February BOTM: BEAR by MARIAN ENGEL

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > February BOTM: BEAR by MARIAN ENGEL

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Welcome goonlings to the Awful Book of the Month!
In this thread, we choose one work of ~~literature~~ absolute crap and read/discuss it over a month. If you have any suggestions of books, choose something that will be appreciated by many people, and has many avenues of discussion. We'd also appreciate if it were a work of ~~literature~~ complete drivel that is easily located from a local library or book shop, as opposed to ordering something second hand off the internet and missing out on a week's worth of reading. Better yet, books available on e-readers.

Resources:

Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org

- A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best.

SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/

- A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.

:siren:

For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM me. :siren:

Past Books of the Month

[for BOTM before 2015, refer to archives]

2015:
January: Italo Calvino -- Invisible Cities
February: Karl Ove Knausgaard -- My Struggle: Book 1.
March: Knut Hamsun -- Hunger
April: Liu Cixin -- 三体 ( The Three-Body Problem)
May: John Steinbeck -- Cannery Row
June: Truman Capote -- In Cold Blood
(Hiatus)
August: Ta-Nehisi Coates -- Between the World and Me
September: Wilkie Collins -- The Moonstone
October:Seth Dickinson -- The Traitor Baru Cormorant
November:Svetlana Alexievich -- Voices from Chernobyl
December: Michael Chabon -- Gentlemen of the Road

2016:
January: Three Men in a Boat (To say nothing of the Dog!) by Jerome K. Jerome
February:The March Up Country (The Anabasis) of Xenophon
March: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
April: Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling
May: Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
June:The Vegetarian by Han Kang
July:Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
August: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
September:Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
October:Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
November:Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
December: It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

2017:
January: Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
February: The Plague by Albert Camus
March: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
April: The Conference of the Birds (مقامات الطیور) by Farid ud-Din Attar
May: I, Claudius by Robert Graves
June: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
July: Ficcionies by Jorge Luis Borges
August: My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
September: The Peregrine by J.A. Baker
October: Blackwater Vol. I: The Flood by Michael McDowell
November: Aquarium by David Vann
December: Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight [Author Unknown]

2018
January: Njal's Saga [Author Unknown]
February: The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
March: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
April: Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio de Maria
May: Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov
June: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
July: Warlock by Oakley Hall
August: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriott
September: The Magus by John Fowles
October: I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
November: Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
December: Christmas Stories by Charles Dickens

2019:
January: Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Current:

BEAR by Marian Engel

Book available here:

https://www.amazon.com/Bear-Marian-Engel-ebook/dp/B0031TZ9T4
https://www.amazon.com/Bear-Nonpareil-books-Marian-Engel/dp/0879236671

About the book:

(Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/uf3YE )

quote:

Engel's most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between a librarian and a bear.[1] Her editor at Harcourt Brace rejected the manuscript noting that: "Its relative brevity coupled with its extreme strangeness presents, I�m afraid, an insuperable obstacle in present circumstances." It was eventually published by McClelland & Stewart after being championed by Robertson Davies.[9][11][12] It won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in 1976.[13]

quote:

this book won the Canadian �Governor General�s Literary Award� the year it was published (1976). Also by the way, the main character is a librarian. Of course. It was written as part of a fund raiser for the Canadian Writer�s Union � a project in which �serious writers� contributed pornographic fiction. It is, naturally, dedicated to Engel�s therapist.

http://awfullibrarybooks.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bear2.jpg

quote:

Like, there�s a lady having sex with a bear, which was obviously wonderful. But it�s also just some really beautiful solitude porn. Who doesn�t dream about disappearing to some island with a giant house with lots of windows, a big fireplace, and a library that takes up the entire top floor. Lou is great � she gets some job, travels up to this island, becomes pretty self-sufficient (growing her own food, finding mushrooms to eat on the island), and basically lives alone � other than the bear that she fucks sometimes. Who doesn�t want that?

http://www.roguesportal.com/two-solid-dudes-read-bear-by-marian-engel/

About the Author(s)

quote:

