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We Never Talk about My Brother
Modern parables of love, death, and transformation are peppered with melancholy in this extraordinary collection of contemporary fantasy. Each short story cultivates a whimsical sense of imagination and reveals a mature, darker voice than previously experienced from this legendary author.
In one tale the Angel of Death enjoys newfound celebrity while moonlighting as an anchorman on the network news, while in another the shortsighted ruler of a gentle realm betrays himself in dreaming of a "manageable war." Further storylines include an American librarian who discovers that, much to his surprise and sadness, he is the last living Frenchman, and rivals in a supernatural battle who decide to forgo pistols at dawn, choosing instead to duel with dramatic recitations of terrible poetry.
Featuring several previously unpublished stories alongside a bevy of recently released works, this haunting compilation is appealing to both genre readers and mainstream literature lovers.
Includes "By Moonlight," Locus Award-winner for Best Novelette.
In one tale the Angel of Death enjoys newfound celebrity while moonlighting as an anchorman on the network news, while in another the shortsighted ruler of a gentle realm betrays himself in dreaming of a "manageable war." Further storylines include an American librarian who discovers that, much to his surprise and sadness, he is the last living Frenchman, and rivals in a supernatural battle who decide to forgo pistols at dawn, choosing instead to duel with dramatic recitations of terrible poetry.
Featuring several previously unpublished stories alongside a bevy of recently released works, this haunting compilation is appealing to both genre readers and mainstream literature lovers.
Includes "By Moonlight," Locus Award-winner for Best Novelette.
219 pages, Paperback
First published March 15, 2009
19 people are currently reading
2905 people want to read
About the author
Peter S. Beagle
221 books3,877 followersPeter Soyer Beagle (born April 20, 1939) is an American fantasist and author of novels, nonfiction, and screenplays. He is also a talented guitarist and folk singer. He wrote his first novel, A Fine and Private Place , when he was only 19 years old. Today he is best known as the author of The Last Unicorn, which routinely polls as one of the top ten fantasy novels of all time, and at least two of his other books (A Fine and Private Place and I See By My Outfit) are considered modern classics.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews
October 5, 2025
Another strong collection, and another proof that in true fantasy, nothing you've experienced so far can prepare you for what is waiting round the corner, past the next bend of the road.
Some of those what's:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
Some of those what's:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
May 5, 2015
I have never read anything else by Peter S. Beagle.
Just want to make that clear, since I know that in some corners of the fantasyscape, he is a Big Deal. He’s Known. Renowned, even. So this little collection of short stories of his was probably met with squeals of glee from fans the world over when it was published (back in 2009, because I am 6 years behind on my to-read list these days). I was not one of those people.
But I might be, some day.
We Never Talk About My Brother starts off on a very good note: it has a foreword by Charles de Lint. He talks about how Beagle is one of the first writers he, as a reader, was aware of who wrote fantasy set in our world. Of course, that is now one of de Lint’s major claims to fame, so he knows what he’s talking about. And he was totally right. I might even go so far as to say that, clause for clause, Beagle is actually more of a wordsmith than de Lint.
I don’t really want to wade into the false dichotomy of literary versus genre fiction. But Beagle verily shatters the notion of such a dichotomy; he is a literary fantasy writer, and if your brain explodes at such a notion, then read not this book. Each story is crafted with the skill of Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro. Beagle writes about people like us, or like people we might know, who happen to have experiences a little out of the ordinary. (Another loaded term I could throw out there, if I cared to, might be magical realism—but I don’t care to do that. No, sir, I do not.)
I have, in the past, done that thing where one goes through each story in the anthology and reviews it separately. It is a sensible though naive approach to reviewing anthologies, and it would certainly be easy to accomplish for one with nine stories in it. Yet this approach ignores the fact that some stories are disproportionately better than others—and I mean that from an entirely subjective sense; a story might speak to me here even if another thinks it is awful.
So let me highlight the ones I really, really liked.
The titular “We Never Talk About My Brother,” which is the second tale, is fantastic. Beagle takes a brilliant central idea and unspools it layer by layer until he reaches the core nugget that makes it not just fantasy but somewhat unsettling, verging upon but not quite breaching that tenuous veil between fantasy and horror. This is a story of psychological warfare on a Biblical level.
Likewise, “The Stickball Witch,” has a similar first-person perspective with a moral at the end that left me both entertained and thoughtful. It reminded me quite a bit of an episode of Recess—I don’t think this was intentional on Beagle’s part, but sometimes the best associations aren’t.
I was actually surprised by how much I liked “By Moonlight,” even though it hews closer to many of the standard tropes about faeries. This is probably thanks to Beagle’s great style; he’s a consummate teller of stories by storytellers.
I think all the stories here are good in one way or another, though I didn’t particularly like “The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French,” and because poetry is not my thing, “The Unicorn Tapestries” left me pretty numb. I suspect there are plenty who will call these their favourites, though.
I’m at a loss to draw deeper comparisons between the stories or talk subtext here. I would like to read more of Beagle’s work before I try that. That’s probably the main takeaway from this review: enjoyed the book, will read more. Hopefully it won’t take me six years this time.
Just want to make that clear, since I know that in some corners of the fantasyscape, he is a Big Deal. He’s Known. Renowned, even. So this little collection of short stories of his was probably met with squeals of glee from fans the world over when it was published (back in 2009, because I am 6 years behind on my to-read list these days). I was not one of those people.
But I might be, some day.
We Never Talk About My Brother starts off on a very good note: it has a foreword by Charles de Lint. He talks about how Beagle is one of the first writers he, as a reader, was aware of who wrote fantasy set in our world. Of course, that is now one of de Lint’s major claims to fame, so he knows what he’s talking about. And he was totally right. I might even go so far as to say that, clause for clause, Beagle is actually more of a wordsmith than de Lint.
I don’t really want to wade into the false dichotomy of literary versus genre fiction. But Beagle verily shatters the notion of such a dichotomy; he is a literary fantasy writer, and if your brain explodes at such a notion, then read not this book. Each story is crafted with the skill of Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro. Beagle writes about people like us, or like people we might know, who happen to have experiences a little out of the ordinary. (Another loaded term I could throw out there, if I cared to, might be magical realism—but I don’t care to do that. No, sir, I do not.)
I have, in the past, done that thing where one goes through each story in the anthology and reviews it separately. It is a sensible though naive approach to reviewing anthologies, and it would certainly be easy to accomplish for one with nine stories in it. Yet this approach ignores the fact that some stories are disproportionately better than others—and I mean that from an entirely subjective sense; a story might speak to me here even if another thinks it is awful.
So let me highlight the ones I really, really liked.
The titular “We Never Talk About My Brother,” which is the second tale, is fantastic. Beagle takes a brilliant central idea and unspools it layer by layer until he reaches the core nugget that makes it not just fantasy but somewhat unsettling, verging upon but not quite breaching that tenuous veil between fantasy and horror. This is a story of psychological warfare on a Biblical level.
Likewise, “The Stickball Witch,” has a similar first-person perspective with a moral at the end that left me both entertained and thoughtful. It reminded me quite a bit of an episode of Recess—I don’t think this was intentional on Beagle’s part, but sometimes the best associations aren’t.
I was actually surprised by how much I liked “By Moonlight,” even though it hews closer to many of the standard tropes about faeries. This is probably thanks to Beagle’s great style; he’s a consummate teller of stories by storytellers.
