A Fine and Private Place

by Peter S. Beagle, 272 pages

"The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace."
-- Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

I was wondering where the title came from. And then the title page told me. And then I read the book and went, "Ohhhhh, clever." :P

Mr. Rebeck has been secretly living in an abandoned mausoleum in New York's Yorkchester cemetery for the last nineteen years. He washes up in the lavatory by the front gates at night when no one's looking. A cocky, cynical, very raven-like raven brings him food twice a day and sometimes passes on news from the city beyond the walls. And every now and then someone finds him and talks with him and plays chess with him...until they forget him...and words and chess and everything else related to the life they no longer possess. And then they vanish. They always do. But some fight it more than others.

Oh, this is wonderful. Again, I'm reminded of a less dark, less sharp-edged Gaiman, this time The Graveyard Book. Although Mr. Rebeck is in his fifties, self-sufficient (minus the raven, of course), and hiding from life rather than death, there is still that spirit of wonder, eternal ephemerality, and camaraderie amongst the headstones. We sit with him as he hears out a confused ghost and offers comfort as best he can. We follow a visitor home to the real world, cross their threshold, and trail behind them from room to room as they go about their daily existence and miss what is no longer there. We eavesdrop on characters' thoughts and encounters like ghosts ourselves, clinging to Mr. Rebeck's wisdom until we start to worry that he, too, needs a counselor, someone to talk him into examining himself and re-evaluating the merits of the long-abandoned world of the living. And if some of his unintentional advisors happen themselves to be dead, what of it?

The novel--Beagle's first, published in 1960 when he was just 19!!--deals with the limitations of life, death, love, and self...and sometimes with their unexpected limitlessness. The Last Unicorn, published in 1968, may be a little more fluid and outwardly fantastical, but this is just as lovely. I must go find me some more. :)