After graduating from the Sarnia Collegiate Institute & Technical School, Engel obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Language Studies at McMaster University in 1955 and completed a Master of Arts in Canadian Literature at McGill University in 1957.[4] Her M.A. supervisor while at McGill was author Hugh MacLennan, whom she corresponded with until her death.[5] In 1960 Engel was awarded a Rotary Foundation Scholarship and spent a year studying French Literature at the Universit� d�Aix-Marseille in Aix-en Provence, France.[6] Instead of returning to Canada the following year, she worked in England as a translator and began working on the unpublished manuscript Women Travelling Alone.[2]:57�58

Engel met Howard Engel, a mystery novel writer and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio producer in Canada, and married him in England in 1962. They returned to Toronto in 1964.[5] She began to raise a family, twin children, William Lucas Passmore and Charlotte Helen Arabella,[7] and to pursue a writing career. Marian and Howard separated in 1975 and divorced in 1977.[4]

Engel taught briefly (1957�58) at The Study in Montreal, as well as at McGill University, the University of Montana-Missoula and St. John's School in Cyprus.[4] Engel was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta from 1977 to 1978[4] and served the same role at the University of Toronto from 1980 to 1982.[5][8] From 1975-1977 she served on the City of Toronto Book Award (an award she won in 1981 for Lunatic Villas[4]) Committee and the Canadian Book and Periodical Development Council.

Writers' rights advocacy
Engel was a passionate activist for the rights of Canadian writers on the national and international stage. She was the first chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, established in 1973, with early meetings taking place in her Toronto home.[9] Engel also helped instigate the Public Lending Right Commission as a trustee on the Toronto Public Library Board from 1975-1978 .[2]:3[4]

Pensions for writers and royalties from library loans were two of the issues Engel championed.[3] In a 1974 Maclean's editorial Our Authors are Being Ripped Off, Engel outlined a vision for author compensation based on library circulation statistics. She argued that authors are expected "to live off that vapourous substance "prestige"" and suggested that the uncompensated use of Canadian writers' work is a violation of copyright.[10]

Themes

quote:

Engel's writing illustrated contemporary life with a focus on the day to day experiences of women.[1] She described her work as an exploration of "how you deal with an imperfect world when you have been brought up to look for perfection."[3] The relationships between mothers and daughters, rooted in explorations of identify formation and subjective experiences, were a common theme. Doubled identities were also commonly used to illustrate the challenge off choosing between the push and pull of daily life - namely traditional gender roles and the imagined possibility of the 'other'.[2]:17�19

Although Engel's writing garnered multiple awards, some viewed her focus on women and their search for self-fulfillment as one-note writing. Author Alice Munro disagreed, noting that Engel was one of the first to examine women's lives "at their most muddled", demonstrating it was possible to not only write but be published while writing about female experiences.[18][19][20]

Pacing

Read as thou wilt is the whole of the law.

Please post after you read!

Please bookmark the thread to encourage discussion.

References and Further Reading

http://bibliotecas.unileon.es/tULEctura/files/2017/06/MARIAN-ENGELS-BEAR-Donald-S.-Hair.pdf

Marian Engel's "Bear": Pastoral, Porn, and Myth

https://academic.oup.com/isle/article-abstract/23/1/5/1750232

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=1923062

Final Note:

Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the book!

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Feb 2, 2019

# ? Feb 2, 2019 02:30

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 09:00

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

quote:

In the winter, she lived like a mole, buried deep in her office, digging among maps and manuscripts. She lived close to her work and shopped on the way between her apartment and the Institute, scurrying hastily through the tube of winter from refuge to refuge, wasting no time. She did not like cold air on her skin.

Her basement room at the Institute was close to the steam pipes and protectively lined with books, wooden filing cabinets and very old, brown, framed photographs of unlikely people: General Booth and somebody�s Grandma Town, France from the air in 1915, groups of athletes and sappers; things people brought her because she would not throw them out, because it was herjob to keep them.

�Don�t throw it out,� people said. �Lug it all down to the Historical Institute. They might want it. He might have been more of a somebody than we thought, even if he did drink.� So she had retrieved from their generosity a Christmas card from the trenches with a celluloid boot on it, a parchment poem to Chinga cousy Township graced with a wreath of human hair, a signed photograph of the founder of a seed company long ago absorbed by a competitor.

