“Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert
I recently read, The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle. Suspending all notions of reality, what fun I had watching a bear stumble upon a manuscript in the woods and decide to become an author.
Is the bear the next Hemingway; raw and back to nature? Concurrently, the manuscript's author drops into depression after losing a manuscript he has hidden under a tree. His anger and melancholia lead him back into the woods.
Is the bear the next Hemingway; raw and back to nature? Concurrently, the manuscript's author drops into depression after losing a manuscript he has hidden under a tree. His anger and melancholia lead him back into the woods.
The satire mimics the world of publishing and life. The bear becomes more human and dresses well. Enchanted by his writing, no one even notices he's a bear. The real author behaves in a bearlike fashion.
The literal-mindedness of the bear's reaction to humans concerns their mating rituals, the hoarding of food, things important in life. Like the best fable, Kotzwinkle shows us through his bear character that all of these things we accept are so much more. He also reveals, through the human author, that city life is only part of the story.
The question for the reader involves the strangeness of the bear attributed to the eccentricity of an author. We follow the process of how the bear becomes more convinced of his own "personhood."
Enjoy a read on many levels.
Creative Write: If you took on the characteristics of animal as a writer, what story would you tell?
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