I think all the stories here are good in one way or another, though I didn’t particularly like “The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French,” and because poetry is not my thing, “The Unicorn Tapestries” left me pretty numb. I suspect there are plenty who will call these their favourites, though.
I’m at a loss to draw deeper comparisons between the stories or talk subtext here. I would like to read more of Beagle’s work before I try that. That’s probably the main takeaway from this review: enjoyed the book, will read more. Hopefully it won’t take me six years this time.
March 7, 2023
This is another fine, very literary collection of pieces from Peter S. Beagle. It ranges from traditional high fantasy (By Moonlight, Chandail) to contemporary urban fantasy (Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel), to poetry (The Unicorn Tapestries) and is by turns contemplative (King Pelles the Sure, The Tale of Junko and Sayuri), humorous (Spook, The Stickball Witch), and at times somewhat obtuse (The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French). My favorite was the title story, which sees an angel of death as a newscaster... Rupert Murdoch would've snatched him up in a heartbeat, right? Some of the stories didn't appeal to me, but I could recognize the skill that went into their crafting. Chandail is set in the world of The Innkeeper's Song, and perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the novel more recently. Spook is the story of a duel fought with bad poetry quotations, which was fun, but it wore thin a little quickly. Beagle is among the very best no matter what he's writing.
June 26, 2009
Inside the cover of Peter S. Beagle's short story collection We Never Talk About My Brother, there are various quotes praising his other works and his writing in general. The review by Booklist caught my eye:
"Perhaps Beagle is incapable of genuinely dark fantasy, but...."
Although Booklist goes on to give the book (The Line Between) a good review, this sentence nagged at me while I was reading "We Never Talk". The impression it left was that Booklist believes that dark fantasy=good fantasy and the darker it is, the better. This annoyed me and really made me stop and think. Yes, most of my favorite fantasy has at least a tiny dark shadow (even The Wizard of Oz has the Wicked Witch), but I certainly don't equate darkness with quality. One of my favorite Neil Gaiman stories is "Chivalry" and it is full of light. In any case, annoyance aside, Peter S. Beagle is capable of writing dark fantasy, but his stories are usually about personal darkness, as opposed to the darkness of a dystopian fantasy, or a world overrun with vampires and other nasty creatures. I imagine Beagle's stories as dark around the edges, like slightly burned cookies.
Now that I've got that off my chest, on to the book itself. The book contains 10 short stories, most published previously and the majority between 2007-2009. Like most short story collections, some stories appealed to me more than others. I think that is almost unavoidable when the writer is good and can create a range of different characters and situations. Beagle is not a "one note" writer: each story is different and most people will like some more than others.
My personal favorite is the title story, which made the book a worthwhile read all by itself. Whichever is your favorite, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the book as a whole.
"Perhaps Beagle is incapable of genuinely dark fantasy, but...."
Although Booklist goes on to give the book (The Line Between) a good review, this sentence nagged at me while I was reading "We Never Talk". The impression it left was that Booklist believes that dark fantasy=good fantasy and the darker it is, the better. This annoyed me and really made me stop and think. Yes, most of my favorite fantasy has at least a tiny dark shadow (even The Wizard of Oz has the Wicked Witch), but I certainly don't equate darkness with quality. One of my favorite Neil Gaiman stories is "Chivalry" and it is full of light. In any case, annoyance aside, Peter S. Beagle is capable of writing dark fantasy, but his stories are usually about personal darkness, as opposed to the darkness of a dystopian fantasy, or a world overrun with vampires and other nasty creatures. I imagine Beagle's stories as dark around the edges, like slightly burned cookies.
Now that I've got that off my chest, on to the book itself. The book contains 10 short stories, most published previously and the majority between 2007-2009. Like most short story collections, some stories appealed to me more than others. I think that is almost unavoidable when the writer is good and can create a range of different characters and situations. Beagle is not a "one note" writer: each story is different and most people will like some more than others.
My personal favorite is the title story, which made the book a worthwhile read all by itself. Whichever is your favorite, I don't think you'll be disappointed in the book as a whole.
April 22, 2009
This one just left me breathless. A collection of perfect little stories, all in different realities and all in different voices: from a nasty tv news anchor who may be the angel of death to a shapeshifting wife in Samurai Japan to a glorious retelling of Titania and the mortal man she falls in love with, there is simply nothing in here that doesn't just floor me.
As usual, Peter is amazing. Highly, highly recced.
As usual, Peter is amazing. Highly, highly recced.
June 6, 2009
As a fan of Mr. Beagle's work since childhood, I am most definitely a biased reader of his words. However, I think of all the works of his I've read, THIS is the one that holds its own the strongest and passes Mr. Beagle into the realm of not just a good author or an exceptional fantasy writer, but as a truly talented, SUPERB author.
I once wrote a paper about him as being one of the truly good American authors we had to survive in the literary world, a paper which I am certain my teachers scoffed at as I was very new and without a voice yet, but I wrote it and after xx amount of years I can finally come back to it and show my teachers without any doubt THIS novel and say "See, no doubt now, I told you. That's the stuff I meant all those years ago."
The stories in this novel are something to be savored. It is just the book you want for the fireside, that rainy afternoon in a cafe, or on the train - which is now five hours late and your sister is not happy and your tummy is long past rumbling. It is the novel you were waiting for to take for wisdom on a journey, or at a crossroads... or possibly just in the station for afar too long past when your train SHOULD have arrived.
But wherever you are going, this book is a valuable and worthy companion to take along with you.
I once wrote a paper about him as being one of the truly good American authors we had to survive in the literary world, a paper which I am certain my teachers scoffed at as I was very new and without a voice yet, but I wrote it and after xx amount of years I can finally come back to it and show my teachers without any doubt THIS novel and say "See, no doubt now, I told you. That's the stuff I meant all those years ago."
The stories in this novel are something to be savored. It is just the book you want for the fireside, that rainy afternoon in a cafe, or on the train - which is now five hours late and your sister is not happy and your tummy is long past rumbling. It is the novel you were waiting for to take for wisdom on a journey, or at a crossroads... or possibly just in the station for afar too long past when your train SHOULD have arrived.
But wherever you are going, this book is a valuable and worthy companion to take along with you.
April 15, 2024
For the longest time, I thought the title story was about the family stalling at the first or second of the five stages of grief. Visions of Death Be Not Proud mixed with the book that Beagle is primarily known for, perhaps, plus the complacency of bookshelves that allow a work to time-travel through my past and into my future without my quite registering what exactly I plan on getting into. Needless to say, that story is not about that: indeed, it was one of the worst of the bunch, all that gung ho 'work needs doing' machismo sunk into the worst tropes of supervillain-ery this godforsaken country of mine is capable of conjuring up. The other stories were more or less more interesting for being far away from that scene of small town 'murica "saving the world", but the further away one got from a certain breed of white masculinity, the more typecast everything became; at its worst instances, things happened not because they made any narrative sense, but because the would elicit the strongest emotional reaction from the reader, usually of the wistful/melancholy sort. And yet, I really did like the last one, "Chandail", however much it would have been better for it to be published in the early 1990's rather than the late 2000's, and I can't say that the rest didn't have something to offer, if only a mild twist on the same old subtle poignancy. All in all, slowly but surely I pull myself out of the morass of the long neglected corners of my TBR, and finally putting this book, added on the strength of a much faded memory of childhood nostalgia, is a part of that effort. I'm just glad that de Lint's praise at the beginning didn't damn these tales as much as it could have.
