and death, and make choices that really are forever. Told with humor and an elegiac wisdom, Beagle’s first novel is a timeless work of fantasy, imbued with hope and wonder. This updated edition contains the author’s final revisions, and stands as the definitive edition of an enduring modern classic. “Synchronicity is a funny thing. There I was in my column, mentioning how A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE is one of my favorite books, and the next thing I know there is a new reprint of it sitting in my P.O. box. Now the fear I always have of going back to something I haven't reread in a long time is that it won't measure up to the warm affection I carry for it in my memories. But happily, that wasn't the case here. I didn't even mean to reread it. I simply thought I'd try a few pages to see how it fared and the next thing I knew it was late at night and I was half-way through... A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE is just as wonderful as I remembered it to be: beautifully written, the characters warmly drawn, the pages filled with conversations that range the gamut of the human condition. In these days of everything coming in quick sound bites, at a faster and faster pace, Beagle's novel might seem quaint as it takes its time to tell its story. But you know, there's a reason that people still read Dickens and Austin, and there's a reason they'll appreciate this book: quality counts." —Charles de Lint, author of WIDDERSHINS and MOONHEART —Peter S. Beagle was born in 1939 and raised in the Bronx, just a few blocks from Woodlawn Cemetery, the inspiration for his first novel, A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE. Today, thanks to classic works such as THE LAST UNICORN, TAMSIN, and THE INNKEEPER'S SONG, he is acknowledged as America's greatest living fantasy author; and his dazzling abilities with language, characters, and magical storytelling have earned him many millions of fans around the world. In addition to stories and novels Beagle has written numerous teleplays and screenplays, including the animated versions of THE LORD OF THE RINGS and THE LAST UNICORN, plus the fan-favorite “Sarek” episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. His nonfiction book I SEE BY MY OUTFIT, which recounts a 1963 journey across America on motor scooter, is considered a classic of American travel writing; and he is also a gifted poet, lyricist, and singer-songwriter. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Mythopoeic Awards, along with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Association, and also France's prestigious Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire.
A Fine and Private Place, by Peter S. Beagle- Amazon Sales Rank: #154108 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-11-01
- Released on: 2015-11-01
- Format: Kindle eBook
Amazon.com Review Conversing in a mausoleum with the dead, an eccentric recluse is tugged back into the world by a pair of ghostly lovers bearing an extraordinary gift--the final chance for his own happiness. When challenged by a faithless wife and aided by a talking raven, the lives of the living and the dead may be renewed by courage and passion, but only if not belatedly. Told with an elegiac wisdom, this delightful tale of magic and otherworldly love is a timeless work of fantasy imbued with hope and wonder. After multiple printings since 1960, this newest edition will contain the author's recent revisions and will stand as the definitive version of an ageless classic.
Questions for Peter S. Beagle
Jeff VanderMeer for Amazon.com: When you were writing A Fine and Private Place, did you have any idea it was going to have such staying power?
Beagle: No. Not at all, of course. When I was 19 years old I never thought in terms of classics or being permanently around. I'd known enough writers, even at that age, to see that what happens to your work is so far out of your control you simply can't afford to let that kind of concern enter your thinking.
Amazon.com: The publisher asked you to remove four chapters from the book. At the time, did you agree with the decision? Have your feelings about it changed over the years?
Beagle: At the time I was outraged. I fought every step of the way, and every sentence. Today I'm inordinately grateful to Marshall Best, the editor who did that. Marshall is long gone, so I just hope that back then I had sense and courtesy enough to say thank you. But I don't think I realized fully what his effect on the book had been until many years later. If it weren’t for him I don’t think the book would still be in print. He's also the one who came up with the title and the allusion to those marvelously appropriate lines from Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress"--I'd originally called the book The Dark City, after the way that Jonathan Rebeck saw the graveyard. Titles, sad to say, have never been my strong suit. Most of my best have actually come from friends or editors.
Amazon.com: To what extent are any of the characters in A Fine and Private Place autobiographical? I ask because the detail work in the novel, especially with regard to older people, seems so fresh and free of cliche.
Beagle: I think that A Fine and Private Place is very nearly, though not quite, my first attempt to capture the voices in the Bronx neighborhood where I grew up. Nobody is based on any one person, but there’s a piece here and a piece there was useful. I hung fire on creating Laura Durant, when it came time to bring her into the story, until I decided to base her physically--not emotionally, but physically--on a Pittsburgh actress I was in a play with. I just didn't know enough young women in those days. And there are scenes in there which people from the old neighborhood would recognize--when Mrs. Klapper goes into the Wireman's grocery, that is very much the little store on the corner across from my house. Yet even there I mixed things up. I think what keeps the book fresh isn't the fantasy, but the fact that I was trying very hard to make it real. To make the voices real. In the end it is always the voices, for me.
