The Innkeeper's Song

A plot summary of this book might go something like this: A wizard and his former students fight against another former student who has traded his life to the darkness for power. It would be accurate, but totally misleading. So what was the book really about? Stories. Singing. Love. Hate. Obligations. Responsibilities. Death. Rebirth. Redemption.If I had to describe The Innkeeper's Song in a word, it would be this--chewy. Some books are like milkshakes. You just drink them down easily and go on [...]

Buddy read with Laura Hoping this chases away my five day slump

The Innkeeper's Song isn't overly memorable to me, however it's a gripping, philosophical story of a person's search for the answers to the mysteries of life and death.

Из предговора:А сега () правя крачка встрани и поглеждам самата „Песен“. Защо е важна тази книга за човека Калин, за мечтите му какво да включва „Човешката библиотека“. По какво се отличава тя от другите книги, които познавам.Ами например:В целия роман ще срещнете всичко на [...]

Honestly: I'm not quite sure how to sum up my feelings for this booksor just say anything about it. I found it awesome. I also think many people might find it terribly dull, which I somehow also understand but I still think it's awesome.Well what's it about? There is a boy who sets out to save his true love (turns out she doesn't want to be rescued), there are two very beautiful and very misterious women, one of which has a name that reads like someone's been sick over a scrabble-board (it just [...]

Една магична история, изпълзяла изпод кълба непрогледна мъгла, водена от мелодия отвъд живота , водеща към дълбините на смъртта , и по-далече Всичко започва в едно пасторално селце, дало ненавременна жертва - половинка на огромна любов. Писъкът на болката привлича своите и ч [...]

Isn't it annoying when a book ends that you don't want to end? Then, you sort of feel weird because a world has closed. You can reread it, reenter the world, but you'll never be the you that you were when you first read it, so it won't be the same. That's how I feel about The Innkeeper's Song just like I do about The Last Unicorn. Beagle is a magician, a good Arshadin, someone you know immediately is a master who you'll never surpass. But you don't mind because you get to experience the magic. T [...]

One of those amazing experiences that come along every now and again was hearing Peter Beagle read from scraps of this book before it was published. And when it was published, what a novel! Nobody has ever kept so many point of view characters dancing in such an elaborate and intricate tale, with it all ending as it should, something only a true master of the art could pull off.

A fantasy book for those that don't particularly like fantasy (like me). Beagle, also a songwriter, actually wrote the song (excerpted below) and then several years later, he wrote this book because he wanted "to find out what the hell the song was really about." "There came three ladies at sundown:one was brown as bread is brown,one was black, with a sailor's sway,and one was pale as the moon by day.The white one wore an emerald ring,the brown led a fox on a silver string,and the black one carr [...]

I quite enjoyed the shifting perspectives of this book -- for some reason, though, I wanted every chapter from a new person's point of view. (Perhaps this was because the initial discovery of each character's distinct persona through a first-person lens was so exciting and entrancing, I just wanted that to keep going!)Once I adjusted to that, and what all was going on plot-wise, it became a somewhat more introspective, at times almost mystical, fantasy. More creative than most, I dare say (this [...]

This was one of those "something to think about" books. Crossroads, change, endings and beginnings. The infamous bedroom scene actually grounded the story in a way that was necessary with all of the wizards' battles and heroes' adventures. It wasn't really a story about wizards and heroes even though many of the characters fit into those catagories. Like The Book of Atrix Wolfe, there's a strong element here of common people mixing in with wonder and a conscious and unconscious search for identi [...]

When three strange women (one black, one brown, one white) arrive at a wayside inn called The Gaff and Slasher, Karsh, the innkeeper, takes them in against his better judgment. Two of the women—Lal and Nyateneri—are searching for their former mentor, a powerful magician who has summoned them to save him from destruction and worse at the hands of his most powerful pupil, Arshadin. The third, Lukassa, is a village girl whom Lal resurrected after she drowned and whose childhood love, Tikat, pur [...]

"The Innkeeper's Song" is a wonderful addition to Peter S. Beagle's astounding repertoire of fantastical stories. It deserves to be remembered with his classic works such as "The Last Unicorn" and "A Fine and Private Place."The story starts with death. Lukassa and Tikat are very much in love. They grew up together in their small fishing village, sharing joys and sorrows their entire young lives. Until by cruel twist of fate, Lukassa falls into the river, and though Tikat valiantly tries, he ulti [...]

Винаги можеш да прочетеш тази книга набързо и също толкова набързо да отсъдиш, че не е за теб.С "Песента на ханджията" не бива да се бърза. Но и не бива да правите като мен, започвайки три книги едновременно и разтягайки прочитането в рамките на повече от три месеца. Откриване� [...]

I've loved The Last Unicorn for years, but never read another Peter S. Beagle book - till now. I enjoyed this story, but it's a very different book from The Last Unicorn, though both deal with wizards and magic and quests. The Innkeeper's Song has at its heart the intersection of many lives and quests - a young boy who watches his lover drown in a river, only to be resurrected by a mysterious woman; that mysterious woman and her traveling companion, both past students of a powerful wizard; the s [...]

After reading Peter Beagle's "The Last Unicorn," which I thought of as a reflection on beauty in the form of a fairytale, I picked up "The Innkeeper's Song," which turns out to be more in keeping with what I think of as fantasy. I'm always amazed at the creativity and imagination of authors who do fantasy well. This book is remarkably impressive in this way. Beagle's plot unfolds chapter by chapter from the perspectives of different characters, which is a cool way of giving us insight into the c [...]

