She talks to wolves...

This 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:

( Excerpt behind the cut... )

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.