Customer Reviews

A Fine and Private Place

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

I loved Peter Beagle's novel "The Last Unicorn," so when I came across this book I thought I'd give it a try. Beagle's genius is in his language, using similies and metaphors with superb art, and never once sounding pompous. It is like having a conversation with a wizened old friend. This feeling is as evident here as in his most popular novel.

The story itself plods along at a slow pace, with very little action to speak of. You feel much like the main characters of the story; recently deceased with very little to do but sit around and wax philosophical. It is a highly unique piece, with a different take on the afterlife. The novel will certainly leave you pondering your owns views about life after death, as well as contemplating the preoccupation the living have with the dead.

This gothic story follows several characters, such as a man who has withdrawn from the outside world and now lives in a graveyard, along with newly deceased ghosts and a no-nonsense raven. Very dialogue heavy and thought provoking, providing different perspectives on what life and death mean to different people. You will be touched by this story while pondering your own existence and actions.

I have never read a Peter Beagle book that I did not fall in love with. My very favorite being "Folk of the Air". His style is unique, ironic, and beautiful. "A Fine and Private Place" is one of the true masterpieces of this age.

It's been revised? How can Peter S. Beagle improve on perfection? I read this book first over 25 years ago and it has stayed with me ever since. I think of it randomly several times a year and have read it several times. It's one of the few that I have read that I can always think of the title and author when it enters my thinking or a discussion I'm having. If you haven't read it, do yourself the favor, but set aside plently of time to devour it in one fell swoop because you will not want to put it down. Now I guess I'll have to read the revised version because I have to know how Beagle might have managed to improve on this wonderful, beautiful, exceptional story! It will certainly be MY PLEASURE!

If they haven't already made a movie out of this book, they should. I loved this story of love in the afterlife. Beagle is one of my favorite authors.

I dare anyone to read the first two paragraphs and not be completely entranced. I did, at the University of Rochester Book Store in the late 1960s, and I've bought more than a dozen copies since. Beagle's writing is sublime, his imagination seductive. And while I've been a fan of science fiction since childhood, I'd never have said I liked fantasy, but this may be the exception. Perhaps it's not fantasy but metaphysics? While it is hard to describe this book in a paragraph, it's certain to grab your fancy and just not let go.

Been reading Peter S. Beagle ever since he wrote magazine articles; fell in love with the Last Unicorn and wished he'd asked me to illustrate it, and A Fine & Private Place is another one like that. I've never spent any time in New York, but the characters ring true, and the story is wonderful.

Authors are supposed to get better with age, and Beagle, for my money, has gotten uneven instead(I had a hard time forgiving him for a couple of his short story collections, not to mention the book about the cat). But in this book he does not dip into maudlin nor stretch your credulity until it tears (Folk of the Air does both several times, although it too is a good story and well told). This is pure, vintage Beagle with a great story.

I'm so glad to see this back in print.

This book is about being human, being alive, being caught in time ... one of my favorites and, like another reviewer, I re-read it every few years.

I'm not a fan of what I would characterize as Goth fantasy novels. This is well written, with interesting characters- if you buy a talking raven and a man living in a mausoleum for 20 years without being noticed by the living. Would I cling to the fading memories of life as a final relic of mortality? I read on.