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The Innkeeper's Song: A Novel

The Innkeeper's Song: A Novel

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I would also like to gush...
Review: ...about Peter Beagle. He writes simple stories that mean more to you the more you read them. He has a quirky and ironic way of writing that makes him fantasy's answer to Vonnegut. I read this book from a proof copy I found at a used book store, which meant it had quite a few typos and some missing lines, which did not make it any less endearing.

This story plays with the form, much like Vonnegut did in Slaughter-House Five. Instead of coming unstuck in time, Beagle's story comes unstuck in narrator, as each chapter is told from inside a different head than the last. By the end, you know all the characters so well it's hard to let go.

This book was a little hard to find, but the search made it sweeter. It is more mature than the Last Unicorn-- there is a sex scene that's probably too vivid for youngsters-- but if you're old enough to handle it, you will enjoy this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An improper death and its consequences
Review: According to the Peter S. Beagle fan-site, the author composed a song of the Innkeeper, before he wrote a book from his song---rather like Samuel Taylor Coleridge writing a fantasy novel about Xanadu, years after he had composed his poem of like name:

"...A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!"

The "Innkeeper's" world is also savage and enchanted, and haunted by a weaver wailing for his drowned lover. Not only does he wail; Tikat, the weaver's apprentice seeks after his lover when a wizard raises her from the bottom of the river and steals her away.

Although many readers may know and love Beagle's fantasy "The Last Unicorn," few of them probably know that he also writes songs. To the inn,

"There came three ladies at sundown: /one was as brown as bread is brown, /one was black, with a sailor's sway, /and one was pale as the moon by day."

I wish I could hum the tune for you.

This book reminds me of the author's "A Fine and Private Place," as both are about the dead who refuse to die, or are not allowed to stay dead because of love or other unfinished business.

"Innkeeper" is told from numerous points of view---something I don't normally like--- but Beagle consummately weaves his characters' stories together into a single time and place. His tapestry is almost complete by the time three women come to stay at an inn called `The Gaff and Slasher.' We learn of the already-woven pattern through flashbacks and dialogue.

The innkeeper, Karsh knows that the three women are going to cause trouble:

"The white one wore an emerald ring, /the brown led a fox on a silver string, /and the black one carried a rosewood cane /with a sword inside, for I saw it plain."

The fox-who-is-not-a-fox immediately slaughters one of the innkeeper's chickens. The women hunt for a dying wizard, and keep the rest of his guests awake all night with their fighting and chanting. A starving boy collapses in his yard.

When brought back to life the boy, Tikat yearns hopelessly after the woman who "was pale as the moon by day."

She doesn't remember who he is.

"The Innkeeper's Song" won a Locus Award and the Mythopoetic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature in 1994. It really is that good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An Elegant Fantasy Which Transcends Genre
Review: Beagle is one of the finest fantasy novelists currently writing, and for those who hunger for mature and literate stories his work appears far too infrequently. As in "The Last Unicorn" or "The Folk Of The Air", his writing rises far beyond the typical trappings of sword & sorcery. In "The Innkeeper's Song", Beagle starts us off with what appear to be recognizeable fantasy cliches - the old wizard, hard-bitten mercenaries, the crotchety taverner - and then stands each of them on their heads. Instead, Beagle weaves a subtle, intricate tale of deception, loyalty, and love, in which the characters having the adventure are at least as important as the adventure itself. By writing each chapter from the first-person perspective of a different character, he not only underscores differences in perception, but takes the reader deep inside each of his literary creations. In the hands of a lesser writer, this would be nothing but an annoying gimmick. But under Beagle's masterful guidance, it serves to make these characters living, breathing people. From hard, competent swordswoman Lal, to the dreamy stableboy Rosseth, to fat, cynical innkeeper Karsh, the reader comes to know them like old friends. A marvelous story which will linger in the mind long after the last page is read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beagle is the best, and he just gets better and better.
Review: Beagle is the best, and he just gets better and better. This is the third time I've gead this book, and I can't praise it highly enough. A thrilling (and sexy) adventure/fantasy, and so much more--the world he creates here is as powerful as Leguin's Earthsea, and his magic is equally profound and moving. And on each return, the book deepens. Very, very fine.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantasic...
Review: How quickly Harry Potter became second on my list of favorite books after reading this. The journey is long and imaginative, and I could not put it down. If you are in need of escaping the horror of our current life on this planet, open this book. You will feel as though you are in the taverns and on the less traveled roads in this story. You will soon come to love the fox, and the love story, and the magic and danger. It is a story told from many points of view, each chapter titled after the character telling the story from that point. Sometimes you will go back and sometimes you will hear the last chapter all over again, and never with a lull in the pace. Peter S. Beagle is a master of words and storytelling. He takes the fantasy genre and pushes it onward with the stroke of genius he used to write this little novel. I highly recommend investing a few hours into this story, and the limits of your imagination will be forever changed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A heretical take on Peter S Beagle
Review: I kept hearing about Peter S Beagle, so I kept trying his books. I read about half of "The Last Unicorn", and couldn't be bothered to finish it. I read "A Fine and Private Place", and it was OK - well written and unusual, but that's as far as I would go. Then I read "The Folk of the Air" and I thought: what is a writer this good, doing writing a book like that? Is it a famous author, writing a "genre" book under a pseudonym, or what?