October 23, 2009
Another terrific collection of short stories from Peter Beagle.
“Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel” – art and the philosophy of art, a discussion that takes a turn when an angel arrives and insists that its portrait be painted.
“We Never Talk About My Brother” – the true relationship between the anchorman and the news.
“The Tale of Junko and Sayuri” – the commoner who serves in his lord's castle marries a shape-changer who sees his ambition.
“King Pelles the Sure” – "Once there was a king who dreamed of war." King Pelles's motives are literally childish, and the results are as bad as expected, but the ending goes beyond what you might think. An excellent anti-war story.
“The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French” – Mr Moscowitz's transformation makes him more French than anyone else.
“Spook” – a Joe Farrell story. Farrell has moved into a haunted house. The ghost wants him out. They decide to duel for it. The choice of weapons is … let's just say that this story needs to be read aloud.
“The Stickball Witch” – 1940/1950s childhood of stickball, and Mrs. Poliakov, whose yard the ball fell in. Terrific description of stickball (and lapta, for that matter).
“By Moonlight” – A thief on the run encounters a man who spent seven years in Faerie.
“The Unicorn Tapestries” – Poem sequence on the Unicorn Tapestries (which hang in The Cloisters in Fort Tyron Park, Manhattan).
“Chandail” – Lal (of The Innkeeper's Song) tells a story of her time with a Chandail, a sea creature that shows you images based on your memories. Not all of Lal-alone's memories are pleasant.
There isn't a story here that doesn't satisfy, and more than half of them take twists that you won't be expecting (and which I'm not giving away in the short summaries). Beagle's writing is so good that his grocery list must be poetry, and the stories he tells just hold and won't let me go as I read them.
“Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel” – art and the philosophy of art, a discussion that takes a turn when an angel arrives and insists that its portrait be painted.
“We Never Talk About My Brother” – the true relationship between the anchorman and the news.
“The Tale of Junko and Sayuri” – the commoner who serves in his lord's castle marries a shape-changer who sees his ambition.
“King Pelles the Sure” – "Once there was a king who dreamed of war." King Pelles's motives are literally childish, and the results are as bad as expected, but the ending goes beyond what you might think. An excellent anti-war story.
“The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French” – Mr Moscowitz's transformation makes him more French than anyone else.
“Spook” – a Joe Farrell story. Farrell has moved into a haunted house. The ghost wants him out. They decide to duel for it. The choice of weapons is … let's just say that this story needs to be read aloud.
“The Stickball Witch” – 1940/1950s childhood of stickball, and Mrs. Poliakov, whose yard the ball fell in. Terrific description of stickball (and lapta, for that matter).
“By Moonlight” – A thief on the run encounters a man who spent seven years in Faerie.
“The Unicorn Tapestries” – Poem sequence on the Unicorn Tapestries (which hang in The Cloisters in Fort Tyron Park, Manhattan).
“Chandail” – Lal (of The Innkeeper's Song) tells a story of her time with a Chandail, a sea creature that shows you images based on your memories. Not all of Lal-alone's memories are pleasant.
There isn't a story here that doesn't satisfy, and more than half of them take twists that you won't be expecting (and which I'm not giving away in the short summaries). Beagle's writing is so good that his grocery list must be poetry, and the stories he tells just hold and won't let me go as I read them.
October 5, 2022
Wie konnte ich die letzte Geschichte völlig vergessen haben? Ich liebe es, wenn Beagle für Stippvisiten in die Welt seiner Bücher zurückkehrt und ich liebe Lal aus The Innkeeper's Song und welche Charakterentwicklung sie hier durchmacht. Ich gebe 5 Sterne, nicht weil alle Geschichten perfekt sind (Zwei, drei ziehen sich ein bisschen, The Tale of Junko and Sayuri finde ich irgendwie schwer zu ertragen und The Last and Only wird so albern, dass ich wirklich nicht sagen kann, was die Botschaft ist). Aber das ist in allen Anthologien so. Die Guten Geschichten sind dafür so brillant, dass ich einfach nicht weniger Sterne verteilen kann. Mein absolute Favorit ist wahrscheinlich "Spook", aber ich liebe Farell ("Folk of the Air") ohnehin. Obwohl meist in einem Erzähl-Stil des nachträglich reflektierenden (nicht zwingend allwissenden) Erzählers geschrieben, funktioniert für Kurzgeschichten, was ich in Romanen oft nicht mag. Bei manchen dieser Dramen tut etwas Distanz gut.
May 30, 2009
A wonderful, wonderful collection of stories. Beagle's best.
Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel is a lovely, sad, happy story told through the eyes of a ten year old boy. One day, as he's sitting in the studio watching his Uncle Chaim paint, an angel arrives and informs Chaim that she's to be his muse and he will from that day on paint only her.
What follows is a harrowing tale as Chaim becomes obsessed, drawing further and further away from the world until only the angel matters.
If blackness is the absence of light, then those were the blackest eyes I'll ever see, because there was no light in those eyes, and no smallest possibility of light ever. You couldn't call them sad: sad at least knows what joy is, and grieves at being exiled from joy. However old he really was, those eyes were a thousand years past sad.
We Never Talk About My Brother, the story which this collection takes its name from, feels very short and seems to be over before it really begins.
The brother in question is sort of the angel of death. If he says someone died, they die. But not right at that moment, they are already dead, a week ago. It's an interesting premise, but I thought it could have been a bit longer.
He kind of whispered, "You got run over." Hadn't been as close as I was, I'd never have heard him.
"You got run over." Like that - like it had already happened, you see? Exactly - like he was reading the news. You got it.
Okay. Now. This is what's important. This is where you're going to start wondering whether you should have maybe sat just a little closer to the door. See, what happened to Donnie, didn't happen then - it had already happened a week before.
The Tale of Junko and Sayuri is a very sad story of a young man that falls in love with a shape-shifter. A story of how they both come to know their true nature.
Not even for the sake of at last learning my own being, my own soul. That can go undiscovered forever, and welcome, and I will remain Sayuri, your wife, no more and no less. And I will tend three graves, and pray at the shrine, and live as I can with what I have done. That is how it will be.
King Pelles the Sure is a short almost-fairytale of a king that rules a kingdom that has never known anything other than peace and prosperity. King Pelles, however, wants to be remembered for glory in battle and all that. However, he'd much rather it be a short, manageable war.
"Well, if that is what a war is, so be it. Consider our choices, Vizier, and make your recommendation." He added then, rather quickly, "But do arrange for a gracious war, if you possibly can. Something... something a little tidy. With songs in it, you know."
The Last and Only,
Or,
Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French
A story of, well, Mr. Moscowitz turning French. Slowly, over the course of years, he becomes more and more French, until he can no longer even speak english and he and his wife finally move to France. But he can't be happy there, either, for he finds that he is the only true Frenchman alive.
Mr. Moscowitz smiled, almost wistfully, and the President grew afraid. He had a sudden vision of Mr. Moscowitz banishing him and every other soul in France with a single word, a single gesture; and in that moment's vision it seemed to him that they all went away like clouds, leaving Mr. Moscowitz to dance by himself in cobwebbed Paris on Bastille day.
