It’s more like she affirms what she already knew: that being an intelligent woman in the so-called liberating 70s was still to face stifling, society-wide misogyny on a daily basis. I read reviews or descriptions that attest to that and I’m confused. What our librarian (who is not actually a librarian, she’s an archivist), Lou, comes to find out in the wilderness is not any particular useful bit of sexual or personal discovery. So I guess we should spend some time doing some analysis on bearsex. The descriptions of the wilderness - from the very specific feel of the cold morning air to the shape of the mushrooms - is immersive and well done. It’s easy to get into her head even as she constantly reveals deeper layers that unveil a very different character by the end of the book. But who am I to complain? I liked both these novels a good deal.Įngel has a pleasant, readable style. Sans the beastiality, but with plenty of dirt and madness. What is with Canadian women going wild on remote northern islands? This happened in Surfacing by Margaret Atwood too. Yes, when you take these things and you read the sentence they sneak in at the end about this being one of Canada’s most controversial novels, I believe that like me, you can only come to one conclusion about what this mousy librarian does with that bear. When you note this blurb describes her as ‘mousy’. When you read the back of a book and it outlines some charming tale about a librarian who spends a summer on a northern Canadian island, digging through old books and cataloging them.

Bear by marian engel movie