“A rescue!” she cried to him, “a rescue, au secour! An ye be a man of mettle and sympathy, aid me now. I hight the princess Alison Jocelyn, daughter to good King Giles, and him foully murdered by his brother, the bloody Duke Wulf, who hath ta’en my three brothers, the Princes Corin, Colin, and Calvin, and cast them into a fell prison as hostages that I will wed with his fat son, the Lord Dudley, but I bribed the sentinel and sopped the dogs─”
p. 211
Peter Beagle is one of the great appreciators of Tolkien. His essay on “Tolkien’s Magic Ring” (1) expresses the delight that many of us felt on discovering The Lord of the Rings. It points to Tolkien’s own faith in his materials as a source of strength, and it describes the sense Tolkien conveys that his story and the world within it were found rather than invented. (2)But it has little to say about how Tolkien makes his commitment infectious, and that should be the main concern of anyone who intends to follow in his footsteps.
p. 158
1968年に『最後のユニコーン』を書いたビーグルを始めとして、後に続く1970年代のアメリカのファンタシー作家達がひとしくトルキンの影響を強く受けていることは紛れもない事実であろう。現実世界の瑣末なリアリティという束縛から想念を解放して、自由な仮構世界のなかで観念の新天地を切り拓くことを可能にするファンタシーの手法は、現代の心理的閉塞状況を打破する力を備えたものとして、訴えるものが大きかった。それはビーグルの場合よりも、『アメリカ文学におけるファンタシーの伝統』において最も重要視されているル・グィンの『影との戦い』(A Wizard of Earthsea, 1968)において更に顕著である。しかしここではアテベリーはビーグルのトルキン解説に対するアプローチのあり方に対していささか疑念を抱いているような口ぶりである。これはビーグルのトルキンに関するエッセイの出来栄えに問題があったというよりもむしろ、アテベリーの側にビーグルに対するある種の偏見があったからではないかと思われるのである。その辺りのところをもう少し探ってみることにしよう。さらにアテベリーはビーグルの作家としての経歴を紹介して次のように記述を進める。
Before Beagle attempted a fantasy he wrote a funny, offbeat ghost story called A Fine and Private Place. The type of low-key satire found in it is completely foreign to Tolkien’s fantasy: it is more likely to be found in the better grades of television situation comedy. When, in The Last Unicorn, Beagle attempted to express his appreciation for Tolkien in the form of a literary homage, he had to find some middle ground between the style he was accustomed to and the matter he was trying to incorp[or]ate. If there is any middle ground between wry comedy and high fantasy, it might just be the Thurber fairy tale, which is dazzling and funny and solemn, all at the same time. And the tone of The Last Unicorn, in its opening pages, is remarkably like that of The White Deer. Even little tricks like the anticlima[c]tic catalogs that both mock the subject and endear it to us, are the same. Here is a sample, a description of the Unicorn;
She had pointed ears and thin legs, with feathers of white hair at the ankles; and the long horn above her eyes shone and shivered with its own seashell light even in the deepest midnight. She had killed dragons with it, and healed a king whose poisoned wound would not close, and knocked down ripe chestnut for bear cubs.
pp. 158-9
But as soon as Beagle tries to inflate his fairy tale to encompass a world and a vision, after the manner of Tolkien, the Thurberish deftness departs and he grows self-conscious.[傍線筆者]The graft fails to take, and the two components draw apart, the magic into sentimentality and the modern voice into embarrassed joking. He gives his wizard the deflating name of Schmendrick and lets him indulge in anachronisms at the expense of the story, unlike Thurber, whose anachronisms always reinforce the charm of the fairy tale world through contrast. The center of The Last Unicorn does not hold: its characters and imagery go flying off in all directions, without reference to the patterns of significance that should command.
年上の狩人: I mislike the feel of these woods. このあたりの森はどうも気に食わんな。
Creatures that live in a unicorn's forest learn a little magic of their own in time, mainly concerned with disappearing. ユニコーンの住む森の生き物は、自分でも魔法を使うようになるんだ。姿を隠したりする類いのな。
年下の狩人: Unicorns? ユニコーンだって? I thought they only existed in fairy tales. ユニコーンなんてお伽噺の中だけのものだと思ってたよ。 This is a forest, like any other, isn't it? 別に他の森と違うところは無いんじゃないか?
年上の狩人: And why do the leaves never fall here, or the snow? じゃあ、どうしてこの森では枯れ葉が落ちないんだ。雪だって降らんぞ。 Why is it always spring here? ここは年中春じゃないか。I tell you, there is one unicorn left in the world, and as long as it lives in this forest, we'll find no game to hunt here. いいか、まだ一匹だけ、世界にはユニコーンが残っているんだ。そのユニコーンがいる限り、狩りの獲物はつかまらない。
年下の狩人: Let's turn around , hunt somewhere else. じゃあ、他所に行こう。
年上の狩人: All right. そうしよう。
(二人は森のはずれまで引き返す。)
年上の狩人: (振り向いて呼びかける。) Stay where you are, poor beast! このままここにいるんだぞ。 This is no world for you. 外はお前の住むような世界じゃない。 Stay in your forest and keep your trees green and your friends protected. この森にずっと居て、木々を緑に保ち、動物達を守ってやってくれ。 And good luck to you, for you are the last. 元気でな。お前は最後のユニコーンなんだから。