The Bear Went Over the Mountain

Today, I bought an 80 dollar pair of shoes.

Let me begin by saying that I didn't wake up planning to make such an irresponsible investment in footwear. I'm a college student, I'm Jewish, and I was raised to the sound of scissors slicing neatly through coupons. But after a very long and exhausting day at work (what! Being a childrens' librarian is tiring! You try spending 8 hours a day bursting with enthusiasm and Beverly Cleary recommendations), followed by hours attempting to complete a single errand, I decided I wanted to do something nice for myself. So I went to look, in person, at a pair of shoes I'd been ogling online. I truly hadn't meant to buy them, simply to drive 20 minutes out of my way to drool over them and then have the salesman pry them out of my hands.

Sometimes, the materialistic things get the better of us. I am what my grandmother would most likely call a “hippie.” I live to travel, love being outside, enjoy unruly curly hair and music from the 60's. And yet, here I sit, propped up in bed, wearing pigtails, an oversized Tool t-shirt, a pair of cotton boxer briefs, and 80 dollar high heels. Those shoes got the best of me. I simply couldn't put them down. The two sides of my brain were battling - human side, who longed for sparkle and pizzaz and the comfort of shoe shopping, and the animal side, who was scratching at my brain, reminding me of my incredibly low hourly wage and impending financial independence. The human side won.

This battle of human vs. animal thinking is the basis of William Kotzwinkle's odd little novel, The Bear Went Over the Mountain. I'll be honest, I picked this book up at the store because it had an adorable, confused looking bear on the cover, towering over the crowded streets of New York City. A giant, fuzzy beast squeezed into a suit, looking like he needed a hug. And when I read the reviews on the cover, I decided to buy it and give it a try. “The funniest fable of our time,” The Los Angeles Times raved. “...there isn't anyone funnier, smarter, or more inventive than he,” Richard Bausch wrote about the author.

The plot of The Bear most certainly did not disappoint. Arthur Bramhall, a professor at the University of Maine and struggling writer, has just lost his first attempt at a novel in a freak fire. He eventually builds himself a new cabin and a new book, and decides to hide it outside to avoid history repeating itself. Because anyone sane would leave a finished novel sitting under a tree (!), Bramhall sets his work down and meanders away. Before long, the novel is picked up by a bear, who somehow reads what he has discovered and hops a taxi to New York City. The novel is immediately published and takes America by storm, landing the bear an agent, publicist, and all sorts of other literary posse.

Over the course of the rest of the novel, the bear, who names himself Hal Jam (Jam because he simply loves jam; Hal because “Half” didn't sound human and a container of Half n' Half was the only thing around to inspire at the moment), discovers the pros and cons of life as a famous human. Inexplicably, when the bear dons a suit and a tie, no one in society can tell that he is a giant wildlife creature. Almost as confusingly, Hal can speak English, but barely. The story rolls forward comedically – Hal responds to questions from reporters and other authors with one word answers appropriately reflecting the thoughts of a bear attempting to be human - “Honey,” “Hot dog,” “I am a person” - and they take these as indisputable words of genius they are simply too stupid to understand. Hal climbs to the very top of the social ladder through aloof, bumbling, and erratic behavior that his group just assumes must mean he is a genius.

“'If you could sum up your impressions of urban life in a single word or two -'

'Cheesy things,' said the bear, lifting the empty bag in the hope of getting more.

'Do you mean that urban values are cheesy because everything's been commercialized? But that's how a civilized society works. Isn't it slighlty unfair of you to hold the mirror of rural life up to us and say, you must life like this? Modern city life is cheesy of necessity...'”

We see Hal undergo quite a metamorphosis. At the beginning, his thoughts are simple, the most complex problem in his life being how to steal his next pie. But when he enters the city and begins his life as a human being, Hal's priorities and though processes completely change. He discovers grocery stores, and realizes that he no longer has to work for his food. He starts to find himself attracted to the shapely curves and shaved legs of human women instead of the fuzzy female bears he once lusted after. Although many of his thoughts are still simple, he no longer thinks of the fields or streams that he used to love. The idea of going back into the Maine wilderness and losing all of the posh comforts of his new life is anything but appealing. Especially the thought of losing laundry service. When Hal meets the President of the United States, he makes it clear just how much he loves his clean clothes. “The president gave an almost imperceptible nod of satisfaction to the vice president. 'I change my underwear everyday,' said the bear, just to keep things friendly, at which point he was handed over to a staff member.”

