BEAR by Marian Engel
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT
I really enjoyed
the wonderful, “folksy” writing style of Ms. Engel. She uses precision and ease in her use of reveal as the
story unfolds about a spinster who takes a job on an isolated island to account
for a large house and contents donated to the historical trust.
Her back story and the way she grows
from there is very well done, but I feel really strongly that Ms. Engel
gratuitously describes bestiality with the residential bear when she could have
stayed with the original theme and overall feeling of the book by hinting and
leaving it to the reader’s imagination rather than describing it in gory and
unsavory detail. It is disturbing
and provocative, which perhaps was what she was aiming to do, but again, I suggest
she could have left it out and the story would have been better for it.
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