Trivia which she used to remind herself that long ago the outside world had existed, that there was more to today than yesterday with its yellowing paper and browning ink and maps that tended to shatter when they were unfolded. Yet,when the weather turned and the sun filtered into even her basement windows,when the sunbeams were laden with spring dust and the old tin ashtrays began to stink of a winter of nicotine and contemplation, the flaws in her plodding private world were made public, even to her, for although she loved old shabby things, things that had already been loved and suffered, objects with a past,when she saw that her arms were slug-pale and her fingerprints grained with old, old ink, that the detritus with which she bedizened her bulletin boards was curled and valueless, when she found that her eyes would no longer focus in the light, she was always ashamed, for the image of the Good Life long ago stamped on her soul was quite different from this, and she suffered in contrast.

# ? Feb 2, 2019 17:12

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

quote:

Octagon houses were a unique house style briefly popular in the 1850s in the United States and Canada. They are characterised by an octagonal (eight-sided) plan, and often feature a flat roof and a veranda all round. Their unusual shape and appearance, quite different from the ornate pitched-roof houses typical of the period, can generally be traced to the influence of one man, amateur architect and lifestyle pundit Orson Squire Fowler. Although there are other octagonal houses worldwide, the term octagon house usually refers specifically to octagonal houses built in North America during this period, and up to the early 1900s.

. . .

The leading proponent of octagonal houses was Orson Squire Fowler. Fowler was America's foremost lecturer and writer on phrenology, the pseudoscience of defining an individual's characteristics by the contours of the head. In the middle of the 19th century, Fowler made his mark on American architecture when he touted the advantages of octagonal homes over rectangular and square structures in his widely publicized book, The Octagon House: A Home For All, or A New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building, printed in the year 1848.[2] As a result of this popular and influential publication, a few thousand octagonal houses were erected in the United States, mostly in the Midwest, the East Coast and in nearby parts of Canada.[3]

Advantages of the octagon plan

Compared with a square, an octagon encloses approximately 20% additional space with the same perimeter

According to Fowler, an octagon house was cheaper to build, allowed for additional living space, received more natural light, was easier to heat, and remained cooler in the summer. These benefits all derive from the geometry of an octagon: the shape encloses space efficiently, minimizing external surface area and consequently heat loss and gain, building costs etc. A circle is the most efficient shape, but difficult to build and awkward to furnish, so an octagon is a sensible approximation. Victorian builders were used to building 135� corners, as in the typical bay window, and could easily adapt to an octagonal plan.

Design principles
Fowler's The Octagon House is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a pattern book but the popularity of the book lies in the way Fowler suggested some general principles, and encouraged readers to invent the details for themselves. Only a few examples are offered, and apart from plans, the book has only two illustrations to show how an octagonal house might look.

First, he shows some ways of subdividing an octagonal floor plan. Next is Howland's octagonal plan, a small house designed by 'Messrs. Morgan and Brothers, architects' which is similar to the Norrish House illustrated below. There follows A description of the author's own residence, now known as Fowler's Folly, at Fishkill, of which more below. Finally, A superior plan for a good sized house, which is a development of the Fishkill plans, apparently proposed by his engraver. The main feature of his plans is a desire to eliminate unnecessary circulation space, sometimes to the point that the main staircase is inconvenient, and the external veranda is the best way to get around the house. Fowler was not an architect and in some ways, his theories needed an architect to bring them to a workable conclusion.

Other design proposals include:

Flat roof to collect rainwater, with cisterns built-in to collect and distribute the water.
Rainwater filtering, using filter beds made up of alternating layers of sand and activated charcoal.
Central heating by distributing hot air from a furnace in the basement.
Flues, air ducts and speaking tubes built into the thickness of walls.
Built examples vary greatly in how much of this influence is apparent. Although built in brick, the Watertown house featured in this article is an almost perfect embodiment of many of Fowler's ideas.

quote:

To quote Fowler "...those studies which have eventuated in this work were instituted primarily in order to erect this very house". Construction began in 1848, the same year his book was first published, and took five years to complete. The house was large, 42 foot to each side of the octagon or 100 feet across, and built on a hilltop overlooking the Hudson River, where it could be seen for miles around. Fowler removed the top of the hill to create a level site and to provide material for his "gravel walls". This grand residence had four huge reception rooms which could be interconnected depending on the size of event, allegedly 60 rooms (counting small dressing rooms as well as proper rooms) and a glazed cupola rising to 70 feet above ground. Fowler's favourite writing room was an internal room on the third floor, lit only from the cupola via a fanlight over the door. The house had no central staircase, so visitors entered one of the main rooms through a small lobby, while family and staff used the basement entrance. There are verandas all round the house at first, second and third floor levels, linked by two outside stairs.