As Hal is slowly morphing from a bear to a lazy and entitled member of society, Arthur Bramhall is losing himself in his misery and letting his animal instincts take over. After he discovers that his novel is missing, Bramhall tours around the small Maine town with an older neighbor, collecting a string of anecdotes about the wilderness. Throughout the process, Bramhall notices his sense of smell growing stronger, and thicker hair growing all over his body. He is suddenly attracted to large women that choose not to shave their legs. He has an unignorable urge to eat raw fish and sleep through winter in a cave.

We are taken back and forth between the journeys of these two men (Bears? Creatures? It is never really made clear, at the end, who is human and who is not...maybe that's the point) as they unfold. Kotzwinkle does a good job in juxtaposing the two plotlines against each other for maximum lesson-learning. I enjoyed the strange plot sequence and even the anti-materialistic message of the book, and I of course was thrilled by the behavior of the bear, trapped in a man's world, fighting the urge to pluck a swan off of his five-star hotel grounds and eat it raw in front of the other guests.

My main problem with the book was the writing. The diction, the language, call it what you will, the voice that the writer chooses for his narrator can make or break a story. Although we like to think that its artistry and creativity that gets a book published, sometimes its not so literary – if you can keep the reader entertained, you can sell. And Kotzwinkle didn't keep me entertained. Sections of the book were random, going off onto tangents and wandering aimlessly. The anecdotes Bramhall travels to collect, which take up a good portion of his plotline, never really connect or make sense to the reader. I'm still not sure why they were included, as they didn't seem to have anything to do with his character. They just seemed like a way to till pages. Much of the book was funny and lively, but there were sections that fell completely flat, especially against the standards the book's cover, summary, and jacket quotes had created. Most of my work days are long and exhausting, and when I get home I don't have the cognitive energy to dive into a story. But if the book is good, really good, I'll look forward to reading before bed. I'll stay up hours past my bedtime and act like a zombie through the next day just to finish a few chapters. The Bear Went Over the Mountain just didn't do this for me.

Also, why did Kotzwinkle choose to embrace fantasy in some aspects, but not in others? For example, the bear lives among humans – communicates with them, works with them, sleeps with them – and yet is never discovered. He can somehow speak English, and can read very well. Yet, Kotzwinkle doesn't go far enough as to let him communicate his thoughts effectively. The American people somehow believes that this man, who can barely string a sentence together, has written one of the highest grossing books in modern history (the devil on my shoulder is urging me to make a Stephanie Meyer joke here - the angel is forcing the end parenthesis). He manages to make it all 306 pages of the book without acting the least bit like a mentally well human being, in front of intense media, corporate, and even government scrutiny. But he doesn't receive a single question or warning. The entire book is full of odd inconsistencies of this sort. The tone is at some points like a nursery rhyme or a fairy tale, then suddenly reads more like a tawdry article in Penthouse. I couldn't put my finger on just what kind of book it was supposed to be, which kept me uneasy and distracted.

The Bear Went Over The Mountain had the opportunity to be a hilarious and heartwarming story of Disney/Pixar proportions. Think Mulan pretending to be a man when she joins the army to fight against the Huns – faking it until she makes it, fumbling her way through new and unfamiliar customs with bumbling and hilarious results. But instead it ended up somewhere between the studios of DreamWorks and Warner Bros.; quality animation, a promising plot, but missing the definite Disney je ne sais quoi.

Still, the message Kotzwinkle weaves between endearing bear moments is a good one. Getting lost in comfort and materialism can change a person (or a bear). Comfort can suck the love of adventure and thirst for life right out of you, leaving you instead with a fondness for Cheesy Things and hotel laundry service. We are constantly being bombarded with products designed to make life easier and more comfortable, and before long I fear that the only boundary stretching and exertion will be for criminals and professional athletes. I want my personal character to be somewhere between Hal Jam and Art Bramhall – to appreciate the comforts that a human life can offer, but still feel humbled by the power and beauty of what occurs naturally. It is difficult not to get distracted and obsessed with things that we can control and design. But no matter how much time we can save by using the same sheet in both the washer and the dryer, no engineered product can ever compete with miracles of nature that happen all around us. Let's not forget that.

The Bear Went Over the Mountain is a bit of a mixed bag. It is truly delightful to see into the mind of a bear, seemingly one of nature's simplest and most straightforward creatures, as he tries to grasp the complexities of high class life in New York City. Although Kotzwinkle isn't constantly on his A game, the when he's on, he is on. Tucked in between the tangents and random pornographic moments is some poignant and embarassing commentary about mankind, greed, and idolization of celebrities. If read carefully, the book can certainly mean something - or, it could just be a weird story about a bear. If you can will yourself to struggle through the portions of the book that are less than great, there are moments that are worth the effort; still, I'm not sure this is a book worth buying.

But who am I to give advice on purchases? I'm wearing what was supposed to be grocery money for the week on my feet.

PS – In case you were wondering: