the horrid glory of its wings
Dec. 23rd, 2009 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talkstowolvesThis isn't actually a post about Elizabeth Bear's recent story featured on tor.com, in case anyone immediately thought that. I do need to read that story sooner rather than later, though: the title, premise, and accompanying John Jude Palencar art have captivated me.
No, this is about Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn.
Several of you are probably aware that this story - novel and animated feature - is one of the most basic building blocks of my self. It is one of the first stories I remember in my conscious life, one that I was so familiar with that I could recite nearly verbatim as a child, and one that I've written about in essay form before.
I feel like a cartographer mapping my own interior when I read this novel, as the motifs and characters resonate so deeply with me. As such, each reading of The Last Unicorn is a different experience and can demonstrate shifts in my way of thinking or experiencing the world more clearly that I might notice through analytical reflection.
Several years have elapsed since my last reading and, last night, I realized a passage was standing out for me that had never resonated so strongly before. I felt a frisson of surprise and immediately had to read the scene aloud to my husband, in a husky and intense voice:
I don't know if I have the words to tell you why that catches in the heart of me, what primal satisfaction echoes, growling, in the hollow of my throat. The fierce joy there, the utterly vital magnificence of their relationship strikes me with all the force of undeniable truth.
The person I am now thrums in response to the phrases "Oh, you are like me!" and "she... felt the monster shining from her own body" and "they circled one another like a double star." There is something deeply important to be gleaned from this.
Here, have a couple of harpy icons:
The first is from the John Jude Palencar art accompanying Elizabeth Bear's "The Horrid Glory of Its Wings." The second is the artwork of Thalia Took.
No, this is about Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn.
Several of you are probably aware that this story - novel and animated feature - is one of the most basic building blocks of my self. It is one of the first stories I remember in my conscious life, one that I was so familiar with that I could recite nearly verbatim as a child, and one that I've written about in essay form before.
I feel like a cartographer mapping my own interior when I read this novel, as the motifs and characters resonate so deeply with me. As such, each reading of The Last Unicorn is a different experience and can demonstrate shifts in my way of thinking or experiencing the world more clearly that I might notice through analytical reflection.
Several years have elapsed since my last reading and, last night, I realized a passage was standing out for me that had never resonated so strongly before. I felt a frisson of surprise and immediately had to read the scene aloud to my husband, in a husky and intense voice:
The unicorn began to walk toward the harpy's cage. Schmendrick the Magician, tiny and pale, kept opening and closing his mouth at her, and she knew what he was shrieking, though she could not hear him. "She will kill you, she will kill you! Run, you fool, while she's still a prisoner! She will kill you if you set her free!" But the unicorn walked on, following the light of her horn, until she stood before Celaeno, the Dark One.
For an instant the icy wings hung silent in the air, like clouds, and the harpy's old yellow eyes sank into the unicorn's heart and drew her close. "I will kill you if you set me free," the eyes said. "Set me free."
The unicorn lowered her head until her horn touched the lock of the harpy's cage. The door did not swing open, and the iron bars did not thaw into starlight. But the harpy lifted her wings, and the four sides of the cage fell slowly away and down, like the petals of some great flower waking at night. And out of the wreckage the harpy bloomed, terrible and free, screaming, her hair swinging like a sword. The moon withered and fled.
The unicorn heard herself cry out, not in terror but in wonder, "Oh, you are like me!" She reared joyously to meet the harpy's stoop, and her horn leaped up into the wicked wind. The harpy struck once, missed, and swung away, her wings clanging and her breath warm and stinking. She burned overhead, and the unicorn saw herself reflected in the harpy's bronze breast and felt the monster shining from her own body. So they circled one another like a double star, and under the shrunken sky there was nothing real but the two of them. The harpy laughed with delight, and her eyes turned the color of honey. The unicorn knew that she was going to strike again.
I don't know if I have the words to tell you why that catches in the heart of me, what primal satisfaction echoes, growling, in the hollow of my throat. The fierce joy there, the utterly vital magnificence of their relationship strikes me with all the force of undeniable truth.
The person I am now thrums in response to the phrases "Oh, you are like me!" and "she... felt the monster shining from her own body" and "they circled one another like a double star." There is something deeply important to be gleaned from this.
Here, have a couple of harpy icons:
The first is from the John Jude Palencar art accompanying Elizabeth Bear's "The Horrid Glory of Its Wings." The second is the artwork of Thalia Took.