I think I remember reading somewhere that this is Peter Beagle's favorite book that he's written.

I'm not entirely sure if I agree with that assessment, but there's no denying that he is truly in his element here.

He deftly juggles nearly a dozen narrators, voices, and plot threads, skillfully weaving them together into a tapestry so magical that one might suspect it could take flight.

Here, I can see elements of many of his other works. For instance, Lukassa feels like a strange homage to Amalthea.

However, this story is unique and belongs only to itself.

And, as is predictably the case with all of his works, it is full of the same agonizingly beautiful sadness.

The book is framed as the backstory of a folk rhyme called the Innkeeper's Song.

It takes a short sixteen-line rhyme and transforms it into nearly 300 pages filled with wizards, ill-fated lovers, hubris, secrets, and the wonders of the human heart.

It's difficult to say more without giving away all the best parts. Suffice it to say that for its mastery of narrative alone, this book comes highly recommended.

And as part of the fantasy canon that Beagle helped shape in the late sixties, it's more or less a must-read. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Just... maybe don't finish it right before bedtime, as it might leave you with a heavy heart and a mind full of wonder.

I don't think anything is ever going to top The Last Unicorn for me. However, The Innkeeper's Song by Beagle is a solid book.

When I read the summary, I thought it seemed like there were a lot of threads for a book under 350 pages. But it was really well done. The multiple viewpoints truly enhanced the story. I loved The Fox's chapters the most.

I wasn't a huge fan of the Soukyon reveal. But I do think it was done in good faith, which means something to me, especially considering when it was released.

The writing, of course, was gorgeous. Even when the plot didn't really grab me, the beauty of the language kept me engaged. Beagle has a way with words that makes his stories come alive.

Overall, The Innkeeper's Song is a book that I would recommend to fans of fantasy and beautiful writing. It may not be my absolute favorite, but it is definitely a worthy addition to any bookshelf.

This book just kind of floats by.

The romance between Lal and the subplot regarding the orphan Rosseth are, by far, the most interesting aspects.

However, these only constitute a small fraction of the entire book.

The main story, on the other hand, is completely dull.

The wizards lack any sort of appeal, and I find myself not really caring who ultimately emerges victorious in their conflicts.

It's a shame that the core of the book fails to engage, as the few bright spots in the form of the romance and the Rosseth subplot show promise.

Perhaps if more attention had been given to developing the main story and making the wizards more interesting characters, this book could have been a much more enjoyable read.

As it stands, it's a rather forgettable experience that simply passes by without leaving much of an impression.

You see, the thing you are most afraid of is always the thing that happens--always. This statement holds a certain truth. It seems that no matter how hard we try to avoid or prevent it, the very thing that instills the greatest fear within us has a way of coming to pass. We make it happen, we all do, wizard and weaver alike, though I could never tell you how. It's as if there is an unseen force at work, guiding our actions and decisions in such a way that leads to the manifestation of our worst fears. Maybe it's our subconscious mind playing tricks on us, or perhaps it's a result of the choices we make without fully realizing the consequences. Whatever the reason may be, it's a phenomenon that has puzzled and intrigued us for ages.

Disappointment... The first-person narrative from multiple characters made it extremely tedious, and I couldn't follow the story... I give it 2* because of the particular technique in the narrative... Otherwise, as a story, it's absolutely nothing.

This book really failed to engage me. The constant shift in perspectives from one character to another in the first person was overwhelming. It felt like a jumble of voices, each vying for attention but not really coming together to form a coherent and interesting story.

The writing style, while perhaps innovative in its use of this multiple first-person narrative, ultimately detracted from the overall experience. I found myself losing interest quickly and struggling to keep track of who was who and what was happening.

Maybe if the author had focused more on developing a strong central storyline and less on the experimental narrative technique, this could have been a better book. As it stands, however, it's a disappointment that I can't recommend.

Hmm. A good book, to be sure. But not a Peter S. Beagle quality "good book."

In every other Beagle work I've read, I know the characters and understand their voice and motives almost immediately. However, in TIS, I just never connected with the characters. The narration style is partly to blame, I'm sure. Multiple first person is a hard gig to play well. But really, I feel it was the utter lack of coherency in what and where the story was trying to get to.

Every character is telling their own story with very little regard to an overall story. And while that is common in Beagle's works, I just feel it didn't ever really meet up in the way his other stories do.

I think especially for Lal and Soukyan. The reader just never really finds out enough (granted there is a sequel), but I rather feel as if we're dropped in the middle of an inside joke.

