Bear
Ratings7
Average rating3.2
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.
The past, as they say, is a different country. The majority of this book is standard, kind of uninspired standard Canadiana - city person traveling to the backwoods, hoping to find themselves and solve the anomie of modern life.
Then there's parts where the woman's having sex with the bear, and those I just don't know about.
Why was she naked? Why was the bear there? Could there have been a personality?
For me, this is 1.5 stars because I wanted to DNF, but I was just so confused that I needed to know if there would be an explanation.
This was everything I expected and more. It's an erotic tale of a woman and a bear, it won a big Canadian literary award in the 70ies and since then has been a forgotten controversy or maybe a well-kept secret. It's resurfacing again now, hopefully reaching proper cult novel status. Just googling the cover art for this book is worthwhile. It's not just about a sexual encounter between woman and bear, it's about solitude, romanticism (the poets), wilderness, colonization, feminism, sexual freedom, and the reinvigoration of one's spirit.