Bear
Ratings8
Average rating3.3
The winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, Marian Engel’s most famous – and most controversial – novel tells the unforgettable story of a woman transformed by a primal, erotic relationship. Lou is a lonely librarian who spends her days in the dusty archives of the Historical Institute. When an unusual field assignment comes her way, she jumps at the chance to travel to a remote island in northern Ontario, where she will spend the summer cataloguing a library that belonged to an eccentric nineteenth-century colonel. Eager to investigate the estate’s curious history, she is shocked to discover that the island has one other inhabitant: a bear. Lou’s imagination is soon overtaken by the island’s past occupants, whose deep fascination with bears gradually becomes her own. Irresistibly, Lou is led along a path of emotional and sexual self-awakening, as she explores the limits of her own animal nature. What she discovers will change her life forever. As provocative and powerful now as when it was first published. Includes a reading group guide.
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From what little I knew about this, I was expecting something weird and lascivious. Instead, it was a literary and touching (if a bit odd) love story. I really enjoyed it.
On one hand, I appreciate reading such a wonderful, thoughtful fable about a lonely, unsatisfied woman who takes a break from city living to learn local history and reflect on her life. But on the other hand, she's really trying to fuck that bear.
After reading the brilliant The Pisces by Melissa Broder, I've been almost desperate for weird/slightly unhinged literary writing on a “real-not real?” relationships with animals, or in the case of Pisces... fish?
While an outrageous concept, I think it opens up on something regarding emotions surrounding isolation, loneliness, grief, and our uncertainties for our brief human lives and the world we inhabit. Unconventional, unreal scenarios can open up a true vulnerability with an authors characters on these topics because usually even with our most beloved friends we can struggle to tap into a place of pure honesty. But when sharing with a ‘fish' or a bear, whats there to lose?
Bear succeeded in all the ways I was hoping for. Our main character is essentially alone in a cabin, in the wilderness when she meets a bear and there unfolds a strange descent of interactions with the animal. We touch on a good majority of the ideas I mentioned above, and Engel just gives. I could've read a thousand more pages in this story but the length in the end felt appropriate for our main characters life/story.
If you enjoyed the Pisces, Bear should be on your priority as a next read.