At least now I have a PSB book that ISN'T my favorite book. Because having 3 books by the same author as your "favorite novel" is getting silly. And adding one more would have been ridiculous. It seems that this particular work didn't quite reach the high standards set by Beagle's other masterpieces. Maybe with the sequel, some of the loose ends will be tied up and a more complete picture will emerge. But for now, it remains a bit of a disappointment.

Boring, boring, boring! This story was not only dull but also seemed completely pointless. It felt like a total waste of my precious time. I was truly disappointed because I had such high expectations after reading the amazing "The Last Unicorn". Now, I have another book by Beagle that I borrowed from the library. I'm really hoping that this one won't be as much of a letdown as the previous one. I'm looking forward to getting lost in its pages and experiencing a more engaging and satisfying story. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will live up to my hopes and expectations.

This was yet another reread for me, but that in no way diminished its amazingness.

After the screening of The Last Unicorn and having the opportunity to meet Peter Beagle, my desire for his writing was insatiable. I hadn't read this book since I first purchased it (as a hardcover, right after its publication), so I picked it up once again and immersed myself in it.

I have a profound love for this book. It's not at all surprising; thus far, I haven't come across anything by Peter Beagle that I didn't adore. However, this book is somewhat distinct from his typical works. It is slow-paced, dreamy, lyrical, and a touch more serious, with a complexity that might not be immediately evident at the beginning or during a first reading. I believe I uncovered far more nuance and character details during this reread than I did the first time around.

Upon finishing it, I feel as if I just awoke from a long, vivid dream, and it's a wonderful feeling. I'm truly glad that I returned to this book. It has once again reminded me of the beauty and depth of Peter Beagle's writing.

A magical story, emerging from the unfathomable fog beneath the cellar, led by a melody from beyond life, leading to the depths of death, and further...

Everything starts in a pastoral village that sacrifices half of a huge love untimely. The sand of pain attracts its own and strangers. An incomplete spirit emerges from the doors of darkness and embarks on a senseless journey with an unclear companion without a past and a pursuer coming precisely from the past days. The strange travelers increase and find their haven in a remote inn that does not welcome them with open arms but opens the hearts of its inhabitants to the outside of the pale day, allowing the night and the lack of darkness in the magic to take refuge under the lonely roof that has sheltered thousands of travelers, but not like these. Oh, no, not like these... And the endless truth about the forever lost and never intended begins its dance before the eyes of the reader who, besides reading with wide-open eyes and a held breath, actually has no other choice at all.

Biygul is the absolute master of words, and even my sad encounter with Tamzin does not completely dissuade me from the charm of his utterances, the magic of the rhythm, the sorcery of writing that this man masters to the tips of his fingers. The world of Hajiya and his guests is absurd, unclear, barely sketched, and yet so colorful, alive, and feels so real that it seems to evoke memories in you of something long forgotten but always sought after accidental past in which you wish you had lived. The heroes emerge from the darkness and do not go straight to the usual paths of light but rather hide in the shadows, led by laws and promises that have long been violated but are still inwardly drunk with the desire to keep them. Three women, three witches, three eccentrics of a special biygulski type, squeeze into the picturesque relatively peaceful picture of a place lost in time, turn it upside down, discover themselves, and in all of the above, they are not even the real main heroes in the picture. Imagine an image that hides the dynamics of its meaning in a distant background while on the front, figures dance, simply created to drink in the interest only and solely in themselves. Two pictures in one, two books in one, painfully assembled from the participation in loss and death. And when you think that everything is already clear to you and you have some kind of end, albeit a rather dubious one called happy, suddenly the culmination of the true story hits you in the face, and everything starts all over again, even after the last white page, somewhere there in your head.

It is clear that precisely this book is extremely difficult to describe. After reading it, I can swear that I have read at least several fundamentally different books simultaneously, created by different authors, written in different times, with completely opposite ideas, even contradicting each other on every level and understanding. A rich experience in so many amazing and unexpected ways that every point of view, changing with diary-like precision and respect for the rhythm of time, it fills with the feeling of yet another open window, and sometimes of yet another closed door in the world behind the distrustful eyes. Sheaves of streets to non-existent crimes, threads of mysteries that simply do not seek their solution, drops of ideas that are drunk and are born weeks after the last author's words. It is a great honor for me to announce that the Chobits have been engaged in this project for years, and I hope that the same will see the light of day very soon. Because the translation will be a completely different world from the original, and the word seeker in me burns precisely for such dimensions of the inexplicable and the beautiful. This is a cause worthy of being supported by the connoisseurs of the truly important wealth in the life of a thinking person - namely, to look with tireless curiosity behind the beautifully engraved doors of the mind of a genius of the word and to absorb the worlds created with a brilliantly pure creative impulse. I support all the publishers of truly good and valuable books for readers, do the same - here you will find out how: http://choveshkata.net/blog/?p=3449

