“The Last Unicorn” by Peter S. Beagle is on Amazon’s 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime and appears on other lists collecting great books. People confess having cried while reading it. Long story short. I was intrigued by this phenomenon.

I can assure you that crying is not the only possible reaction to this book. Simply being content at having read a beautiful book is another one.

The book is written in the style of a fairy tale. There is just one quest and several characters appear on the road to its culmination. Some stay and some leave again. There are no flashbacks, no side tracks. It’s fairly simple.

It begins with a unicorn. After hearing two people talk about there being no more unicorns, it becomes restless and sets out to find out whether it really is the last one and what happened to the other ones. Unicorns only die when they are killed. So the disappearance of all but one unicorn is a mystery.

On its quest for knowledge it meets Schmendrick, a magician who is most of the times unable to do any magic. Schmendrick is a very likable character. It’s quite enjoyable to follow his endeavors at doing magic. And Schmendrick stays till the end of the book.

I liked the tone of the book and the short stories it tells on its way to the uncovering of the great mystery. The characters are well crafted. The unicorn especially feels somewhat alighted or nearly arrogant. You would probably expect it from an immortal being and the unicorn actually says at one point:

You are a man, and men can do nothing that makes any difference.

So while it’s not a book that is guaranteed to make you cry, it’s beautiful in its way and an enjoyable read.