plutonian reviewed Bear: A Novel by Julia Phillips
A novel for people who would prefer to meet a bear in the woods.
4 stars
An intimate portrait of two sisters, Sam and Elena, who are taking care of their dying mom and eking out a minimum wage existence on an island off the coast of Washington. And then, of course, we have the titular Bear, Chekhov's gun lurking in the forest.
Elena engages with the bear with hope, trust, and excitement; she feels chosen, like she and the bear belong there together. But Sam dreams only of escape, believing that her sister shares the same dream. Both will have their trust shattered by the end of the novel.
I'm not in college anymore, I'm not going to offer up weird theories about what the bear represents. (Sometimes a bear is just there to be a bear.) I did think a lot about how weirdly familiar bears are, so human-like is so many ways, so easy to anthropomorphize, to project your own desires on them …
An intimate portrait of two sisters, Sam and Elena, who are taking care of their dying mom and eking out a minimum wage existence on an island off the coast of Washington. And then, of course, we have the titular Bear, Chekhov's gun lurking in the forest.
Elena engages with the bear with hope, trust, and excitement; she feels chosen, like she and the bear belong there together. But Sam dreams only of escape, believing that her sister shares the same dream. Both will have their trust shattered by the end of the novel.
I'm not in college anymore, I'm not going to offer up weird theories about what the bear represents. (Sometimes a bear is just there to be a bear.) I did think a lot about how weirdly familiar bears are, so human-like is so many ways, so easy to anthropomorphize, to project your own desires on them and to believe that you know their thoughts. Elena does this to the bear. In many ways, Sam does this to Elena: she only sees what she wants to see, she does not recognize who Elena truly is.
It's an excellent character study and a powerful portrayal of the complications of sisterhood. And it's a sad novel, one where characters must wake up to unpleasant realities and recognize that the people they love are not who they thought they were. Although Sam is an adult, it's really a coming of age story, a novel of painful life changes and realizations. It ends with equal parts grief and hope.