A Fine & Private Place- Critique

Shelly Wombles
Marcha Hunley
27 August 2009
Critique: A Fine & Private Place
The novel touches on many themes that exist in the real world, and in the world of the supernatural. Beagle explores the realm of a man secluded from society keeping company with ghosts and animals in a cemetery outside of New York City. Despite the implications of a sci-fi escapade, it is a charming tale of a man seeking his own truth. The book unravels its underlying theme through metaphors.
Our main character, Mr.Rebeck, has lived in a mausoleum for nearly twenty years when we first meet him. He was once an admired and respected druggist, doing his best to care for his clients and keep his pharmacy successful. Many a company has had to strive to compete with big business and succumb to losing their fight to stay afloat. The loss of his livelihood and idea of who he was as a man proved to be quite stressful for Mr.Rebeck. He decided to leave society and live among the dead. The raven, an unlikely companion, turns out to be his “angel”. If a person does not dare step outside the gates of the cemetery, then certainly there must be someone supplying his nutrients. The talking, sometimes hitch hiking or walking raven is the animal in the truest emotional sense. He has befriended the hermit and brings him food and news, but he is practical in his friendship. Beagle alludes to the feeling that this bird, this animal, need not be upset if he lost his relationships at any given moment. At first speculation, I imagined the raven to be filler and light-hearted in an after school special kind of a way, an insult almost. I now believe he is central to the other characters, both alive and dead, in that he is a catalyst to show what they are not.
The appearance of Mrs. Klapper is the turnaround point for Mr. Rebeck, he has invited someone tangible back into his life and realized that, this, the relationship, is the thing that he ran from and that is the crux of our existence. The theme I believe clouded in metaphors throughout the novel is the importance of the relationships we have with others, above all else. Beagle shows us the aftermath of souls who blindly trudge about through life with the romance between Michael and Laura. Having had their chance on life and love, they now seek true meaning devoid of arrogance or lack thereof in their current state of limbo. The ghosts play out a drama of the struggle of what it is to be human, to gain meaning in it all, to truly love another, to be aware of oneself, to be awake enough not to sleep-walk forgetting pieces of yourself as time passes on like they do in the novel. As Laura tells Michael, “Don’t say you love me because part of being alive is loving someone. It won’t make you a living man again, and it won’t make death any easier for me (pg.200). “
As the relationships develop, both couples come back to the same questions about what it means to be alive. The four of them have all experienced death. The ghosts literally have and fight for understanding, more now that they know the life that they knew is slipping into oblivion. Michael and Laura speak of limitations they would have imposed upon themselves had they met in life. Our main character and his lifeline to the real world, prepare, unknowingly, to wake each other from their hold away from living. Mrs. Klapper has lost herself after the death of her husband. Mr. Rebeck has lost hope for life among the living. Regardless of what situation the writer would place these two, be it a busy metropolis or a desolate burial ground, the bond between these two is what has made a difference. They seek each other to seek themselves. It is not a coincidence that Mrs. Klapper found Mr. Rebeck.
Again, the importance being on the evolving friendships and romance of the characters in the book leaves us without the grand question of the afterlife in regards to religion. Beagle is not trying to tell that story. He gives us the humble generosity of Campos to lead Mr. Rebeck out of the self-imposed prison, along with the gentle nature of a woman. Like shadows to the alive couple, the ghost couple mimics what can be lost or found again. Beagle displays the many stages of non-living that occur within our lives. Mrs. Klapper asks, “Do you think you have left the world, do you think one escapes that easily? You carry the world with you, wherever you go, like a turtle. You yourself are soft, naked, shapeless tissue, but you carry the hard shell of the world to protect your back and belly. All men carry the world on their backs, wherever they go (pg. 238).” It may seem to be an easier escape to shut out that which is demanding or painful, but we as humans, really never can. And to give in , to be awake in this life, is far more in tune to what we need and far more rewarding.