Some bloggers and books are inextricably linked. Someone talks about a book with such passion, and perhaps often, that they and the book become united. I think that’s probably true of me and Miss Hargreaves. It’s definitely true of Dorian and Bear by Marian Engel.
You probably know Dorian’s brilliant blog, or have encountered him on Twitter – and he has written a wonderful article about this novella. Because of him, Bear has been on my horizons for a while. When it was reprinted by Daunt Books this year, I got a copy (and it was another recommendation, really, because Daunt are so flawless in their choice of reprints). When it turned out to match the club year, it was a no-brainer to pick up.
Lou is a librarian in Toronto, though her role seems to encompass archivist as well. Describing her job is one of the first moments I stopped to note down the beautiful precision of Engel’s writing:
Lou dug and devilled in library and files, praying as she worked that research would reveal enough to provide her subject with a character. The Canadian tradition was, she had found, on the whole, genteel. Any evidence that an ancestor had performed any acts other than working and praying was usually destroyed.
Her role might sound wonderful to the likes of you and me, but she has grown weary of it and wishes to escape her lonely urban life. When the Institute for which she works needs someone to go to Cary’s Island, part of a legacy left by Colonel Jocelyn Cary, she is the person for the job. The idea is that she is to catalogue the library, find out what she can about Cary, and report back about whether or not the estate would make a good place to develop a research facility.
I love novels about outsiders going to small, isolated communities. Those narratives can take so many directions – perhaps it will be a new lease of life, perhaps unsettling, perhaps a panacea, perhaps antagonistic. Bear takes parts of all of these. Lou finds a sort of freedom in being unleashed from her life – and the locals are hesitantly welcoming. But there is much more to discover. Here she is, after talking to one of the locals who is sometimes kind and sometimes not:
She made as if to go inside the house again, for it was dark and she was tired and cold, but Homer stood looking at her uneasily, shifting from foot to foot. She wondered if he was going to touch her or to denounce her. She wanted to get in and get settled. There had been so much day; she had a lot to think about. She was impatient.
‘Did anyone tell you,’ he asked, ‘about the bear?’
Nobody has. It says something about the beguiling way that Engel writes that it somehow doesn’t leap out as ridiculous that her role on the island includes caring for a bear, and that nobody has mentioned it. But apparently the Careys have always had a bear – and there is one, enormous and noisome, chained to the ground. Apparently docile, but who knows what would happen if he were given his freedom.
Gradually, Lou starts to be curious about the bear. There is something about sharing this isolation with one other living creature that starts to give a sense of companionship. But she never forgets the essential danger of the bear – that he could end her life on a whim. She seems almost intoxicated by this potential for danger – as she is intoxicated by the sense of escape she has from her ordinary life.
And, yes. Moment by moment, the narrative edges closer and closer to a sexual relationship between Lou and the bear – so that, when it happens, it is shocking but it somehow coheres with everything that has gone before.
I think the reason Bear can cope with its bizarre, extraordinary plot is the fineness of Engel’s writing. She uses all the senses, as well as exploring Lou’s mind in sentences that are sparse but beautiful. Here’s an example of her writing treading that line between poetic and straightforward, finding the perfect place in between:
He smelled better than he had before he started swimming, but his essential smell was still there, a scent of musk as shrill as the high sweet note of a shepherd’s flute.
It is a short novel, perhaps a novella, and I read it in a few hours. There is something dizzying about it. While Lou dices with danger, the tension I found in the novel was really about Lou’s discovery of herself – of the limits of new frontiers, and how gently she can travel beyond those limits.
When I mentioned I was reading Bear, I got the impression that a few people wondered how I’d cope with the theme. Gasping emojis and the word ‘No’ were among the comments I got on Instagram. But it is far from my first moment of fictional bestiality! I wrote a chapter of my DPhil thesis on animal metamorphosis, and it also encompassed animal marriage and, yes, sex with animals. It crops up in Lady Into Fox by David Garnett and His Monkey Wife by John Collier – there is nothing new under the sun etc. etc. So the relationship that emerges between Lou and the bear might be the shocking detail that people remember most – but, at its heart, Bear is much more sophisticated than a can-you-believe-it moment.
Almost any story can be beautiful if told beautifully, and Engel’s writing is a sensuous, careful delight. I’d suggest going into the novella without worrying about where the plot will lead. Go for the journey.