Desultory review: A Fine and Private Place

A Fine and Private Place didn't really click for me, but I couldn't quite figure out why. Then, in a random pass through John Scalzi's Whatever, I learned that Beagle wrote the book when he was 19, which explains a lot. Granted, it doesn't read like the usual adolescent pastiche (Mister Paolini, I'm looking in your appalling direction), but the story wanders, the tone of the dialogue occasionally veers off-track, and the arc seems to be missing some pieces. Still, you can see Beagle working toward developing the theme that sometimes love means loss, and greater love means greater loss, that is so wonderful in The Last Unicorn (if your heart doesn't break a little when Schmendrick summons Robin Hood, then the hospital regrets to inform you that your emotional EKG is flat as a strap). A Fine and Private Place does have a talking, snarking, baloney-thieving raven, a lot of beautiful descriptions of an active city as seen from a rare oasis of quiet within it, and an interesting if incredibly depressing perspective on what happens after we die. The man has developed into a creative and interesting writer, so I'm inclined to cut him a little slack.

Paolini, now...I'm not so optimistic.