Bear by Engel, Marian [Paperback]

Rating: 3.6 leaves out of 5
Characters: 3.5/5
Cover: 5/5
Story: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Genre: Classic/LitFic/Romance/Erotica
Type: Book
Worth?: Uhhh

TW: Bestiality

This book won the Governor General's Literary Award in Canada. I really wonder the mental state of the people who thought this book was worth it. I know I said 3.6 but it doesn't deserve a 4.

I picked this book for the controversialness of the story it contained. I try not to shy away from it. I love to see what people can come up with but... there are quiet a few things that just... doesn't make sense. It seemed to be a feministic book but if you call that feministic I want nothing to do with it. If to be apart of the feminist group is to have to fuck a bear... I much rather not. Nothing really stood out as power feminism other than a short blimp mention of a Cary's ancestor.

This woman, Lou, is a homewrecking bear fucker and that is just what she is. I mean the story was... like a dreary blue and sad day by the river. Yes it is a nice quick read but I learn nothing from this. I got nothing from it as well. No sense of joy or hope or anything except ‘ick'.

Semi antiquated writing style using words like "lest" which made what felt like a modern protagonist hard to place and define. The research motive and subject to Lou staying in the house was just uninteresting and hard to follow - I'm not sure what overarching themes were meant to be connecting past to present if any.

I liked the protagonists honesty about desire and sex though. With the current buzz about women preferring to be alone in the woods with a bear than a man in real life, this er adds an alternative flavour to that argument. Still, for me, the most interesting dynamic was between Lou and Homer as we get a sense of Homer's character and voice whereas the Bear remains a voiceless object she cajoles and projects into her orbit. Maybe thats the point?

If you know anything about this book, you know what made my curiosity get the better of me.

Beyond that, not much happens. Lou is a lonely, dysfunctional archivist in Toronto and has to go north to a really remote, rural, islandy area of Canada to go through the possibly historical house of weird English gentry immigrants. She farts around and catalogues the stuff in the house. And has sex with the old family bear.

She's not particularly nice or sympathetic, and she takes advantage of the bear's docility. She mightn't be the first? I'm not sure, but there's another character obsessed with the poor bear.

It's short. That's the best thing about it.