Time for another review! And finally, it's a good one: This is an excellent book I have for some reason never been aware of until now. It's a Canadian piece written in the 70s by second-wave feminist Marian Engel about a Toronto women made to live out in the boondocks, where she meets and eventually falls in love with — you guessed it — a tame bear.
First of all, let me get the not-so-zoo stuff out of the way: It's a really well-written book. At first it may come across as a bit purple; it starts with the same tired and frustrated young city woman undergoing major changes in her life. The author does this on purpose, saying that she originally just wanted to write pornography, and then a bear came into the picture so she went with it, in typical style of writers. But it picks up, and a nice array of literary tools are used throughout the story to deliver a strong message just beneath the surface of the plot regarding the liberation of women's sexuality, and outside the sphere of feminism (or is it?) the rediscovery of what is natural and wild, beyond the scope of the niches society fits us into.
Some critics have toted it as a very spiritual book, but to me it's quite the opposite: with its length and its style, it reads like a significantly less chaste Paulo Coelho, but it actually paints a rather believable and down to earth story. If anything it's about pulling the wool away from one's eyes and just embracing the simple, almost a sort of nihilism, rather than a spiritual feeling or doctrine.
That realism extends to the zoophilic aspect, too: the bear's actions are in my experience very believable, right up to the ending, if not tragic then simultaneously disappointing and liberating in all the best ways. It doesn't ever disparage or abuse, and indeed even glorifies the zoophilic actions and feelings at hand, and really, I think some of us zoos could learn a thing or two about our relationships with animals from this book, and help bring us into a more moderate state of mind.
I really can't recommend this book strongly enough, not only to zoophiles but also to feminists, real libertarians, and anyone who enjoys good literature. It's erotic, but doesn't revel in it, and instead uses that eroticism to teach us things about our own existence and personal liberation in measure.
First of all, let me get the not-so-zoo stuff out of the way: It's a really well-written book. At first it may come across as a bit purple; it starts with the same tired and frustrated young city woman undergoing major changes in her life. The author does this on purpose, saying that she originally just wanted to write pornography, and then a bear came into the picture so she went with it, in typical style of writers. But it picks up, and a nice array of literary tools are used throughout the story to deliver a strong message just beneath the surface of the plot regarding the liberation of women's sexuality, and outside the sphere of feminism (or is it?) the rediscovery of what is natural and wild, beyond the scope of the niches society fits us into.
Some critics have toted it as a very spiritual book, but to me it's quite the opposite: with its length and its style, it reads like a significantly less chaste Paulo Coelho, but it actually paints a rather believable and down to earth story. If anything it's about pulling the wool away from one's eyes and just embracing the simple, almost a sort of nihilism, rather than a spiritual feeling or doctrine.
That realism extends to the zoophilic aspect, too: the bear's actions are in my experience very believable, right up to the ending, if not tragic then simultaneously disappointing and liberating in all the best ways. It doesn't ever disparage or abuse, and indeed even glorifies the zoophilic actions and feelings at hand, and really, I think some of us zoos could learn a thing or two about our relationships with animals from this book, and help bring us into a more moderate state of mind.
I really can't recommend this book strongly enough, not only to zoophiles but also to feminists, real libertarians, and anyone who enjoys good literature. It's erotic, but doesn't revel in it, and instead uses that eroticism to teach us things about our own existence and personal liberation in measure.
No comments:
Post a Comment