Spook
Another one of Beagle's Joe Farrell stories. Farrell moves into a new house with Julie, only to find out that it's haunted and the ghost thinks he's the one who killed him.
Obviously, the only solution is a duel to the death. The weapons? Bad poetry.
Plop, flop
Plop
The Stickball Witch is a truly wonderful story about Beagle playing stickball when he was eleven. One of the best short stories I've read by him.
Stewie Hauser - always the second guy to do or say anything, said he double-dared me. So there it was. You couldn't walk away from a double-dare, even from a dumbshit like Stewie. I mean, you could, but the rest of your life wouldn't ever be worth living after that. I knew that then. Not believed. Knew.
The Unicorn Tapestries
A nice series of poems based on the unicorn tapestries. Not amazing, but nice.
Chandail is a story set in Beagle's Innkeeper's Song universe. I didn't care much for that book, but I am constantly surprised at how he manages to tell some of his best stories in that world.
This is a story told by one of the characters in that novel, of her encounter with a mysterious, torturous sea creature.
Depending on where you drink and with whom, you can hear that the First Chandail fashioned a world before this one of ours: gloriously beautiful, by all accounts, but crafted all of water, which was no problem until the Second Chandail made the sun. More wondrous yet, that must have been for a while, what with the new, new light bending and shattering so dazzlingly through those endless droplets - a rainbow creation, surely. Except, of course, that it melted away, by and by, and sank back into empty dark until the world we know came to be.
Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel is a lovely, sad, happy story told through the eyes of a ten year old boy. One day, as he's sitting in the studio watching his Uncle Chaim paint, an angel arrives and informs Chaim that she's to be his muse and he will from that day on paint only her.
What follows is a harrowing tale as Chaim becomes obsessed, drawing further and further away from the world until only the angel matters.
If blackness is the absence of light, then those were the blackest eyes I'll ever see, because there was no light in those eyes, and no smallest possibility of light ever. You couldn't call them sad: sad at least knows what joy is, and grieves at being exiled from joy. However old he really was, those eyes were a thousand years past sad.
We Never Talk About My Brother, the story which this collection takes its name from, feels very short and seems to be over before it really begins.
The brother in question is sort of the angel of death. If he says someone died, they die. But not right at that moment, they are already dead, a week ago. It's an interesting premise, but I thought it could have been a bit longer.
He kind of whispered, "You got run over." Hadn't been as close as I was, I'd never have heard him.
"You got run over." Like that - like it had already happened, you see? Exactly - like he was reading the news. You got it.
Okay. Now. This is what's important. This is where you're going to start wondering whether you should have maybe sat just a little closer to the door. See, what happened to Donnie, didn't happen then - it had already happened a week before.
The Tale of Junko and Sayuri is a very sad story of a young man that falls in love with a shape-shifter. A story of how they both come to know their true nature.
Not even for the sake of at last learning my own being, my own soul. That can go undiscovered forever, and welcome, and I will remain Sayuri, your wife, no more and no less. And I will tend three graves, and pray at the shrine, and live as I can with what I have done. That is how it will be.
King Pelles the Sure is a short almost-fairytale of a king that rules a kingdom that has never known anything other than peace and prosperity. King Pelles, however, wants to be remembered for glory in battle and all that. However, he'd much rather it be a short, manageable war.
"Well, if that is what a war is, so be it. Consider our choices, Vizier, and make your recommendation." He added then, rather quickly, "But do arrange for a gracious war, if you possibly can. Something... something a little tidy. With songs in it, you know."
The Last and Only,
Or,
Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French
A story of, well, Mr. Moscowitz turning French. Slowly, over the course of years, he becomes more and more French, until he can no longer even speak english and he and his wife finally move to France. But he can't be happy there, either, for he finds that he is the only true Frenchman alive.
Mr. Moscowitz smiled, almost wistfully, and the President grew afraid. He had a sudden vision of Mr. Moscowitz banishing him and every other soul in France with a single word, a single gesture; and in that moment's vision it seemed to him that they all went away like clouds, leaving Mr. Moscowitz to dance by himself in cobwebbed Paris on Bastille day.
Spook
Another one of Beagle's Joe Farrell stories. Farrell moves into a new house with Julie, only to find out that it's haunted and the ghost thinks he's the one who killed him.
Obviously, the only solution is a duel to the death. The weapons? Bad poetry.
Plop, flop
Plop
The Stickball Witch is a truly wonderful story about Beagle playing stickball when he was eleven. One of the best short stories I've read by him.
Stewie Hauser - always the second guy to do or say anything, said he double-dared me. So there it was. You couldn't walk away from a double-dare, even from a dumbshit like Stewie. I mean, you could, but the rest of your life wouldn't ever be worth living after that. I knew that then. Not believed. Knew.
The Unicorn Tapestries
A nice series of poems based on the unicorn tapestries. Not amazing, but nice.
Chandail is a story set in Beagle's Innkeeper's Song universe. I didn't care much for that book, but I am constantly surprised at how he manages to tell some of his best stories in that world.
This is a story told by one of the characters in that novel, of her encounter with a mysterious, torturous sea creature.
Depending on where you drink and with whom, you can hear that the First Chandail fashioned a world before this one of ours: gloriously beautiful, by all accounts, but crafted all of water, which was no problem until the Second Chandail made the sun. More wondrous yet, that must have been for a while, what with the new, new light bending and shattering so dazzlingly through those endless droplets - a rainbow creation, surely. Except, of course, that it melted away, by and by, and sank back into empty dark until the world we know came to be.
March 4, 2017
The stories in this collection are inventive, engaging, and always striving to tell us something about our own hearts. The Unicorn Tapestry poem wasn't very good, and the story Spook was meh (maybe I think Beagle should steer clear of poetry regardless of whether it's meant to be good or bad). The others I sped through rather quickly and enjoyed.
April 15, 2009
I'm not much of a short story fan usually, but Peter Beagle is an exception to that tendency. I look forward to a new short story collection of his just as much as I would to a new novel, and I wasn't disappointed in this one. It's perhaps not quite as strong as The Line Between (which has the wonderful followup to The Last Unicorn, "Two Hearts"), but it's excellent all the same.
One of the things I love about Beagle is his ability to write fluently in vastly different narrative voices, which is especially apparent and impressive in a story collection. Just to take the first two stories (which were probably my favorites) as examples: "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel" is narrated by a young Jewish boy in New York, while the next story, "We Never Talk About My Brother", has a much older, rather backwoods kind of narrator. Both narrators are equally compelling and have a voice that pulls me into the story quickly, as Beagle's narrators generally do.
One of the things I love about Beagle is his ability to write fluently in vastly different narrative voices, which is especially apparent and impressive in a story collection. Just to take the first two stories (which were probably my favorites) as examples: "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel" is narrated by a young Jewish boy in New York, while the next story, "We Never Talk About My Brother", has a much older, rather backwoods kind of narrator. Both narrators are equally compelling and have a voice that pulls me into the story quickly, as Beagle's narrators generally do.
July 31, 2016
Oh, this is such a literary oasis, precious beyond description. I have never heard nor read Beagle's works before, I must confess, but I absolutely adored his intricacies, his witticisms, his wisdom. It is entirely appropriate that one of the stories contained in this book was titled The Unicorn Tapestries--based on actual tapestries by the same name--because that perfectly describes the entire feel of the book (and it really should have been the title, although maybe it's just too similar to The Last Unicorn, and I do love the titular story). For all his dreamy writing, Beagle's story felt so wonderfully grounded, felt so real, as real as the air we breathe or the blue sky. He turned fantasy into reality and it was magnificent, not only a grand adventure but also a reflection on what life--and dreams--actually is. Everything is subtly intricate, embroidered with the greatest care and concern. There is not a "bad" story here. Every story shines in its own way and offers their own quiet wisdom.