Beagle is a renowned and highly regarded author in the Anglo-Saxon world, though perhaps less so in Italy. In the late 1970s, the esteemed MEB published his two masterpieces in the Saga series, namely ‘A fine and private place’ (1960) and ‘The last unicorn’ (1968), as ‘Il piccolo popolo’ and ‘L’ultimo unicorno’ respectively. The latter, which also benefited from a well-received animated film in 1982, was republished in 2008 by Kappa Edizioni. However, his third masterpiece from 1994, which won the Locus Award and has been translated into German, Russian, Hungarian, and Greek, remains unpublished in Italy, along with many of his beautiful stories (Beagle is a wizard of the language). Let's try to understand why.

In a classic timeless fantasy peasant village, a girl embraced by her fiancé falls into the river and drowns. The body is not found, but the next dawn, he, having fallen asleep from exhaustion on the riverbank, sees a woman on horseback bring his fiancée back to life, slip a ring on her finger, and take her away. So he begins to pursue her, with great difficulty. The woman is with two other mysterious travelers, and after a few days, they stop at an inn. There we will see that the three women are fleeing from two pursuers far more可怕 than the poor boy, and at the same time, they are looking for someone.

The plot takes a swirling circular course, centered around the inn of the surly innkeeper Karsh in the title (only in the last pages will we understand the importance of his song): all the protagonists seem to arrive there, leave, and then return. The narrative technique is fascinating: each of the short or long chapters is a first-person memory of one of the characters, from the innkeeper to the stable boy, to the very women on the run, to the fox they carry with them, each with its own distinct way of speaking effectively characterized.

As I said, Beagle is a wizard of words: this can be either an advantage or a disadvantage. Between the realism of the beginning and the tight finale, the plot is complex, and Beagle plays it all on surprising descriptions, poetic metaphors, and oracular phrases. We don't reach the lyrical and symbolic delirium of ‘The Last Unicorn’, of its duel with the Red Bull that involves even the waves of the sea; there is a subtle humor and touches of erotism between the stable boy and the mature but attractive warrior nun; at least three long, emotional, and surprising duel scenes... but, especially in the final duel between the two magicians, one has to follow the wave of words and images rather than try to understand logically what is happening.

In short, it should be avoided by those seeking ‘heroic fantasy’ action or a ‘smooth’ narrative, but it is a story that lifts the spirit and deserves to be read slowly. Beagle has worked on it for a long time, even composing the music for the songs mentioned in the text... and he has also dedicated a story, ‘Chandail’, to the warrior Lal.

If you're considering reading this book, let me share something with you.

It's truly amazing. Peter S. Beagle has crafted the simplest world with very little, yet I'm astounded by how thought-provoking this fantasy is.

It's the tale of three women and the mischief they inflict upon an innkeeper. Yes, it contains wizards and magic and all that cliched fantasy fare, but Beagle possesses something that very few authors in this genre have. Wit and humor.

His writing style is so distinctive. It's told through multiple points of view. Now, if you're thinking of Martin, that's completely different. This is unique and feels much more real.

You find yourself constantly re-reading passages to uncover the truth within. That's precisely what I adored about it. Not everything about the characters was immediately obvious.

It keeps you engaged and guessing, making it a truly captivating read.

A Fantasy Book for All

Here is a fantasy book that's perfect for those who don't typically have a penchant for the genre, just like me. The author, Beagle, who is also a songwriter, actually composed the song (an excerpt of which is shown below). Then, several years later, he penned this book because he desired "to figure out what on earth the song was truly about."

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

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 a saw it plain... "

And what an amazing, magical story he crafted. By employing the perspectives of a dozen or so different characters, he wove a rollicking and entertaining tale of Lal, Nyateneri, Lukassa, and all the other great characters from the Gaff and Slasher as they embark on a journey to rescue their wizard friend/mentor and, in the process, discover a little something about themselves and the world. Beagle's writing style was exquisitely descriptive yet never overly flowery or verbose.

This book will surely be one of my all-time favorites, and it's a book that I would highly recommend to both fantasy enthusiasts and non-fantasy lovers alike. It has the power to draw in readers from all walks of literary preferences and take them on an unforgettable adventure.