Because doesn't allow a half star, I'm placing this one at three stars, though I think it's more like 3 1/2. I am a big Peter Beagle fan, but this book just didn't hit the mark for me. He tells it from the perspectives of at least 6 different characters, and there just wasn't enough difference in some of the voices to keep me from getting confused. Also, the one thing Beagle does best in some of his other works is create a world that draws you in. I never got that here until just about the end [...]

I was brought to this book by a song. The German progressive metal band Blind Guardian, which is one of my favorites, wrote a song called Road of No Release and I could not stop listening to it. I looked up the lyrics, which is habit for me when it comes to music, and saw that almost every verse was a telling of a character. So I had HAD to see what story they were from and found this book and knew it was a must read.I'm glad I did read this and would recommend it but only to those who like both [...]

I've been a fan of Peter Beagle's literary fantasies since A Fine and Private Place and The Last Unicorn. The Innkeeper's Song is set firmly in the same tradition, but with a more complex and mature sensibility.The language is simple yet beautiful, evocative and piercing in its lyricism. The characters may seem like the stock fantasy tropes, but we soon realize that this is an entirely different take on the wizard, the swordsperson, the lovesick boy, even the fox, one of the most engaging shapes [...]

i read Giant Bones quite a few years ago and loved it. for those unfamiliar, Giant Bones is a collection of short stories. why i mention it here at least two of the characters in The Innkeeper's Song are in the book Giant Bones as well. Lal and Soukyan - i immediately fell in love with the old warriors in that book and started wondering if they appeared elsewhere in one of Mr. Beagle's novels. when i discovered The Innkeeper's Song, i was THRILLED to pieces. it was like being reintroduced to a c [...]

I loved some of this author's other work, and an online review of this book seemed to strike the right chord. So I ordered a copy, and it is now one of my favorite books. But it didn't start out that way.It was a bit difficult at first to get used to the rotating points of view, and I wondered if this book was a single, coherent story, or a collection of loosely related tales. Anyway, I got discouraged with this book and I set it down. I'm sorry to say, I set it down for months. Then one day I p [...]

If you're thinking about reading this book, lemme tell you something. It's amazing. Peter S. Beagle has created the simplest world with very little, yet it amazes me how thought provoking this fantasy is. It's the story of 3 women and the mischief they cause an innkeeper. Yes, it has wizards and magic and all that cliche fantasy stuff, but Beagle has something very few authors have in this genre. Wit and humor. His style of writing is so unique. It's told through POVs. Now if you're thinking Mar [...]

I found the unusual writing style of this author a little difficult to get used to for the first couple of chapters, but then I became engrossed in the story and ended up really appreciating the way he portrays his protagonists in an almost poetic, strangely enchanting way. All written in first person narrative, each chapter is a monologue related by different characters describing their experiences as the drama unfolds. I particularly enjoyed the fox, who surreptitiously steals the limelight an [...]

απογοήτευσηη αφήγηση πρώτου προσώπου σε πολλούς χαρακτήρες το έκανε υπερβολικά βαρετό που δεν μπόρεσα να ακολουθήσω την ιστορίατου βάζω 2* λόγω της ιδιαίτερη τεχνικής στην αφήγησηαλλιώς σαν ιστορία το απόλυτο μηδέν

This wasn’t a book I was really suited for. It’s slow paced and lyrically written. “Sedate” might be a good word to describe it. I had to struggle to keep with it.Three strange women arrive at an inn, searching for a wizard two of them once knew. The story’s told from many different perspectives – the women, the innkeeper, the stable boy, a boy who’s searching for his dead fiancee, and a shape shifting fox are the main POV characters, although there’s a few others like the barmai [...]

Like several million people, I read 'The Last Unicorn' when it was the big thing (probably around when the movie came out; not when it was first published - I'm not THAT old) - still, it was years ago, I don't remember it that clearly, but it just didn't really strike me for whatever reason. Since then, Beagle's writing hasn't really been on my radar - but I'm going to have to change that.I got this book after reading Beagle's short story 'Chandail' in the anthology 'Salon Fantastique,' and lovi [...]

I think I remember reading somewhere that this is Peter Beagle's favorite book that he's written. I don't know if I agree, but he is certainly in his element here, juggling nearly a dozen narrators and voices and plot threads and weaving them into a tapestry so magical that I suspect it could fly.I saw elements of many of his other works here (most notably, Lukassa feels like a strange homage to Amalthea), but this story belongs only to itself. And is predictably full of the same agonizingly bea [...]

While this book is not Peter Beagle's best, it is an intriguing fantasy novel of interwoven stories. I had heard him sing the song long before reading the book, and part of it is included in the book.Issues of power, life and death are at the heart of the tale, as two of the disciples of a wizard try to find him. The only clues have led them to a small village, and along the way they acquired another woman, formerly dead. The boyfriend of the formerly dead one, the innkeeper, the innkeeper's sta [...]

This was another reread, but that didn't make it any less amazing.After the Last Unicorn screening, and getting to meet Peter Beagle, I was craving his writing, and I hadn't read this book since I first bought it (as a hardcover, as soon as it was published), so I picked it back up and dove in.I love this book. Not surprising; I have yet to find anything by Peter Beagle that I don't. But this book is a bit different from his usual fare. It's slow and dreamy and lyrical and a bit more serious, an [...]

The consequences of three strange women stopping at an inn are recounted, in alternating chapters, by Lal, a sailor and swordswoman searching for her old mentor; by Lukassa, inadvertently raised from the dead by Lal; by Nyateneri, a woman being chased by assassins; by Tikat, chasing his lover Lukassa; by Rosseth, the worshipful stable boy; by the Fox, Nyateneri's mysterious shape-changing companion; by Karsh, the bitterly singing innkeeper himself; and by the other curious inhabitants of Karsh's [...]