It felt a bit sad to leave his stories because they were such wonderful places to live in. I'd definitely recommend this one.
It felt a bit sad to leave his stories because they were such wonderful places to live in. I'd definitely recommend this one.
April 12, 2009
I LOVE Peter S. Beagle's work. The only thing that keeps this book from a five star rating is a combination of the fact that I'm not a huge short story fan, and two, there are a few stories in here that I didn't like as well, so the book seems a little uneven. That being said, the first two stories are marvelous. So marvelous that I read the first story to my husband, whether he liked it or not (he liked it). A definite good read.
April 3, 2010
Had to mark this anthology, though I've only (so far) read the stories that previously debuted in Strange Roads, a chapbook collaboration published with artist Lisa Snellings. The two stories: Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel is an amazing story of compulsion and compassion. The story Spook, about a very unusual duel, fought for the prize of a home, made me giggle with glee. HIGHLY recommended just for those two stories.
January 17, 2013
A superb collection of Beagle stories, showcasing his imagination and his immense versatility.
While few of these stories are absolute must-reads, each one of them is excellent, fresh, and intriguing - each in its own way. There's an urban Jewish fantasy, a metaphysical duel in sibling rivaly, an Eastern-flavored legend, and a surrealistic tale of an average librarian mysteriously becoming French. Each is excellent. Highly recommended.
While few of these stories are absolute must-reads, each one of them is excellent, fresh, and intriguing - each in its own way. There's an urban Jewish fantasy, a metaphysical duel in sibling rivaly, an Eastern-flavored legend, and a surrealistic tale of an average librarian mysteriously becoming French. Each is excellent. Highly recommended.
June 22, 2020
We Never Talk About My Brother’ is the title story of this anthology by Peter S. Beagle. Some of the other stories herein include ‘Uncle Chaim, Aunt Rifke And The Angel’, ‘The Tale OF JUNKO AND Sayuri’, ‘King Pelles The Sure’ and ‘The Last And Only, Or Mr Moscowitz Becomes French’ all of which also appear in ‘Mirror Kingdoms: The Best Of Peter S. Beagle’, which I have already reviewed this month. I didn’t mention the story about a chap becoming French in that review but, while good, it is slightly too absurd for my taste. Nor did I review ‘Uncle Chaim, Aunt Rifke And The Angel’ again, because I did so when it appeared in ‘The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science-Fiction but it is very good. Beagle doesn’t do bad. His range is from good to absolutely bloody marvellous.
That leaves me with only four stories to critique. ‘Spook’ is a Joe Farrell adventure. He’s the cook who featured in ‘Julie’s Unicorn’ and here finds a desirable new apartment haunted by a ghost who is convinced that Joe is his killer. As he was murdered over a hundred years ago, this isn’t so but spooks are stubborn even when wrong. It had me laughing out loud and is the finest thing here. If you ask me it should have featured in The Best Of Peter S. Beagle, but no one did ask.
‘The Stickball Witch’ is set in the Bronx in the 50s but has some universal characteristics or at least some common to western cultures and perhaps others. Every neighbourhood has that feared old person into whose garden children dare not tread, even to get the ball back. When the Stickball Witch comes out to join in the game, things get interesting. Especially nostalgic fun, no doubt, for those who share ‘Mr. Beagle’s New York’ origins.
‘By Moonlight’ is a tale of Oberon and Titania, the Queen of Faery. As, so often with Beagle, it is told to someone else, a highwayman in this case, by the person to whom it all happened, a Reverend in this case. On a lonely Yorkshire moor, the clergyman went wandering one night looking for his cat and wandered into the magic kingdom. The story was narrated in the usual seemingly effortless prose and passed the time pleasantly. I am unable to describe Beagle’s writing but it is so natural, so easy, so unforced that it seems to have come into being almost organically by itself. Even with the best of writers, you can see, occasionally, the craftsman at work, sometimes badly. A jerky transition, a bad simile, something will bring the writer to your attention. Beagle is invisible, perhaps because he uses his narrators so well.
‘Chandail’ the last story, is about telepathic sea monsters who get inside your head and play with your memories and make you cry. It is told by Lalkhamsin-khamsolal, an old lady now, who did not enjoy the sea monsters’ attention because her memories were mostly bad. She was sold into slavery as a child and raped. A moving revenge story with a lot of soul searching by the teller.
The problem for the purchaser of short story collections is to avoid wasting money buying the same ones twice. As mentioned, half of this collection is included in ‘Mirror Kingdoms: The Best Of Peter S. Beagle’ and, hand on heart, that is the better book, if only because it contains more of Peter S. Beagle. However, it is a limited edition and might not be available or affordable and you would miss out on ‘Spook’, which is marvellous. The canny reader will scour the contents pages of the various anthologies and decide which ones best fit the finances. Having read these two, I am sorely tempted to chase up every single word Peter S. Beagle has ever written and devour them at my leisure.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
That leaves me with only four stories to critique. ‘Spook’ is a Joe Farrell adventure. He’s the cook who featured in ‘Julie’s Unicorn’ and here finds a desirable new apartment haunted by a ghost who is convinced that Joe is his killer. As he was murdered over a hundred years ago, this isn’t so but spooks are stubborn even when wrong. It had me laughing out loud and is the finest thing here. If you ask me it should have featured in The Best Of Peter S. Beagle, but no one did ask.
‘The Stickball Witch’ is set in the Bronx in the 50s but has some universal characteristics or at least some common to western cultures and perhaps others. Every neighbourhood has that feared old person into whose garden children dare not tread, even to get the ball back. When the Stickball Witch comes out to join in the game, things get interesting. Especially nostalgic fun, no doubt, for those who share ‘Mr. Beagle’s New York’ origins.
‘By Moonlight’ is a tale of Oberon and Titania, the Queen of Faery. As, so often with Beagle, it is told to someone else, a highwayman in this case, by the person to whom it all happened, a Reverend in this case. On a lonely Yorkshire moor, the clergyman went wandering one night looking for his cat and wandered into the magic kingdom. The story was narrated in the usual seemingly effortless prose and passed the time pleasantly. I am unable to describe Beagle’s writing but it is so natural, so easy, so unforced that it seems to have come into being almost organically by itself. Even with the best of writers, you can see, occasionally, the craftsman at work, sometimes badly. A jerky transition, a bad simile, something will bring the writer to your attention. Beagle is invisible, perhaps because he uses his narrators so well.
‘Chandail’ the last story, is about telepathic sea monsters who get inside your head and play with your memories and make you cry. It is told by Lalkhamsin-khamsolal, an old lady now, who did not enjoy the sea monsters’ attention because her memories were mostly bad. She was sold into slavery as a child and raped. A moving revenge story with a lot of soul searching by the teller.
