Book Review: The Bear | Columbia, MD Patch

The Bear, by Andrew Krivak* (Bellevue Literary Press, 2020, 221webpages, $16.99)

So melodic it flows and requires you along with it. Rhythmic, brief sentences that also movement. Sweet.

Very simple and readable and shorter (“the beauty of tiny issues” web site 32) however enthralling, even with the plethora of descriptions.

Elegant. Profound. Peaceful. Clean, it rolls alongside as it tells of mankind and the flora and fauna and the stop of it.

Touching

A woman and her father. He teaches her about the environment of literature and history and character, passing on its techniques. The mother passed away shortly just after childbirth but experienced manufactured five pairs of moccasins for her child, every a person a measurement greater than another so that when she wore out the premier pair, she would be aged plenty of to study to make her own.

The mother now lies beneath bear-formed boulder development atop a mountain** that stands by itself and resembles a bear. A great bear. A shy wandering male bear. A bear in an inside tale tells the people not to leave with no him, just as the girl’s bear does, before his extensive wintertime rest.

Each individual calendar year on the summer months solstice, the girl and her father trek up the mountain. This is the day the female was born so the father gave her some thing useful with which to target the year’s classes: a compass, a bow and arrow, . . .

Fables in a fable. 1 tale following a different about the animals they shared the earth with. Words change to smoke as existence turns to ashes. Loss. . . .

Is The Bear the story of boosting youngsters, training them what they want to know just before we are absent? And when we are gone, will there be a bear and a puma and an eagle to take in excess of the lessons? And what about those people sluggish very long discussions with smart trees?

A Lyrical Foreboding

In some way you examine unhappy. Somehow you know the female and her father are the last two residing on this earth and you surmise that the story will expose how that arrived to be. And, of study course, the father will die initial for the reason that he is more mature but will he have time to instruct her all she demands to know?

Journey for Creatures of Pattern

All animals are creatures of behavior. The difference is that animals adjust when they are fearful although we can choose to alter our behavior. (p. 181)

Group of Two

The bear replaces the girl’s father and talks to her, telling her how all the animals used to be recognized by people. The smart bear and the youthful female make a very good workforce as they make their way property: the bear smells foodstuff and the female makes use of her opposable thumbs. And then will come a puma and an eagle to teach her on her journey alone back again property to bury her father with her mom.

To survive in order to return home soon after a wintertime journey, the woman appears to be like to the night sky and actions the times to discern the equinox and her place.

If you favored The Existence of Pi, you will like The Bear, a lengthy quick tale.

Caveat: This ebook was despatched to me for overview and I am so happy. Krivak’s three novels can be uncovered at the Howard County, MD, public library.

*writer of The Sign Flame (2017), a Chautauqua Prize finalist and The Sojourn (2011), a Nationwide Guide Award finalist and winner of the Chautauqua Prize (2012) and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction (2012)
**”We all have to slumber on the mountain a single working day. . . Even when we battle with all our will not to.” (web site 36)