The lamentable Harry Potter books, on the other hand, skirt the sources of Magic entirely. For example, the very subject of Magic, and whence come its roots and meaning, is a very tricky thing to pull off-witness Ursula Le Guin’s triumph in her wonderful Earthsea series, where Magic derives its power from the Naming of Names. “We are in a fairy tale,” says Schmendrick, “and must go where it goes.”īeagle’s lyric and singing prose limns the action with a magic spell of its own. The Magician attains his true Magic, but now finds growing old a bittersweet victory.

“And what are their fates? To her regret, the Unicorn regains her immortality and spends eternity lamenting her lost love. The apprentice Magician, like the Unicorn, is immortal, but gaining the secret of the Ultimate Magic renders him mortal: “ Whatever can die is beautiful-more beautiful than a unicorn. The Unicorn, who is immortal, falls in love with a young knight and subsequently yearns for mortality. Here is a fairytale that ultimately celebrates the human state. While Magic and Mortality would seem to be mutually exclusive, as traditional fantasy has it, Beagle turns them on their heads, as it were.

I had read the book many years ago and so am very familiar with its story of a young Magician, Schmendrick, and his friend, a Unicorn, who go on a quest to the Castle of King Haggard to find the truth of Magic and Mortality. The novel’s opening words are iconic: “The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.” The occasion was a screening in Lawrence, KS of the 1982 film adaptation of his classic 1968 novel, The Last Unicorn. Recently I met and interviewed the esteemed fantasy writer, Peter S.

The last unicorn book peter s beagle