The problem for the purchaser of short story collections is to avoid wasting money buying the same ones twice. As mentioned, half of this collection is included in ‘Mirror Kingdoms: The Best Of Peter S. Beagle’ and, hand on heart, that is the better book, if only because it contains more of Peter S. Beagle. However, it is a limited edition and might not be available or affordable and you would miss out on ‘Spook’, which is marvellous. The canny reader will scour the contents pages of the various anthologies and decide which ones best fit the finances. Having read these two, I am sorely tempted to chase up every single word Peter S. Beagle has ever written and devour them at my leisure.
Eamonn Murphy
This review first appeared at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/
June 27, 2021
An eclectic mixture of 10 fantasy stories from American writer Peter S. Beagle. My first encounter with him proved interesting but at times challenging due to the complexities of his grammar and sentence structure. However, for sheer creative imagination he is a force to be acknowledged. I love short story collections and the beauty of them is how many different stories one can encounter within the pages of a single volume. If you like fantasy, this is definitely worth reading. The stories are as follows:
1) Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel. My favourite story, although the tenth and final story comes close. Uncle Chaim, a painter, is working in his studio one day when an angel appears and insists that he paint her. I am your muse, she insists, so he paints her. But this blue angel has a devastating secret and it will take his nephew, David, his aunt Rifke, and the aid of a rabbi to discover it. 5/5
2) We Never Talk About My Brother. Esau, now a famous celebrity TV anchorman returns to his home town where his brother Jacob runs a department store. After dinner, tensions erupt and the brothers clash. Esau reveals a dark hidden talent, but he's not the only brother with a gift. 4/5
3) The Tale of Junko and Sayuri. Junko, a young Japanese man and chief horsemaster to Lord Kuroda injures an otter on a hunt. Feeling compassion, he takes the otter home to heal it, and names it Sayuri. But the otter is not what it appears, and Junko's destiny changes forever as he discovers you should be careful what you wish for. 4/5
4) King Pelles the Sure. King Pelles is bored and asks his Grand Vizier to start a little war for him, but the battle escalates to an unforeseen extent, causing a severe change of destinies for all concerned. 4/5
5) The Last and Only, or Mr Moscovitz Becomes French. As the title says, the American Mr M becomes very, very French. 3/5
6) Spook. Joe moves in to a haunted loft and is challenged to a duel by the ghost. He chooses bad poetry as weapons, thinking this will certainly win him the prize of being left alone, but the ghost knows a thing or two about poetry. 3/5
7) The Stickball Witch. In a 1950s Bronx, a lost ball whilst playing Stickball, an urban version of baseball, leads to a memorable encounter with the neighbourhood witch, Mrs Poliakov. 4/5
8) By Moonlight. Roger Darlington, a highwayman, encounters Elias Patterson at his fire and, intent on stealing the man's enchanting cloak, joins him to hear of Elias's encounter with the rulers of the faery realm, Oberon and Titania, the latter having led to a lifelong obsession. 5/5
9) The Unicorn Tapestries. A poem about a unicorn hunt, based on the tapestries in the Cloisters of the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art. The depicted hunt illustrates a shameless effort to catch a mythical creature, the stuff of which dreams are made of. 2/5
10) Chandail. Sailor Lal, a black woman mercenary, tells the tale of a dying chandail, a hypnotic, transcendent creature that is able to dig deep into the psyche of all who come close to it. In exchange for a kind mercy, the creature gives Lal a very special gift in return. 5/5
1) Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel. My favourite story, although the tenth and final story comes close. Uncle Chaim, a painter, is working in his studio one day when an angel appears and insists that he paint her. I am your muse, she insists, so he paints her. But this blue angel has a devastating secret and it will take his nephew, David, his aunt Rifke, and the aid of a rabbi to discover it. 5/5
2) We Never Talk About My Brother. Esau, now a famous celebrity TV anchorman returns to his home town where his brother Jacob runs a department store. After dinner, tensions erupt and the brothers clash. Esau reveals a dark hidden talent, but he's not the only brother with a gift. 4/5
3) The Tale of Junko and Sayuri. Junko, a young Japanese man and chief horsemaster to Lord Kuroda injures an otter on a hunt. Feeling compassion, he takes the otter home to heal it, and names it Sayuri. But the otter is not what it appears, and Junko's destiny changes forever as he discovers you should be careful what you wish for. 4/5
4) King Pelles the Sure. King Pelles is bored and asks his Grand Vizier to start a little war for him, but the battle escalates to an unforeseen extent, causing a severe change of destinies for all concerned. 4/5
5) The Last and Only, or Mr Moscovitz Becomes French. As the title says, the American Mr M becomes very, very French. 3/5
6) Spook. Joe moves in to a haunted loft and is challenged to a duel by the ghost. He chooses bad poetry as weapons, thinking this will certainly win him the prize of being left alone, but the ghost knows a thing or two about poetry. 3/5
7) The Stickball Witch. In a 1950s Bronx, a lost ball whilst playing Stickball, an urban version of baseball, leads to a memorable encounter with the neighbourhood witch, Mrs Poliakov. 4/5
8) By Moonlight. Roger Darlington, a highwayman, encounters Elias Patterson at his fire and, intent on stealing the man's enchanting cloak, joins him to hear of Elias's encounter with the rulers of the faery realm, Oberon and Titania, the latter having led to a lifelong obsession. 5/5
9) The Unicorn Tapestries. A poem about a unicorn hunt, based on the tapestries in the Cloisters of the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art. The depicted hunt illustrates a shameless effort to catch a mythical creature, the stuff of which dreams are made of. 2/5
10) Chandail. Sailor Lal, a black woman mercenary, tells the tale of a dying chandail, a hypnotic, transcendent creature that is able to dig deep into the psyche of all who come close to it. In exchange for a kind mercy, the creature gives Lal a very special gift in return. 5/5
August 23, 2021
I may get slapped for this opener...
I read this short story collection before I read The Last Unicorn.
I think I should let you all know that The Last Unicorn did not blow me away at all.
I know, I know. I'm a terrible human being.
I did, however, adore We Never Talk about My Brother.
It has managed to sneak its way into my top five favorite short story collections of all time (admittedly that is not actually a real thing - my top five lists usually have about thirty).
What I love most about a well written short story collection is just that - it's well written. If you are going to do a whole story in a few to a few dozen pages, every sentence - no, every word - needs to be immaculate. And that was done in almost every story in this collection.
I'm gonna break it down.
There may or may not be SPOILERS involved.
You may want to grab a cup of coffee or tea or whiskey (different strokes...). The first three stories were my favorites.
Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel
Anyone who has ever sought creative perfection knows what a muse is. She/he/it is your ticket to that masterpiece - that painting, that poem, that symphony, that sculpture, that book. Uncle Chaim is no different. His muse? Well, his muse is a bit different. This isn't a neon haired Treasure Troll (oh wait - that's at the local bingo hall); his muse is an ANGEL. Here is the problem: How do you capture the essence of an angel? How do you ever capture this perfection on canvas?
This story is told by a young boy, the nephew of Chaim. This adds innocence to a story that may appear equally innocent at the start but is actually a little chilling. I truly don't want to give anything away. Just know that what may sound a little boring is most definitely NOT boring.
Sneak Peek Spoiler: A Rabbi gets involved.
We Never Talk About My Brother
I love this title because it instantly gets your mind whirring. Why? Why don't they ever talk about this brother? Did he disgrace the family name? Did he die?
Unfortunately, I can't squeak a darn thing in this one without spoiling it completely. I will just say that it is nothing close to what you are thinking it is.
Sneak Peek Spoiler: If you think YOU'VE experienced sibling rivalry...