The financial panic of 1857 led Fowler to rent out the house, which subsequently went through a series of owners. Fowler's Folly fell into disrepair, and finally - condemned as a public hazard - it was dynamited in 1897 by Fred C. Haight, demolition engineer for the city of Fishkill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octagon_house

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Feb 2, 2019

# ? Feb 2, 2019 18:40

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

if you pop a chub while reading the sex scenes youre legally obligated to post about it

# ? Feb 4, 2019 03:23

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

chernobyl kinsman posted:

"if"

# ? Feb 4, 2019 15:50

Ben Nevis: Jan 20, 2011

I've got this coming on ILL. I'm going to have to see if the nice ILL librarian starts side-eyeing me.

# ? Feb 4, 2019 17:20

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

That harlequin artist hit the jackpot; no fabio-a-likes cradling a stacked broad this time.

I think I'll buy a ratty old paper back if they're not too pricey.

# ? Feb 5, 2019 04:35

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

this is actually very well written and quite good

here's a fun bit from the morning after the bear eats her out for the first time. the narrator thinks:

quote:

Oh dear, what I did I do?
I was reading Trelawny, getting high on Trelawny, feeling I knew Cary, feeling I had tracked down the mentality, then I...the bear.
Sweet Jesus, what a strange thing to do. To have done. To have done to one.

look at how revealing this is of her unstated thought process. she never explicitly admits to herself what happened - the question "what did I do?" is never answered. The closest we get is "then I...the bear". the act is omitted, never even approached; it's subsumed entirely by the sheer fact of the bear itself. even the actor (did she, or did the bear?) becomes confused.

but it's that last bit that I like best:

quote:

what a strange thing to do. To have done. To have done to one.

the first sentence approaches the reality of the act but shies away at the last moment; it's just a strange thing "to do", not a strange thing that she did. but even that is too close, and the infinitive "to do" hints at something ongoing (as indeed her sexual relationship with the bear will be). the next sentence tries to fix that: it's not a strange thing to do, it's a strange thing to have done. now we've safely conjugated the verb, locked it in the present perfect tense, eliminated the unconscious possibility that this might happen again. the last sentence, though, is the kicker: the second hasn't gone far enough in distancing her, psychologically and linguistically, from her own actions. she's the implicit actor of the first two sentences, but now she makes herself into the object, the receiver of the action: this was something that was done to her, not something she did.

# ? Feb 5, 2019 08:04

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

I haven't gotten that far yet

chernobyl kinsman posted:

the last sentence, though, is the kicker: the second hasn't gone far enough in distancing her, psychologically and linguistically, from her own actions. she's the implicit actor of the first two sentences, but now she makes herself into the object, the receiver of the action: this was something that was done to her, not something she did.

Even further: to have done to an abstracted "one," not to herself as an individual. By the end of the sentence she's not even present at all.

# ? Feb 5, 2019 16:11

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I haven't gotten that far yet

Even further: to have done to an abstracted "one," not to herself as an individual. By the end of the sentence she's not even present at all.

ya that too. It�s totally depersonalized

This book does a lot with the reception of the English Romantics and their place, and the place of English (literary) history, in Canadian (literary) identity, but I�m not sure I know enough about either the Romantics or Canada to work out quite what it is. Something, I think, about the inherent absurdity of importing the romantic worldview (shaped as it was by the tamed English countryside) into the wild and fierce Canadian wildernsss (recall the absurdity and impracticality of building a Fowler octagon house out there). But then some kind of reconciliation is achieved between the two when the bear sticks its tongue in her vagooch as shown by her final reflection as she paddles down the river, overwhelmed by the beauty of the scene, and wonders �have anyone since the Romantics ever really seen?

or something, maybe, I dunno

# ? Feb 5, 2019 20:59

mewse: May 2, 2006

There's no ebook for me to :files: for this book so being in Canada, I'm checking out abebooks.

