The Last Uniform; Beagle
I would like to preface this by saying that my copy of The Last Unicorn had a cover emblazoned by a blaring, Lisa-Frank drawing of an enormous fucking unicorn gazing wistfully into a peaceful forest pool. I was mortified and clutched it face down at ALL TIMES so that no one would look at me with the eyes of judgment. The eyes of judgment being all "Jesus Christ, STOP GOING TO RENN FAIRES." Now with that out of the way:
The last unicorn, her incompetent and quarrelsome posse, and a quest.
Lyrically written and a thrumming with a love affair with lush, delectable description, Beagle's The Last Unicorn is a complicated book, that twists its way around all the tropes of the fantasy genre. The story is lovely and rich* and swimming in what are either contradictions or full-blown schizophrenia.
Personally, I prefer the latter half of the novel; the first half rests a little too handily on Creatures of Magnificent Beauty, Complicated Resolutions, and Heroic Emotions That I Will Not Explain At The Moment Because What Are You Dumb? Which sounds like a book by David Eggers and NO DO NOT WANT. Things that are on notice: stunted characters and cruel morality. Peter Beagle, if you are reading this, I will have you know that I LIKED THAT WITCH and I think it was balls of you to stomp her like that.
However, the second act, with King Haggard is beautifully tempered with a sympathy and uneasy tension missing from the first half. Beagle's tendency for soaring elegiac description is curbed by the humanity of his characters, and the added complications introduce a beautiful undercurrent of uncertainty and wistfulness**. However, the novel as a whole ends on a (relatively) upbeat note, in that the villain is vanquished, the unicorns are free and fabulous, the gayness marches on, and (mostly) everyone's alive! Take this in comparison to The Once and Future King, in which The End is basically preceded by EVERYBODY DIES, BALLS TO WIZARDRY.
* Reading through a few chapters of The Last Unicorn is a bit like eating your way out of a vat of delicious, buttermilk custard.
** A plusses especially to Beagle's unsparing but tender depiction of King Haggard. Little known fact: King Haggard can kick Holden Caulfield's ass any damn day.
