![]() ![]() It is actually a novel about loneliness, about feeling alienated from the world, about being a woman in a world where men and career paths and options have proved disappointing. It is in fact quite a straightforward narrative, although it does have a fable-like quality about it. Failing that, I expected it to be a much more surreal type of novel, full of heavy symbolism. What surprised me, however, is how much more shocked readers seem to be about this now, in an age when the worst kind of pornography is readily available to all.Īre we in danger of focusing so much on the bestiality aspect of the book that we miss what it is about entirely? Given the vigorous over-reactions, I was expecting something a lot more titillating, but the sex scenes constitute a very small part of the novel. ![]() Let’s not be coy about it: it is about a woman who develops a passion for a captive bear, and this passion includes quite explicit sex. This is all by way of introducing the novel Bear by Marian Engel, which has been described as ‘the most controversial novel ever written in Canada’, although at the time it was generally well received by critics and even won the Governor General’s Literary Award that year. that there is less of a willingness to explore and push boundaries, that it’s all about bestseller lists and celebrities. ![]() ![]() I can’t help feeling that, in some respects, we have regressed as a culture in the 2010s, i.e. ![]()
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