It says something about the beguiling way that Engel writes that it somehow doesn’t leap out as ridiculous that her role on the island includes caring for a bear, and that nobody has mentioned it. ‘Did anyone tell you,’ he asked, ‘about the bear?’ There had been so much day she had a lot to think about. She wondered if he was going to touch her or to denounce her. She made as if to go inside the house again, for it was dark and she was tired and cold, but Homer stood looking at her uneasily, shifting from foot to foot. Here she is, after talking to one of the locals who is sometimes kind and sometimes not: Lou finds a sort of freedom in being unleashed from her life – and the locals are hesitantly welcoming. Those narratives can take so many directions – perhaps it will be a new lease of life, perhaps unsettling, perhaps a panacea, perhaps antagonistic. I love novels about outsiders going to small, isolated communities.

The idea is that she is to catalogue the library, find out what she can about Cary, and report back about whether or not the estate would make a good place to develop a research facility. When the Institute for which she works needs someone to go to Cary’s Island, part of a legacy left by Colonel Jocelyn Cary, she is the person for the job. Her role might sound wonderful to the likes of you and me, but she has grown weary of it and wishes to escape her lonely urban life. Any evidence that an ancestor had performed any acts other than working and praying was usually destroyed. The Canadian tradition was, she had found, on the whole, genteel.

Lou dug and devilled in library and files, praying as she worked that research would reveal enough to provide her subject with a character. Describing her job is one of the first moments I stopped to note down the beautiful precision of Engel’s writing: Lou is a librarian in Toronto, though her role seems to encompass archivist as well.

When it turned out to match the club year, it was a no-brainer to pick up. When it was reprinted by Daunt Books this year, I got a copy (and it was another recommendation, really, because Daunt are so flawless in their choice of reprints). Because of him, Bear has been on my horizons for a while. You probably know Dorian’s brilliant blog, or have encountered him on Twitter – and he has written a wonderful article about this novella. It’s definitely true of Dorian and Bear by Marian Engel. I think that’s probably true of me and Miss Hargreaves. Someone talks about a book with such passion, and perhaps often, that they and the book become united. Some bloggers and books are inextricably linked.

Bear by marian engel summary