Customer Reviews

The Bear Went over the Mountain

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a wickedly funny satire of publishing and life, wherein a nice bear stumbles upon a manuscript in the woods and decides to become an author. As authors are notoriously eccentric, his strangeness is discounted by all (he is the next Hemingway, they say, so raw and back to nature). At the same time, the fellow who actually wrote the book is finding that his anger and depression is leading him into the woods where he is becoming more gruff than ever.

There are sections here where I was literally snorting with laughter, usually in response to the literal-mindedness of the bear's reaction to humans--their mating rituals, the hoarding of food, those things important in life. Like the best fable, Kotzwinkle shows us through his bear character that all of these things we accept so easily are so much more, and also shows us through the human author that the city life is only part of the story.

The methodology of the tale is ultra-fantastic, even "magic realism" if you will. Kotzwinkle constantly reminds us that the bear is a bear, even as he becomes more human-like (and vice versa for the author turned woodsman). It resembles Carol Emshwiller's Carmen Dog in this manner--the animals may speak, but there's still a difference between them and humans. The satire resembles Terry Bisson's "Bears Discover Fire" (you could say this is "Bears Discover Publishing") in that it juxtaposes the raw nature of the beast with the civilized society. As much as I admire Bisson's story, I think Kotzwinkle out-does him, basically just by being able to extend the conceit for an entire novel. This is highly recommended to fans of realist fantasy and humorous works in general.

One of the funniest books I've ever read, Kotzwinkles
telling of the story almost has you believing that a bear
could actually pull all this off! The hero of the story is
a bear who one day finds a book manuscript hidden in the
back woods of Maine, reads it and thinks its such a
wonderful story that he takes (steals) it to New York city
with the idea of selling it. After adopting an alias (Hal
Jam), he peddles the book around the NY publishing world
and meets many quirky and self absorbed people on his way
to eventually becoming world famous. Throughout the story he
vacillates back and forth between wanting to remain in the
comfortable but strange and "hard to figure out" world of
man - with its unlimited quantities of sweets and women;
and wanting to return to his beloved forest where life is
so much simpler. The plot is very much like the movie "Being
There", except with a slapstick slant. Everyone that the
bear meets reads deep and profound meaning into Hal's
brooding silences and short, out of context statements. It
kept me laughing out loud for two straight days, I can't
remember the last time a book did that to me!

There's so much truth about the publishing world in this drop-dead-funny satire that it's a wonder the publishing world ever published it!
Outrageous premise of a man who writes The Great American Novel, loses the manuscript in the woods, and becomes so depressed that he goes into hibernation and becomes beast-like. The flip side of the equation, the part that makes this book a dangerous one to read in bed beside a sleeping mate, is that the manuscript is found by a bear who manages to sell it on a trip to New York. The bear is courted by NY's best and finest celebs, and he impresses reviewers, agents, and editors with his hyper-intelligent and deeply moving monosyllabic grunts and one-word responses to interview questions.
But the parts that'll make your trying-to-sleep spouse want to kill you are the love scenes between the bear and the object of his affection, a 'fur-bearing woman,' (a lady who doesn't shave her legs).
Don't miss it. Buy two, and give one to your favorite quirky friend.

William Kotzwinkle has the rare and wonderful gift of seeing life exactly as it is. This is the funniest, most lovable book I've ever read. It's a little treasure, a true look at the publishing business in America today. It's too bad the book has been overlooked by so many. I'm so happy to see that so many other Amazon customers also appreciate Kotzwinkle's genius.

You have to read this book! It's a total send of of everything that is "Politically Correct". As the story progresses more and more people are so busy trying to be hip and cool that they totally fail to notice the lead character, supposed New York Times Best Selling author Hal Jam is in fact a bear. If you don't fall off your chair laughing at the paragraph on "rutting out of season" I swear you have no sense of humour. In times like these it's great to have a lovely, light hearted read like this.

William Kotzwinkle is a great writer and deserves all the encomia that perceptive readers heap on him, and nowhere is this more evident than in BEAR, a brilliantly, manically, marvelously funny little book that in its own way cuts to the bone and sends up the publishing industry and the publicity-conscious celebrity world in cruelly telling ways.
Herein lies the Kotzwinkle Perplex. This terrific talent is still relatively unknown and unacknowledged in the publishing world, based on an analysis of his past books. BEAR is in part the sardonic answer. Today, as most thoughtful readers and writers know, celebrity and notoriety are the keys to the publishing kingdom, in an industry where editors are given sales quotas they must meet (or be fired) and where John Walker Lindh, Monica and Denise Rich are considered actual or potential 'great writers' merely because of their dubious 'achievements.'
Hal Jam and Kotzwinkle know these truths and trade on them playfully, but with an edge. That's why this is such a fine and surprising book and why more people should read it.

This satirical look at the world of publishing gives us an amusing story of a bear who steals an author's manuscript and passes it off as his own It's more plausible than it sounds! While the bear becomes more human (nobody notices he's a bear), the real author begins to behave in a bearlike fashion. The transformation of both characters is handled well. I found the book hilarious and highly recommend it.

Aesop for the 90s! One of the most enjoyable stories I have read in years, and as a fable, it hits evey target. Yes yes, we all know that the idea has been done before and some of the targets are pretty easy, but it is so damned funny, and warm, that I would take this over Being There any day. One of the things that particularly impressed me was the sheer consistency of the bear in everything he did, even when he was adapting to life as a human.

I frequently wonder why people purposely write reviews where they say things like "This is the worst book I've ever read" or "I don't see the point." Do you also wonder? Does it make you think, "That reminds me of that girl I'm glad I didn't marry"?

This book is funny, as everyone (who counts) says. But for me the real payoff was the ending. I was hooked into this book partly because I was hoping Kotzwinkle could pull it off. He'd gotten so deeply into the plot and characters that it just didn't seem possible to have an ending as good as the start (and the middle, and the whole dang thing). But he did it. He did it! And it was funny.

So, even if the comedy isn't for you, this book is a model of storytelling I wish more novelists and screenwriters would study.

Who will dig this? Philip Roth fans. Kurt Vonnegut fans. Haven Kimmel fans. Nabokov fans. Richard Russo fans (I'm thinking of you folks who want something as fun as STRAIGHT MAN). Face it, fans of good prose and good stories will have a blast.

The characters are cliché, the plot is easy to follow but isn't that the point with a fable. Kotzwinkle takes something we know, or think we know, and twist it to show a window into our nature. This is an excellent book, that's insightful and very funny.