And then I read "The Inkeeper's Song" and I fell hopelessly, shamelessly in love with it. Never mind the obligatory supernatural climax, which thankfully does not end the book. Never mind some quibbles about plot mechanics. The book is populated by compellingly vivid characters, who by the end become utterly real people, living in a real world. This is writing of a quality verging on magical, which leaves one with the lasting impression of knowing the book's characters in all their quirky, individual humanity - and caring for them!

So, ignore those who say that "The Inkeeper's Song" is not up to Beagle's best standard. It IS Beagle's best standard! Just don't read it in the "quick - what happens next?" frame of mind. Read it, and get to know Rosseth, Neyteneri, Lal (Swordcane Lal, Saylor Lal, Lal Alone, Lal After Dark) and all the others. It is worth it. Believe me it is worth it! And I don't rave easily.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A heretical take on Peter S Beagle
Review: I kept hearing about Peter S Beagle, so I kept trying his books. I read about half of "The Last Unicorn", and couldn't be bothered to finish it. I read "A Fine and Private Place", and it was OK - well written and unusual, but that's as far as I would go. Then I read "The Folk of the Air" and I thought: what is a writer this good, doing writing a book like that? Is it a famous author, writing a "genre" book under a pseudonym, or what?

And then I read "The Inkeeper's Song" and I fell hopelessly, shamelessly in love with it. Never mind the obligatory supernatural climax, which thankfully does not end the book. Never mind some quibbles about plot mechanics. The book is populated by compellingly vivid characters, who by the end become utterly real people, living in a real world. This is writing of a quality verging on magical, which leaves one with the lasting impression of knowing the book's characters in all their quirky, individual humanity - and caring for them!

So, ignore those who say that "The Inkeeper's Song" is not up to Beagle's best standard. It IS Beagle's best standard! Just don't read it in the "quick - what happens next?" frame of mind. Read it, and get to know Rosseth, Neyteneri, Lal (Swordcane Lal, Saylor Lal, Lal Alone, Lal After Dark) and all the others. It is worth it. Believe me it is worth it! And I don't rave easily.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Something new at last
Review: I was waiting for this. A fantasy novel that doesn't involve games of state (I guess I should say kingdom), plots of kings and princes, teenage hero + party of five deliver world from evil doom, or the quest for the magic sword. Instead, you get treated to a very quiet tale about a couple of characters who all converge at an inn. No earth-shattering battles. Rather, the tale deals with questions of loyalty and friendship in a very personal way, never overdoing it, not going for the cheap drama. If the plot is rather simple, the book more than makes up for it with the characters and world-building. Beautiful writing and a fresh taste.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Weird, troubling, touching, beautiful, unforgettable
Review: Peter Beagle has a reputation as a young adult's author -- why, I'll never know. I didn't much like him as a teenager, but the older I get, the more I admire and enjoy his fantasies. The Innkeeper's Song is a beautiful book, but certainly better for 30 than 13 -- unless, perhaps, for a 13-year-old who has already had to deal with death. It concerns attempts to cheat death by magic, and the strange and unforeseen consequences, both good and ill, of raising a drowned young woman from the dead. The book is also noteworthy for a varied and unforgettable cast of characters who take turns narrating the story, giving the reader many perspectives on the same events and aiding suspense by concealing certain facts until the narrator shifts to someone in the know. Beagle's writing is so beautiful it's practically musical. I recommend this book highly to anyone who loves fantasy, folklore, mythology, and the grand old tradition of storytelling.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Weird, troubling, touching, beautiful, unforgettable
Review: Peter Beagle has a reputation as a young adult's author -- why, I'll never know. I didn't much like him as a teenager, but the older I get, the more I admire and enjoy his fantasies. The Innkeeper's Song is a beautiful book, but certainly better for 30 than 13 -- unless, perhaps, for a 13-year-old who has already had to deal with death. It concerns attempts to cheat death by magic, and the strange and unforeseen consequences, both good and ill, of raising a drowned young woman from the dead. The book is also noteworthy for a varied and unforgettable cast of characters who take turns narrating the story, giving the reader many perspectives on the same events and aiding suspense by concealing certain facts until the narrator shifts to someone in the know. Beagle's writing is so beautiful it's practically musical. I recommend this book highly to anyone who loves fantasy, folklore, mythology, and the grand old tradition of storytelling.


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