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

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 08:24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

mewse posted:

My body is ready

That's bear-tacular

But, seriously, if there are any notes or neat errors please post them

# ¿ Feb 15, 2019 22:46

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

mewse posted:

As a Canadian what probably happened was the small high lit community decided this book was Worthy Of Praise and then it won that award

I haven't finished it yet, so not commenting on its merit, but given the author's connections in the Writer's Guild this seems pretty likely.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2019 01:03

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:

i mean that's just my read, i might be wrong, but i broadly interpreted the book to be about a woman who learns at last to get her gently caress on

I described it to my wife as "The Canadian How Stella Got Her Groove Back"

# ¿ Feb 18, 2019 03:55

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

Bilirubin posted:

which the old native woman tells her to do. And she says that he is a "good bear" repeatedly, with her cackling laugh. That was also my interpretation and I'll die on that hill with you.

Yeah, that was my suspicion from the moment the old woman shows up onscreen. It's at least heavily implied.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2019 06:56

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

Last call: suggestions for next month

# ¿ Feb 25, 2019 03:51

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

Ben Nevis posted:

And this FINALLY came by ILL. I don't know that I make the end of the month on it, but I'm gonna read the bearfucking book anyways.

Discussion can always continue past the end of the month! It's cool!

this thread can move on canadian time

# ¿ Feb 25, 2019 16:42

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 08:24

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

GreyjoyBastard posted:

last possible moment if not too late but Winter Tide

Remind me next month.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2019 14:10

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