I had been seeing this book by Peter S. Beagle around for a while before my dad read it a year or two ago and gave me his copy. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t read it as a kid because it’s a classic and exactly the kind of thing I would have read as a kid, but somehow I missed this one. For a while I thought I might have read it as a kid, but it turned out I was thinking of something else.
I probably would have enjoyed this one more if I had read it as a kid without any preconceptions other than (unicorn!) especially since, as a child, I never would have caught onto the subtle sexism that permeates this book. Not that there’s a whole lot of room for character development for any of the characters, but the female characters seem especially flat and tend to fall into pretty quickly into certain stereotypes.
That failing aside, I still mostly enjoyed this book. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s about a unicorn who overhears some humans talking about how unicorns don’t exist anymore. Since unicorns are solitary creatures, she had been totally unaware that she might be the last living unicorn, so she sets out on a quest to see if it’s true.
Along the way she meets Schmendrick the magician, who is a terrible magician. He can’t summon magic when he wants to, and even when he does manage to summon a little, it never does what he wants. Yet he’s convinced that something or other will happen and he will come into his full power, and of course that’s exactly what happens, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
In the meantime, Schmendrick and the unicorn get kidnapped by some men who live in the woods and steal from others to get what they need. Their leader resents the fact that he’s constantly being compared to the more famous (if fictional) Robin Hood, and also happens to have dozens of songs of his own exploits that he composed himself. He insists on serenading his guests with every one of his compositions
It’s when they are with these merry men that Schmendrick and the unicorn hear a rumor that King Haggard has a Red Bull that has been killing all the unicorns, so they decide to go and see if it’s true. Molly Grue, who used to be with the merry men, for some reason decides to go with them.
King Haggard’s land is barren, except for Hagsgate, which was cursed with prosperity only so long as King Haggard rules the land, so they have an interest in preventing the trio from achieving their goal, because taking down the Red Bull means taking down King Haggard.
They manage to get to the castle, but the unicorn is no match for the Red Bull. Afraid the Red Bull is about to kill the last unicorn, Schmendrick summons all the magic he can and turns the unicorn into a woman who goes by the name Lady Amalthea. Sure enough, once she takes human form, the Red Bull loses all interest in her and goes back to his lair, and the trio are allowed to enter the castle.
They stay at the castle long enough for Lady Amalthea to start to forget she’s really a unicorn and to fall in love with Prince Lir, King Haggard’s adopted son who is prophesied to bring about Haggard’s downfall, which, sure enough, he does, albeit unintentionally.
This book reminded me a little of some of Terry Pratchett’s work in that it pokes fun at many of the tired old tropes of fantasy, such as a heroic prince going on quests to break spells and rescue maidens and kill dragons; a band of merry men living in the woods having various adventures; a magician who’s well placed to help the heroes just when they need it most; an evil king; a curse from an old witch; etc.
The difference is that the humor in Pratchett’s books come from pointing out how ridiculous those tropes are, whereas Beagle’s book uses the tropes without making fun of them. He pokes fun at some of the characters, but it feels more like he’s blaming them for being ridiculous rather than making fun of the tropes themselves.
Overall, I’m glad I finally read this classic, but I don’t think I’ll be seeking out any of Beagle’s other works.