The Bear by Andrew Krivak (Book Review)

 

The Bear 

By Andrew Krivak

Published by Bellevue Literary Press, 2020

Somehow the world has ended in apocalyptic fashion. Cities are gone. Civilization is gone. 

Advanced technology is gone. Like God did a reboot of the system. But this is not a beginning. It is the end. For there are only two humans left: A father and his 7 year old daughter living in a primitive cabin on the side of a mountain next to a lake and forest. Her mother is dead and buried under a stone cairn at the top of the mountain that is shaped like a bear. Supposedly, the father tells his daughter that the "Spirit of Thorn", a godlike shapeshifter watches over this place and them.

The highest tech that the two possess is a brass compass, flint and steel to start fires, and knives. Everything else they have to fashion from nature, including bows and arrows and the clothes they wear. If they want to eat, they have to hunt or harvest their food from the plants around them. This is not seen as hardship. It is seen as a normal course of life. 

When the girl is about 12 years old, her father tells her they must make a long journey to the sea to get salt which they use to preserve their food. Along the way her father is injured and the girl must begin to think about what she will do without him....Maybe a talking bear will have the answer! 

The Bear to me is another in a long line of literary works that is plastered with blurbs from supposedly important critics and authors as "destined for great things" or "a singular talent". The problem with this kind of writer is that the proof is in the pudding. My shelves are lined with authors who were seen as up and coming and 30 or 40 years later nobody reads their books or knows who they are. They gush "A writer of rare and powerful elegance"! Maybe the writer themselves becomes flushed with self importance. The problem with this author and with this book is that neither are very good. 

I know The Bear is supposed to be an important work. I think the author thinks so too. But just because you set a book at the end of humanity doesn't mean its good. It just feels like a survivalist to do list with Disney talking animals thrown in. Kind of like a cross between Jungle Book and Hatchet. Throw in a little Walden as well. But without the insight. Girl gets up, finds water, hunts, kills food. Clean eat sleep repeat. It just never seems to go anywhere. 

I get it, Krivak was going for the broad character strokes of the Bible but the book gets worn down in the boring Hemingway banal details. I never felt like I got to know these two people. They were more like mythic archetypes. And that's great too IF you have an interesting plot. When the plot is just survival....well....meh...you know....

I will definitely take a hard pass on reading any of Krivak's other works and this books is going in the Goodwill donation crate. 

My Grade: D-