I can get a hardcover ex-library book (lol the librarian that threw this away) or an "advanced reading copy" for $10 more

Every cover art is different

"plausible as kitchens" what the gently caress margaret atwood

# ? Feb 5, 2019 22:22

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Advance Reading Copies can be extremely collectible, especially for weird stuff like this that's likely to have a long term recurring popularity. I'd grab that fast if it's at all affordable (if you don't, someone else in the thread probably will).

# ? Feb 5, 2019 22:34

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Mmm, that is one shapely folk tale. :quagmire:

Also, shame on you for not posting this:

# ? Feb 5, 2019 22:35

mewse: May 2, 2006

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Mmm, that is one shapely folk tale.

Also, shame on you for not posting this:

HAHAHAHA

# ? Feb 5, 2019 22:35

chernobyl kinsman: Mar 18, 2007; a friend of the friendly atom; Soiled Meat

safe as houses, plausible as kitchens, thrilling as a bear going HAM on your clit

# ? Feb 5, 2019 22:49

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

quote:

What you can�t tell from the short (and furry) erotic passages posted to the Internet is that Bear is a drat good book; in fact, it is the best Canadian novel of all time.

Funny and sweet, Engel�s 1976 Governor General�s Award winning (more on that later!) erotic novella follows Lou, a bookish 27-year-old woman employed by a pseudo government agency called the Historical Institute out to a remote homestead in the Northern Ontario woods, where she spends time investigating dusty old books. If Bear were first published today, we�d bill it as a literary account of a woman�s quarter-life crisis; we�d say Lou�s journey of self-discovery is a heart-rending portrait of the difficulty of maintaining a work-life balance. We�d congratulate Engel for crafting such a profoundly relatable protagonist, in an era where work takes over more and more of our lives and the traditional markers of maturity (marriage, home ownership, pension plans, legitimate weekends) are being lost on the rocky terrain of an increasingly precarious contract-term economy.

https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/marian-engels-bear-reviewed-the-best-canadian-novel-of-all-time

Audio of Marian Engel reading from her novel, along with extended radio interview discussing the book:

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2631949712

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Feb 6, 2019

# ? Feb 5, 2019 23:02

Natty Ninefingers: Feb 17, 2011

I can't wait to explain this one to my wife.

It is nice to see an author with the stones to outright do what every drunken smartass giggles that mobey dick is hinting at

# ? Feb 6, 2019 16:09

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

I requested this through ILL but it's almost certainly not going to get here in time. I'm... heartbroken?

# ? Feb 6, 2019 17:48

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

Same but I went to price up the mass market paperback and its like a hundred dollars online.

# ? Feb 6, 2019 18:06

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Hrm. resources for the bear-deficient

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5280468W/Bear

https://www.worldcat.org/title/bear/oclc/566118834

https://archive.org/details/bear00mari_xdh

https://www.amazon.com/Bear-Nonpareil-books-Marian-Engel/dp/0879236671 (you can prime a paperback for $13, just without harlequin cover or used for six bucks)

There do seem to be some electronic versions floating around but I'm not sure about the relevant copyright(s).

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Feb 6, 2019

# ? Feb 6, 2019 18:45

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

ILL failed me so I picked up the Amazon paperback; ursine erotica here I come.

# ? Feb 6, 2019 20:01

Lacey: Jul 10, 2001; _{Guess where this lollipop's going?}

chernobyl kinsman posted:

ya that too. It�s totally depersonalized

This book does a lot with the reception of the English Romantics and their place, and the place of English (literary) history, in Canadian (literary) identity, but I�m not sure I know enough about either the Romantics or Canada to work out quite what it is. Something, I think, about the inherent absurdity of importing the romantic worldview (shaped as it was by the tamed English countryside) into the wild and fierce Canadian wildernsss (recall the absurdity and impracticality of building a Fowler octagon house out there). But then some kind of reconciliation is achieved between the two when the bear sticks its tongue in her vagooch as shown by her final reflection as she paddles down the river, overwhelmed by the beauty of the scene, and wonders �have anyone since the Romantics ever really seen?

or something, maybe, I dunno

I guess you could say that in Bear the Romantic concept of the sublime, particularly the grotesque, is much more accessible, to the point where it is casually intruding on ordinary lives. Like you could start out a mild-mannered archivist on a business trip and before you know it you're begging a bear to separate your head from your body?