The Tale of Junko and Sayuri
Here is how this tale begins:
In Japan, very, very, long ago, when almost anybody you met on the road might turn out to be a god or a demon, there was a young man named Junko.
Well, this alone sucked me right in. I am a complete sucker for a true "tale." I want a story that involves morals, lessons to be learned. I don't even need a happy ending. I want the things that only exist in an imagination and then in a book or in a movie. This was quite possibly my favorite in the whole collection.
Sneak Peek Spoiler: One Word - Shapeshifting.
And it was here, after this fantastic "tale", that the collection stopped wowing me. Don't get me wrong; I still admire the work and think it is fantastic as a whole collection. The rest just didn't leave me breathless in the way the first thing did.
King Pelles the Sure
First line:
Once there was a king who dreamed of war. His name was Pelles.
This is a short tale about a king who has never been through war. War follows. And the unraveling of a kingdom and a king follow that. There is a lesson in this as well, but it had more of a fairytale feeling to me than the previous story. Short and sweet.
The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French
I expect a lot from a story with this cool of a title. Unfortunately, I almost disliked this story. This had a lot to do with my great dislike for Mr. Moscowitz himself. It isn't really fair that I hate the story, as I wasn't tricked into disliking him. He really is an unlikeable character. It was still well written and a bit funny in an unfunny way.
Just trust me.
Spook
It's happened to us all. We get into intenserap poetry battles with ghosts.
What do you mean it hasn't happened to you?
The Stickball Witch
This was the weakest of the bunch for me. A group of young boys. A came ofbaseball stickball. A old woman neighbor who may or may not be a witch. You've heard some version of it before.
By Moonlight
A campfire tale told to a highwayman by a former Reverend. Another tale - Beagle truly does these so well. This one involves a tale (of Faeries - Oberon and Titania - and the said Reverend) within a tale. I loved the way this one played out.
The Unicorn Tapestries
From Beagle's introduction to this poem, I learned that the Unicorn Tapestries are an actual thing, and the poem is written around them. I would be absolutely fascinated to see these in real life.
Here is a photo:
Seriously...how awesome/amazing/fantastical is THAT?
I thought this poem was better than the whole The Last Unicorn (yeah yeah...go ahead with your booing and hissing).
Chandail
I'm a little foggy on this one. To be fair (to myself), I did read this almost three months ago. I do recall that a Chandail is a sea creature. Ah, here is the perfect description of one:
Ugly, yes, marvelously horrific; yet if you look at them long enough, sometimes something happens to your sight, and you can actually see them becoming beautiful right before you, so beautiful that your eyes and mind hurt together, trying to take in such splendor. And yet they remain exactly what they are: dankly reeking multi-legged monsters, like some grotesque cross between a jellyfish and a centipede.
Now if THAT doesn't give you the willies...
But seriously, this is another tale within a tale. As I've mentioned, Beagle is a master of the tale within the tale. Maybe I would have thought more of "the book of which shall not be named again because I value my life" if it had been such a tale within a tale.
A mostly superb, almost perfect collection.
4 Stars
I read this short story collection before I read The Last Unicorn.
I think I should let you all know that The Last Unicorn did not blow me away at all.
I know, I know. I'm a terrible human being.
I did, however, adore We Never Talk about My Brother.
It has managed to sneak its way into my top five favorite short story collections of all time (admittedly that is not actually a real thing - my top five lists usually have about thirty).
What I love most about a well written short story collection is just that - it's well written. If you are going to do a whole story in a few to a few dozen pages, every sentence - no, every word - needs to be immaculate. And that was done in almost every story in this collection.
I'm gonna break it down.
There may or may not be SPOILERS involved.
You may want to grab a cup of coffee or tea or whiskey (different strokes...). The first three stories were my favorites.
Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel
Anyone who has ever sought creative perfection knows what a muse is. She/he/it is your ticket to that masterpiece - that painting, that poem, that symphony, that sculpture, that book. Uncle Chaim is no different. His muse? Well, his muse is a bit different. This isn't a neon haired Treasure Troll (oh wait - that's at the local bingo hall); his muse is an ANGEL. Here is the problem: How do you capture the essence of an angel? How do you ever capture this perfection on canvas?
This story is told by a young boy, the nephew of Chaim. This adds innocence to a story that may appear equally innocent at the start but is actually a little chilling. I truly don't want to give anything away. Just know that what may sound a little boring is most definitely NOT boring.
Sneak Peek Spoiler: A Rabbi gets involved.
We Never Talk About My Brother
I love this title because it instantly gets your mind whirring. Why? Why don't they ever talk about this brother? Did he disgrace the family name? Did he die?
Unfortunately, I can't squeak a darn thing in this one without spoiling it completely. I will just say that it is nothing close to what you are thinking it is.
Sneak Peek Spoiler: If you think YOU'VE experienced sibling rivalry...
The Tale of Junko and Sayuri
Here is how this tale begins:
In Japan, very, very, long ago, when almost anybody you met on the road might turn out to be a god or a demon, there was a young man named Junko.
Well, this alone sucked me right in. I am a complete sucker for a true "tale." I want a story that involves morals, lessons to be learned. I don't even need a happy ending. I want the things that only exist in an imagination and then in a book or in a movie. This was quite possibly my favorite in the whole collection.
Sneak Peek Spoiler: One Word - Shapeshifting.
And it was here, after this fantastic "tale", that the collection stopped wowing me. Don't get me wrong; I still admire the work and think it is fantastic as a whole collection. The rest just didn't leave me breathless in the way the first thing did.
King Pelles the Sure
First line:
Once there was a king who dreamed of war. His name was Pelles.
This is a short tale about a king who has never been through war. War follows. And the unraveling of a kingdom and a king follow that. There is a lesson in this as well, but it had more of a fairytale feeling to me than the previous story. Short and sweet.
The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French
I expect a lot from a story with this cool of a title. Unfortunately, I almost disliked this story. This had a lot to do with my great dislike for Mr. Moscowitz himself. It isn't really fair that I hate the story, as I wasn't tricked into disliking him. He really is an unlikeable character. It was still well written and a bit funny in an unfunny way.
Just trust me.
Spook
It's happened to us all. We get into intense
What do you mean it hasn't happened to you?
The Stickball Witch
This was the weakest of the bunch for me. A group of young boys. A came of
By Moonlight
A campfire tale told to a highwayman by a former Reverend. Another tale - Beagle truly does these so well. This one involves a tale (of Faeries - Oberon and Titania - and the said Reverend) within a tale. I loved the way this one played out.
The Unicorn Tapestries
From Beagle's introduction to this poem, I learned that the Unicorn Tapestries are an actual thing, and the poem is written around them. I would be absolutely fascinated to see these in real life.
Here is a photo:
Seriously...how awesome/amazing/fantastical is THAT?
I thought this poem was better than the whole The Last Unicorn (yeah yeah...go ahead with your booing and hissing).
Chandail
I'm a little foggy on this one. To be fair (to myself), I did read this almost three months ago. I do recall that a Chandail is a sea creature. Ah, here is the perfect description of one:
Ugly, yes, marvelously horrific; yet if you look at them long enough, sometimes something happens to your sight, and you can actually see them becoming beautiful right before you, so beautiful that your eyes and mind hurt together, trying to take in such splendor. And yet they remain exactly what they are: dankly reeking multi-legged monsters, like some grotesque cross between a jellyfish and a centipede.
