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The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

#163: Nov. - Jan. 2019 (Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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The Last Unicorn
Chapters 1 - 3


Please use this thread for discussing the above chapters.
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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I finished chapter one. The book is a perfectly standard beginning. It introduces the protagonist and we learn the protagonist's goal. Also introduced are antagonists who are hindering our protagonist already. I wonder if these antagonists last the book, or if they are just the first obstacle. There is not much dialog yet, but what little there is reveals a lot about who the protagonist is, how different and isolated she is.

There are touches here and there of such art in expression that I find myself on occasion stepping out of the story to admire it. It is okay to take the reader out of the book this way, in my opinion. Many great writers do it, but when they do they're careful not to ruin the suspenseful parts, just as Beagle is here.

I think this novel so far could be used to teach a class on how to write a novel, or at least how to begin one. It follows every guideline on what effective writers do at the beginning, yet still has creative flare and its own individual voice.
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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The only Kindle version I could find was a "graphic novel" version. Sigh. I won't be appreciating the expressive qualities of the language.

I'm appreciating the qualities that hook the reader into caring about the story - not just conflict and suspense, but the quest of the "unique me" for some sense of companionship. I gather this is what all the current references to "unicorns" play off of.

It reminds me, in a tenuous way, of a blog I saw recently about Mary Poppins, and what a lonely character she is. Most members of helping professions are in this situation to some extent - they move on when the need gets less acute. The unicorn is a lonely magical creature, but I have the feeling she is not going to turn out to be Shane, riding into town to clean up the influence of the dominators. Yet there is a curious resemblance to Mary Poppins and other helpers, perhaps a magical quality that comes from being willing to be solitary in order to have purpose, combined with a wistful feeling that eventually one can move on to seeking companionship that understands the magic and the burdens?
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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Harry Marks wrote:The only Kindle version I could find was a "graphic novel" version. Sigh. . . .
There are ways to get the novel onto to your Kindle. I can't comment on the legality of it. But I just did it and I'm still standing.

First go here on your computer:

https://www.e-reading.club/book.php?book=128323

. . . and download the mobi version of the book.

Then go to Amazon's manage devices page . . .

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer ... =201439790

And click on the little box next to your Kindle. It will tell you what your Kindle's email address is. Then attach the mobi file in an email and send to that address. Bada bing bada boom!
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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Well done, geo, I think. I had thought of trying other e-reader versions, but had not gotten to it yet. I'm not entirely thrilled to see all the Russian on this site, but with luck it isn't one of Putin's cronies coming after me.

I do like the whimsical language. So thanks.
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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Harry Marks wrote:Well done, geo, I think. I had thought of trying other e-reader versions, but had not gotten to it yet. I'm not entirely thrilled to see all the Russian on this site, but with luck it isn't one of Putin's cronies coming after me.

I do like the whimsical language. So thanks.
I'm going to read too. I needed something to help get me through Kafka's The Castle, which has been something of a chore.

Interesting that there's not a Kindle version available. I think there used to be.
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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This section might be entitled, "Nothing is as it seems." And if you pay close attention you will see that the story is not mostly story - the suspense and conflict, at least so far, are hand-waving and patter for the author's explorations in how people fool themselves and what comes of it. The real "action" is often in asides and stray reflections, such as when the witch reveals herself to be about ambition and discontent. Keeping in mind that what matters is what is evoked, not what is symbolized, this section has layers of symbolism which lead nowhere, and the whimsicality that is evoked is the "message."

Our heroine, the unicorn, who suddenly wants to know if there are more of her kind out there, sets out into the world. We are treated to a discussion of unicorns by two men, with one telling a portentous tale of a great-grandmother encountering a unicorn. Then a butterfly, whimsical to the point of randomness, tells about the Red Bull, who has defeated the other unicorns of the world, and gives ambiguous messages about determination being rewarded.

The unicorn appears to be a white mare to ordinary people, who want to put her to work, naturally. She escapes, but eventually falls asleep by the traditional method of a maiden sweetly singing, but it is the unicorn herself who sings the song remembered from long ago, perhaps from the great-grandmother. As she sleeps this sleep of nostalgic self-submission, a cage is built around her by the traveling show of marvels created by the witch Mommy Fortuna.