People like to re-imagine the cover: https://hazlitt.net/feature/bear-re-imagined

# ? Feb 6, 2019 20:57

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Just ordered it from the library, should have it tomorrow.

Actually I never checked the bookshelf at home, my partner has an extensive collection of Canadian lit

# ? Feb 7, 2019 22:33

lofi: Apr 2, 2018

WTF Penguin?

Like, this book is the loving dream as an illustrator, it's an excuse to go balls to the wall crazy and that is what they managed? What, did they have another five to knock out before lunch? Christ.

I wish I could be reading this not knowing what happens with the bear. But then, I guess I wouldn't be reading it if I didn't know.

# ? Feb 7, 2019 23:36

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

lofi posted:

WTF Penguin?

Like, this book is the loving dream as an illustrator, it's an excuse to go balls to the wall crazy and that is what they managed? What, did they have another five to knock out before lunch? Christ.

I wish I could be reading this not knowing what happens with the bear. But then, I guess I wouldn't be reading it if I didn't know.

I think that's just a random internet illustrator -- there's a link above with a series of fake covers for it.

# ? Feb 7, 2019 23:37

lofi: Apr 2, 2018

Yeah, you're right, good. Good because it SUCKS and no-one should get paid for that. :colbert:

Unlike the book, which I'm actually enjoying so far. As you mentioned upthread, it's some good isolation-porn. And library porn. Who doesn't want to sit reading in a huge sofa, in front of an open fire, a 180 degree window, nestling their naked feet into bear-fur?

I love how the guy taking her to the place was all "so, here's the house, lemme just show you how everything works, here's your stuff... also there's a bear ok seeya."

e: Looking at those other covers in the link, there's a couple of really nice ones. Which makes it even more infuriating that my totally-legit copy went with that one.

Artsy! (And using native canadian imagery?)

Tactile!

Cute.

Welp, guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow.

lofi fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Feb 8, 2019

# ? Feb 8, 2019 00:26

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Beware imitators:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620104873/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

# ? Feb 8, 2019 04:33

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

lofi posted:

Yeah, you're right, good. Good because it SUCKS and no-one should get paid for that.

Unlike the book, which I'm actually enjoying so far. As you mentioned upthread, it's some good isolation-porn. And library porn. Who doesn't want to sit reading in a huge sofa, in front of an open fire, a 180 degree window, nestling their naked feet into bear-fur?

I love how the guy taking her to the place was all "so, here's the house, lemme just show you how everything works, here's your stuff... also there's a bear ok seeya."

e: Looking at those other covers in the link, there's a couple of really nice ones. Which makes it even more infuriating that my totally-legit copy went with that one.

Artsy! (And using native canadian imagery?)

Tactile!

Cute.

Welp, guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow.

what, loving a bear?

# ? Feb 8, 2019 05:20

lofi: Apr 2, 2018

nah, I'm banned from the zoo after I read Lion.

# ? Feb 8, 2019 09:27

Tim Burns Effect: Apr 1, 2011

I'm assuming this is the sequel?

# ? Feb 8, 2019 17:35

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

I now have a copy of this fine, award-winning novel in my hands. I can bearly hold onto it due to its torrid content.

# ? Feb 8, 2019 19:29

lofi: Apr 2, 2018

Just finished reading, and enjoyed it more than I expected.

What struck me most (aside from 'lol, bear fucker') was how much the novel is about nearly doing stuff. Lou nearly gets back to nature (except for the tourists buzzing about the place and her garden being poo poo), she nearly fucks the bear. The bear itself isn't totally a creature of nature, it's been kept in a cage and domesticated. I like that in the story, it adds an ambiguity that a straight 'back to the land = happygood' would be missing.