Amazon.com: Your books have, over the years, resonated with readers everywhere. Have reader reactions or opinions changed the way you think of the books?
Beagle: Only in the sense that they sometimes make me go back and look at them. When you do this writing thing day by day, you don't do a lot of reflecting on your own relationship to the old work. What does get me, though, is just how much the books have actually influenced the real lives of real people in ways I couldn't imagine. That’s enormously touching for me.
Amazon.com: One of my favorite moments in your fiction is when the true Medieval infringes on the fake Medieval in The Folk of the Air. You manage to convey a real sense of the alien perspective--a sense that if we were to travel back in time, we might find our ancestors as hard to understand as we would creatures from outer space. Did you research your way into that moment and that effect, or...?
Beagle: I've thought about it a lot, having read a great deal of history (my father was a history teacher). And there are fiction writers out there who are so good at bringing the literal stink of a certain period into your nostrils as you read...well, for me they are intimidating, because there are novels I'd like to write based on certain historical events that I'm just not sure I could. In the case of The Folk of the Air I did a lot of research, from many angles, because the real group that my imaginary one was based on didn't limit itself to a narrow span of time, but rather built characters and personas out of events as far back as the Viking era and as recent as 1650. And the history as presented in their gatherings wasn't necessarily the most accurate. So on the one hand I was trying to go for a certain sense of the real, when it does come, in contrast to some fanciful, semi-informed imaginings.
Amazon.com: What are you currently working on--and where should we look for your short fiction in the next year or so?
Beagle: In terms of short fiction, I've got a chapbook coming out from Dreamhaven Books early in 2008 called Strange Roads, with three stories inspired by the art of Lisa Snellings-Clark. There are also six or eight pieces of short fiction appearing in various original fantasy anthologies, magazines, and fiction websites, and I'm working on a quartet of season-themed stories that will premiere not in print, but as podcasts. That last set is for a wonderful little website called The Green Man Review. They did a whole special issue about me and also named me their official Oak King this year, so it's the least I could do. In terms of book-length work, 2008 is going to be absolutely crazy with original books and reprints. Just crazy. There are a couple of new novels finally coming out, a manga-style graphic adaptation of The Last Unicorn, several new collections, and at least two nonfiction books. I can hardly keep track of it all myself, so the best way for anyone to stay up to date would be to visit my website or Conlan Press, or just sign up for my free email newsletter, The Raven. Whatever else I might think about being 68, the simple fact is that I'm busier than ever. It's like George Burns used to say: "I can't die--I'm booked!"
Review "I can't think of a better book to buy for someone you love this holiday season."—Omnivoracious.com“One of literature’s most beautiful works about ghostly times and places...told with wit, charm, and a sense of individuality.”—New York Times Book Review“A Fine & Private Place is just as wonderful as I remembered it to be: beautifully written, the characters warmly drawn, the pages filled with conversations that run the gamut of the human condition.... It’s a great book in a lovely affordable package.”—Fantasy & Science Fiction“Both sepulchral and oddly appealing.... [Beagle’s] ectoplasmic fable has a distinct mossy charm.”—TIME Magazine “Delightful!”—San Francisco Chronicle“A sweet, sad, and smart novel about life, death and love...a book that has endured for a reason.”—The Agony Column“A wonderful work of literature...a gem of a novel.”—BookLoons “Over a cold beverage and a hot bowl of chili, Peter Beagle recently told me how he came to write A Fine & Private Place. He was just nineteen years old at the time, the length of time that Mr. Rebeck spent in that cemetery. He was working as a counselor at a boys’ summer camp. Once the campers were settled for the night there wasn’t much for the counselors to do. Those who had sweethearts at the girls’ camp across the lake would borrow canoes and paddle across to see them. Peter had no such luck, he told me, so he warmed up his rattly little portable typewriter, cracked open a ream of paper, and starting writing a book. We are all incredibly lucky that Peter had no girlfriend that summer.”—Dick Lupoff, SF Site“An amazing read.... If fantastically developed characters trapped between love and death appeal to you, this is a nearly perfect book.”—Paperblog
About the Author Peter S. Beagle is the best-selling author of The Last Unicorn, which has sold a reported five million copies since its initial publication in 1968. His other novels include A Fine & Private Place, The Innkeeper’s Song, and Tamsin. His short fiction has been collected in four volumes by Tachyon Publications, including The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, The Line Between, We Never Talk About My Brother, and Sleight of Hand. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, and Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire awards as well as the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
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Most helpful customer reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful. Priceless By G in Ohio I used to read this book at least once a year, although recently I've been too busy. But I'm about to start up again. This is a wonderful look at life and death, of people who are afraid to live and people who are afraid to die, and how in many ways they are the same fear. It is also a delicate romance, but not in the mushy or "romance novel" sense. It doesn't have the action and the sweep of some of Beagle's other books, but it has the depth and the heart.It doesn't plod, as the other reviewer said, but it is lovely and slow, written in the smooth and elegant prose that is the hallmark of Beagle's best work. Was he really only 19 when he wrote it? You know a great book by Beagle when you never want it to end, and this is one. It isn't like any other book, so I can't compare it to anything. Read it.