Now if THAT doesn't give you the willies...
But seriously, this is another tale within a tale. As I've mentioned, Beagle is a master of the tale within the tale. Maybe I would have thought more of "the book of which shall not be named again because I value my life" if it had been such a tale within a tale.
A mostly superb, almost perfect collection.
4 Stars
June 22, 2019
This book has been on my want to read list for a while and I’m going to make a big statement here, the first short story, Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel, was probably the best written story I have ever read. This was not only expertly written but so mesmerizing that I was completely absorbed and the even better, the ending didn’t disappoint. I loved it.
Other tales in the book perhaps weren’t as good but it didn’t really matter, Peter Beagle has a way of taking an old concept and reworking it so you are drawn in even when you were resistant, which was the case for me with The Stickball Witch. We have all heard that old tale of the resident witch but this story moved one step beyond and made the idea new and fresh again.
While some of the tales were quite sad, most of these contained a very poignant message and I think the author did very well to touch on sensitive subjects and illuminate ideologies which perhaps we don’t always want to admit exist.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy, enjoys a really good storyteller and is willing to take the angst with the joy.
Other tales in the book perhaps weren’t as good but it didn’t really matter, Peter Beagle has a way of taking an old concept and reworking it so you are drawn in even when you were resistant, which was the case for me with The Stickball Witch. We have all heard that old tale of the resident witch but this story moved one step beyond and made the idea new and fresh again.
While some of the tales were quite sad, most of these contained a very poignant message and I think the author did very well to touch on sensitive subjects and illuminate ideologies which perhaps we don’t always want to admit exist.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy, enjoys a really good storyteller and is willing to take the angst with the joy.
September 25, 2017
Very well written... Interesting, wise, poetic... personal... original... surprising...
Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel - can angels be possessed - apparently they can
We Never Talk About My Brother - what is the most extreme kind of change? When things have always been that way... A twist on the Antichrist idea.
The Tale of Junko and Sayuri - love story, sad, Asian flavor
King Pelles the Sure - allegory, fairy tale, sad again...
The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French - humorous
Spook - genius! Duel with bad poetry. Pure genius! (Poetry as currency is also mentioned in "By Moonlight")
The Stickball Witch - people are not what they seem... d'oh... Reminded me of "To kill a mockingbird"
By Moonlight - Shakespearean...
The Unicorn Tapestries - I liked this the least of the stories... maybe because I find it too sad to hunt a unicorn...
Chandail - excellent, humane, well-written, wise - "Wisdom is uncertainty. Wisdom is confusion"
"Fish are quite naive, and lack humor. The same could be said for gods, I have often thought."
Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel - can angels be possessed - apparently they can
We Never Talk About My Brother - what is the most extreme kind of change? When things have always been that way... A twist on the Antichrist idea.
The Tale of Junko and Sayuri - love story, sad, Asian flavor
King Pelles the Sure - allegory, fairy tale, sad again...
The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French - humorous
Spook - genius! Duel with bad poetry. Pure genius! (Poetry as currency is also mentioned in "By Moonlight")
The Stickball Witch - people are not what they seem... d'oh... Reminded me of "To kill a mockingbird"
By Moonlight - Shakespearean...
The Unicorn Tapestries - I liked this the least of the stories... maybe because I find it too sad to hunt a unicorn...
Chandail - excellent, humane, well-written, wise - "Wisdom is uncertainty. Wisdom is confusion"
"Fish are quite naive, and lack humor. The same could be said for gods, I have often thought."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 11, 2017
I loved this. Its been sitting around for years, library booksale purchase. I'd been avoiding it because it had a "Science Fiction" sticker on the spine from the library. It was not what I term science fiction. It was more like fantasy, or twilight zon-ish stories. Normal life, with one weird thing going on. It was a short story collection, set in various times and places. I think only one was actually set in a totally fantasy world. But angels, ghosts and fairys exist in this author's world. They were all thoughtful, nuanced, and fun stories. Looked for more of his work at the library last night -- and was disappointed.
January 1, 2018
"But it is a curious thing, how certain horrors are so vastly horrible to think about that they simply do not take hold on your imagination at the time, but go almost unnoticed - sooner or later to wake you screaming, surely, but not now."
Given my previous reads by Peter S. Beagle (most notably The Last Unicorn), I was expecting this to be a more fantasy-heavy compilation, but the stories included here are quite mixed and show a wide range of types and genres. I liked all of the stories and really enjoyed a number of them. This is a very worthwhile collection for Peter S. Beagle fans and newcomers alike.
Related Reads:
The Line Between [Short Stories] (Beagle)
Given my previous reads by Peter S. Beagle (most notably The Last Unicorn), I was expecting this to be a more fantasy-heavy compilation, but the stories included here are quite mixed and show a wide range of types and genres. I liked all of the stories and really enjoyed a number of them. This is a very worthwhile collection for Peter S. Beagle fans and newcomers alike.
Related Reads:
The Line Between [Short Stories] (Beagle)
November 24, 2017
It's cheating, a bit, for me to count this towards my pages read in 2017, since many of these stories were reprinted in Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle, and I didn't reread them when I picked up this book.
Look, Beagle is probably the master of this form; I don't think that's up for debate. But Mirror Kingdoms is the better collection of stories, and the overlap is so great that my only recommendation is to pick that one up and leave this one alone.
Look, Beagle is probably the master of this form; I don't think that's up for debate. But Mirror Kingdoms is the better collection of stories, and the overlap is so great that my only recommendation is to pick that one up and leave this one alone.
January 17, 2022
One of the best short story collections I've read. Beagle writes very literary fantasy and it's always beautiful. Each story reads like a classic and tells something much deeper than most fantasy stories. My favorite story is the one of the creature who turned into a woman to be this guy's wife. It's very similar to The Last Unicorn but I liked it more.
Every story in here is fantastic though.
Every story in here is fantastic though.
June 13, 2018
This is a wonderful collection of short stories, all the stories are good in their own right but very different from each other. Something really different. I must have enjoyed it because I had already bought a second copy for a friend before I finished it!
My favourites were probably "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel", "By Moonlight" and "We Never Talk About My Brother".
My favourites were probably "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel", "By Moonlight" and "We Never Talk About My Brother".
July 30, 2018
What a delightful collection of short stories! Beagle is at home in all genres, apparently. I love his writing style; it's so gentle. And the stories are funny, poignant, relevant, sad, and haunting all at once. I knew from the summary that I'd love this book, but I didn't know just how much I'd enjoy it. I loved the explanatory author's notes at the beginning of each chapter too.
October 10, 2025
Not a bad story in the bunch, and a few big winners ("By Moonlight", "Chandail", and especially "Uncle Chaim"). "Mr. Moscowitz" and "Spook" nearly overstayed their welcome, but got out just in time. It's a high four or a low five, but something about Beagle's prose and outlook inclines me toward generosity.
July 1, 2017
I don't even like short stories. Peter Beagle has captured the magic that makes stories worth reading and, in spite of how some want to call his writing fantasy he touched way too close to home on how it feels to be me. Thanks, Peter, for writing from your heart.
April 14, 2019
Hit and miss. The last tale in the collection might be one of the most compelling tales I’ve ever read. Described so well I think I lived it and so real and unreal at the same time it kind of beggars imagination that it doesn’t exist.
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