Plus, I was totally right in slagging off the cover on my version:

It's quite impressive how badly this misses the point - the bear isn't anthropomorphic at all, that's its whole point, it's not even called by a name other than 'bear'

quote:

"Once and only once, she experimented with calling him �Trelawny� but the name did not inspire him and she realized she was wrong: this was no parasitical collector of memoirs, this was no pirate, this was an enormous, living creature larger and older and wiser than time..."

The illustration is of a bear being brought into the human world, the book is about a human becoming more bear-like.

# ? Feb 10, 2019 13:55

Lacey: Jul 10, 2001; _{Guess where this lollipop's going?}

lofi posted:

Plus, I was totally right in slagging off the cover on my version:

That's fanart. Not an actual cover.

This is the actual Penguin cover: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/46558/bear-by-marian-engel

# ? Feb 10, 2019 15:03

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

That Photoshop job must have taken almost 30 whole seconds.

# ? Feb 10, 2019 15:10

Lacey: Jul 10, 2001; _{Guess where this lollipop's going?}

lofi can you post a photo of your version with that cover?

# ? Feb 10, 2019 15:25

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

It's a bootleg ebook.

# ? Feb 10, 2019 15:46

lofi: Apr 2, 2018

Yeah, we went over the 'fanmade cover' before, I was just ragging on it to illustrate (doh-ho) how badly it missed the point, and to launch into the bear vs humanity idea.

# ? Feb 10, 2019 18:50

Gertrude Perkins: May 1, 2010; Gun Snake

dont talk to gun snake

Drops: human teeth

Oh man, I read this a couple of years ago and it was a really interesting ride! I can't join in with the current readalong but I send you all my warmest ursine blessings.

# ? Feb 11, 2019 17:37

DeadFatDuckFat: Oct 29, 2012; This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.

lofi posted:

Just finished reading, and enjoyed it more than I expected.

What struck me most (aside from 'lol, bear fucker') was how much the novel is about nearly doing stuff. Lou nearly gets back to nature (except for the tourists buzzing about the place and her garden being poo poo), she nearly fucks the bear. The bear itself isn't totally a creature of nature, it's been kept in a cage and domesticated. I like that in the story, it adds an ambiguity that a straight 'back to the land = happygood' would be missing.

Yeah, I liked this about the book. The librarian has an extremely difficult time having a "complete" relationship, most likely because of trauma from being burned by past partners (at least one of which is explicitly mentioned in the story). She actually likes the Director and Homer, but still can't manage to make a real connection with them beyond screwing.

lofi posted:

It's quite impressive how badly this misses the point - the bear isn't anthropomorphic at all, that's its whole point, it's not even called by a name other than 'bear'

The illustration is of a bear being brought into the human world, the book is about a human becoming more bear-like.

The librarian does anthropomorphize the bear though, right? Unless thats what you mean. She thinks the bear is giving her facial expressions and that the bear somehow has "depth". The funniest thing is when the Director sends her that second letter and she tells him in her head to "Go screw a book". Because thats pretty much what shes been doing via the bear. She can't call him Trelawny because the bear is just one more of her incomplete relationships. The bear can't (won't?) gently caress her because obviously its a bear and is not interested romantically in her. A part of her knows this, since she has to keep rubbing stuff on her vag so the bear can eat her out. Also sometimes the bear will just wander off while doing so (LOL).

DeadFatDuckFat fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Feb 11, 2019

# ? Feb 11, 2019 20:24

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 09:00

lofi: Apr 2, 2018

The getting bored and wandering off made me laugh, too. I guess she does interpret the bear's moods, yeah. I'd been more thinking of how often the text refers to it as unknowable/unreadable/etc, but that's more a third-person description than Lou's own. Christ, you know you've got issues when you're shagging a bear ~~and you can't even interpret its moods~~.

Poor bear, it never asked for any of this poo poo.

The Homer stuff felt weird to me - did she show any sign of being into him before he grabbed her rear end? It felt almost like she was convincing herself to like him - ditto the director. Both guys who shoved themself on her and she went with the flow. I'm not sure on that, it might just be the book's age making it read that way.

# ? Feb 11, 2019 21:24

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > February BOTM: BEAR by MARIAN ENGEL

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