The show is mostly illusion, with spells to make a crocodile seem a dragon, for example. Shmendrick the magician, hired to amuse crowds with sleight-of-hand, proves friend to the unicorn and eventually frees her. But the byplay of self-assertion and self-deception is more relevant even than the monster who looms over the unicorn's escape. Ordinary human manipulation turns out to be the key to the escape, and we are left to ponder the surprise of the monster in terms of the controlling metaphor, which is the exaggerated version we make of evocative stuff.
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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Chapter One: Quite fortuitous to get this book. As I recently mentioned, I have just written an essay on Carl Jung, Climate Change and the Answer to Job, in which I analyse the mythology of the Golden Age in light of material causation and the collective unconscious. Jungian psychology is renowned for its attention to symbols, and The last unicorn is certainly replete with symbolic archetypes.

Against the widespread mythological framework of a descent from the Golden Age through successive worse ages of Silver, Bronze and Iron, the unicorn in this story represents the presence of the Golden Age of wisdom within the Iron Age of ignorance, just like Jesus Christ. One of the key themes of this first chapter is the inability of humans who are products of the iron age to see the unicorn. This is the same theme that Jesus complains about in his miracle of the loaves and fishes, where he lambasts his disciples for their inability to get what he is talking about.

The butterfly who rests on the unicorn’s horn speaks in quotes from famous authors. So far I have noticed Shakespeare, Yeats, Kipling and Gilbert.

As befits a tale of the descent from the Golden Age, The Last Unicorn is elegiac. The great mystery in this chapter is why she would leave her magic lilac wood for the appalling dangers of the world, somewhat like Jesus leaving the mountain of transfiguration for the road to Jerusalem.

Beagle’s language is intensely beautiful and evocative. “She was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night.” The lilac wood reminds me of deep in the green lilac park.
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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Harry Marks wrote:This section might be entitled, "Nothing is as it seems." And if you pay close attention you will see that the story is not mostly story - the suspense and conflict, at least so far, are hand-waving and patter for the author's explorations in how people fool themselves and what comes of it. The real "action" is often in asides and stray reflections, such as when the witch reveals herself to be about ambition and discontent. Keeping in mind that what matters is what is evoked, not what is symbolized, this section has layers of symbolism which lead nowhere, and the whimsicality that is evoked is the "message." . . .
I see a traditional sort of fantasy plot (if there is such a thing) in my first reading. The unicorn is perfectly content to remain in her familiar magic lilac wood until she learns that she may be the last surviving unicorn left in the world. She then has no choice but to leave the wood (her comfort zone) and face the unknown for the first time in her life. Not sure where the author is going yet, but I'm reminded of Gabriel García Márquez’s story, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. The main character, Pelayo, finds a disoriented old man in his courtyard, who happens to have very large wings. Pelayo shows some compassion for the bedraggled old man, but also uses him for personal gain, charging admission to those who come to see him. The old man’s extreme patience with the villagers ultimately transforms Pelayo and his wife. In the end
Spoiler
the old man grows out his wings out and flies off. Perhaps he had come all along only to help Pelayo and his wife transcend their impoverished existence. The story remains ambiguous to the very end. Perhaps Gabriel García Márquez was thinking of the passage from the Bible (Hebrews 13:2): “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

As in Márquez’s story, many of the characters in Beagle's fantasy world seem to have lost their sense of wonder. Instead of seeing a unicorn, they can only see an old mare. So while the last unicorn has been living in ignorant bliss, the world outside has changed to the point that many people don't even know what a unicorn is any more. Like Robert Tulip, I also thought of the lost Golden Age. And there are shades of the Garden of Eden too. We'll see where Beagle takes us.

It maybe be of interest to note that the unicorn, due to her magical nature, transforms the lilac wood where she lives: "no place is more enchanted than one where a unicorn has been born" and "It was always spring in her forest because she lived there . . ." Will the real world become more enchanted with the unicorn's presence? Or will she lose her magical luster as she is exposed to the crushing banality and greed of the real world?
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Re: The Last Unicorn - Chapters 1 - 3

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Then one afternoon the butterfly wobbled out of a breeze and lit on the tip of her horn. He was velvet all over, dark and dusty, with golden spots on his wings, and he was as thin as a flower petal. Dancing along her horn, he saluted her with his curling feelers. "I am a roving gambler. How do you do?"
This flibberty butterfly seems to channel the wisdom of the unicorn emerging from its horn. He quotes Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart.
And WB Yeats: John Kinsella's Lament for Mrs Mary Moore.
A bloody and a sudden end,
Gunshot or a noose,
For Death who takes what man would keep,
Leaves what man would lose
,
He might have had my sister,
My cousins by the score,
But nothing satisfied the fool
But my dear Mary Moore,
None other knows what pleasures man
At table or in bed.
What shall I do for pretty girls
Now my old bawd is dead?
This line from Yeats evokes the iron age tragedy of the First World War, with the trenches taking the best and leaving the worst to enable even greater horror.
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