33 of 34 people found the following review helpful. my favorite love story (and by the way, I hate love stories) By Kevin D. Flythe Although undoubtedly most well-known for his novel "The Last Unicorn," Peter S. Beagle's "A Fine and Private Place" has always been a personal favorite of mine. The title is taken from the Andrew Marvell poem, "To His Coy Mistress." The line is as follows: "The grave's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace." The story Beagle tells in this novel is of two ghosts who in death find a richer love than ever they knew in life, a love which is all the more precious to them because its doom is that it cannot last.Peter Beagle is simply the most amazing writer ever (IMHO), and so I highly recommend all of his works. This one in particular, though, has always been special to me. The writing is so simple that it's beautiful. And the story of Michael and Laura's love is so touching,... there was a chapter in the book that was so painfully lovely that it actually brought tears to my eyes, one of only two times that I can remember being brought to tears by a book.I can't recommend it highly enough. It's amazing in so many ways. For one, nearly the entire book takes place in a single graveyard, a place which becomes so real to me that I wish it were indeed real so that I might be buried there myself. The characters are unforgettable as well. Even the talking raven is wonderful, whereas I usually abhor loquacious animals (look for the squirrel and the raven's conversation, it is hands down the most hilarious section of the novel!).Besides all that, it's a love story, which may be a plus to some of you. For the rest of you out there who hate love stories, I understand, becuase I hate them too. But Beagle's romance totally pulled me in. He has a way of doing that, you know, making me fall in love with things I thought I hated (see my review of The Last Unicorn).Don't miss it. If you've read The Last Unicorn then you know how great this guy writes, so go ahead and read it already! If not, pick it up anyway, then go out and read The Last Unicorn, Innkeeper's Song, Tamsin... you get the picture.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful. From Love, To Life By Patrick Shepherd What defines life? Where is the line between alive and dead? What makes life worth living? Sound like an outline for a course in philosophy? But these questions are what drives this lyrical, quiet, and unassuming story of two ghosts, a raven, a man caught somewhere in-between the living and the dead, and a very traditional Jewish widow.The raven has an attitude, but insists on dragging sandwiches to Mr. Rebeck, a pharmacist who decided to live in the cemetery many years ago. Mr. Rebeck is lonely most of the time, except when there is a new burial, for then that person's ghost will stick around a little while and keep him company, until the ghost forgets what it is to be human, to be alive.Michael Morgan and Laura are two such new ghosts. Each has a conflicted past, not fully remembered, and take different approaches to this new state of 'living', Michael trying fiercely to retain all he can of himself and his past, Laura trying to fully leave the world of the living. Mr. Rebeck suddenly finds himself with an unusually rich set of company, for besides Michael and Laura, he finds himself involved with the widow Mrs. Klapper, coming to visit the tomb of her husband.Each of these characters is finely delineated, their conversations with each other slowly illuminating their pasts, their ambitions, their fears, and their hopes. From a little evening singing, quiet walks, the raven bringing news of the outside world, the story is built bit by little bit, with no large dramatic moments until the very end. It is, in essence, a character study, and each character's approach to life imposes its message about life's meaning and purpose. There are some fairly deep philosophical ruminations presented within this, part and parcel of the story line, stated with ease and a poetic feel that suffuses this entire work, with the raven perhaps as the cynic to provide some balance and comedy relief. Ah, but the final point is the attraction these characters begin to feel for each other, all quite logical, even predictable, but the result we end with is a believable love story of both the dead and the living.Perhaps this work could have done with a little more action, a little more drama. But then again, adding such elements might have spoiled this poem in prose. Not perfect, but certainly one of the more unusual and very readable fantasy works I've read, with a set of ideas that possibly could not have been investigated in any other literary genre.--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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