The Last and Only, or, Mr Moscowitz Becomes French - Peter S Beagle

 The Last and Only, or, Mr Moscowitz Becomes French - Peter S Beagle

Peter S Beagle published his first novel in 1960. His next, in 1968, was The Last Unicorn. I still remember the experience of reading The Last Unicorn, of finding real world emotional complications in a genre that was more familiarly simple. I entered the story expecting a simple fairy tale of good and evil. Instead, I read a powerful exploration of love and responsibility, and, above all, of how experience shapes us. Beagle has retained this ability to create unusual tensions.

The Last and Only, or, Mr Moscowitz Becomes French was first published in Jonathan Strahan’s excellent anthology Eclipse One in 2007. The short story was chosen in second place in its category in the 2008 Locus Awards. It was collected in Strahan’s own The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Two and in Ann & Jeff VanderMeer’s Best American Fantasy 2.

The story has very little ‘fantasy’ in it. The events in the story could easily have happened. As a metaphor, Mr Moscowitz walks among us. Many readers may recognize themselves. Mr Moscowitz’s tale is terribly human. In fact, Mr Moscowitz may be the finest example of what it is to be human. An example in the sense of showing one in a given category; and not in the sense of being exemplary. Mr Moscowitz is, ultimately, as tragic as any character in Kafka. However, he is his own victim. 

Read it. It’s a story that gives you a choice. Or, perhaps, one that lets you see what the choice is.