I read The Bear Walk by Christina Rencontre this weekend. It was a creative thesis for the author's Master's degree at Northern Michigan University.
The elements of actual bearwalking were not that prevalent in the story. Teeple does see the bear, that the reader is led to believe is a spirit bear (or a bearwalker). His aunt, Eveleen, complains about being bearwalked, but we don't know if that is really the case. (A person who is being bearwalked will become sick, and ultimately die) She dies, but that element is left ambiguous. The reader is led to blame her alcoholism more than some vague notions of a dark force working against her, especially when we don't hear/see anyone who would have reason to bearwalk her. Ze-do performs the standard bearwalker thwarting measures, but the reader doesn't get a good sense of whether this worked or not. The bearwalking references that were there were interesting. Most of the ones with Teeple did not invoke any sort of ill feeling. It seemed more as a sort of spirit guide or totem than an evil medicine man skinwalking in the form of a bear. The figure of Ze-do presents an obvious suspect for the Bearwalker because he wears a bearskin outfit when performing a ceremony the first time we see him, and his medicine is bear-medicine. By the end of the book this possibility does not seem very probable. It seems odd that he should know so much abut the bear, but that isn't delved into to any great deal. Teeple is given a bearclaw necklace that may or may not have originally come from Ze-do. The necklace is supposed to be kept on until the wearer is done with their journey. I didn't get a good sense that Teeple was done with his journey. I guess he put his family behind him and realized that he could live a sober live, and possibly restart a life with Carole and her new baby. Teeple's motives don't seem very clear to himself. This is one of the problems that arise from such a close narration of a story. I didn't really care all that much about Teeple's character, and I wasn't given much reason to cheer for him at the end. He's off the sauce and he's going to get another woman. What about he own son? What about the years it will take to truly say he is sober. Perhaps that's the point, that it's not the end of a journey really, but the beginning of another. No journey truly has an end, it just leads into the start of another. If done well, that might work for a novel. I've read other novels with such an ending.
I didn't have a problem with the dreams per se, but I did think they could have been used more effectively to foreshadow and explain events. The one real foreshadowing wasn't a dream at all, but a story Ze-do tells him about a bear who is turned into a man, and then goes back and kills his family. Teeple has a dream where he is that bear, but he is burying his family. This relates to the end of the book where all of his family is dead. We are given a hint that his father may be alive, but just started a new family and didn't want to see Teeple anymore. This could have led to some big abandonment issues. This whole father thing was not dealt with at all. Teeple himself is a father, but he seems very apathetic about his own fatherly roles. Nothing is talked about or resolved about it. He talks about his son, and wanting to find his father, but these points are extremely rare and fleeting. It doesn't look like Teeple really embraced the spirit of the bear. He did have Eveleen cremated in Ze-do's way, not the way of her tribe; but that problem was not dealt with or explained really. I guess that means she finally had to come to terms with the bear spirit that was haunting her.
Looking at it like a mass market editor, I can see why this wasn't published. The vernacular can get annoying for someone not used to it. There are more apostrophes per page than I have ever seen. "a" for "of", "an" for "and" Things like that were a little distracting at first. Once I got a page or two in, it seemed very personal and familiar; like Catcher in the Rye type of prose style. I grew up with that accent though, so I know exactly how she meant for things to sound. It is that uneducated northern Michigan accent (not to be confused with the Yooper accent). Others would probably have a difficult time with it. I gave it to Erica to read, she gave up after 2 pages. Experimental style is a risk, sometimes if falls flat. There are some abbreviations and words that aren't explained. Some people wouldn't get that D.T. is supposed to be delirium tremens; and even if they did, it would slow them down. M.D. 20/20 (the cheap wine, Mad Dog 20/20) is another good example. There were also some words that weren't defined very well for English speakers. If you didn't know that muckwa meant bear, you would get a vision of wide muddy tracks from a pick-up truck. These are regionalisms and colloquialisms that should be clarified if you hope to reach a wider audience. I like what Orson Scot Card said, that writing should be just a little bit more formal that actual speaking.
The novel also had some length issues. We like to say that it's the story that matters, in whatever length it takes to write that story. But sometimes that means a fight to get it into the marketplace. At 190 pages, in 12 point Ariel font, double spaced, single sided; this would not even qualify as a novel. I think much of the diversions could be cut down and this turned into a very readable novella. Many of those diversions really just take away from the main intent of the story anyway. Some of the events seem rambling. A story like this is usually striking because of the emotional impact of a person going through a tough mental journey/awakening. This story seemed to give that a short shrift, even though it tried not to. Overall, this was a fair book. I would never have read it if it hadn't had the bearwalk references. I am glad I read it from a research standpoint. As pure entertainment, I was not as satisfied. This seemed like one of the new breed of literary fiction that is marked by how unliterary it seems to be. It shows a group of people that don't often see print, but it didn't really show much more than the tired stereotypes. It tried to delve into deep issues, but seemed scared to really dig beneath the surface and leave any lasting scars.
Gray Matter & Other Stories - Stephen King
I read this a very long time ago. Since my library has very few good books on tape, I decided to re-experience it. I liked all of the stories but it was "Gray Matter" that had stuck with me all these years. All of the other ones, I kinda had a feeling of deja-vu. With "Gray Matter", I knew immediately I was back in familiar territory. That story haunted me the first time I read it. Perhaps because I was too young to understand horrors dealing with relationships or parenting. I remember being afraid I would turn into a mound of gray mush. That made me more afraid of the boogeyman than the story "The Boogeyman." "Strawberry Spring" was a great piece of writing in the unreliable narrator. You will probably guess what's coming, but it is still a great read. It's almost Hitchcockian in the way it lets the reader know what's going on before the narrator does. The reader has to sit and squirm, waiting for the narrator to find out what the reader already knows. This makes the narrator's comments even more freaky.
A Walk In The Woods- Bill Bryson
Bryson is an excellent travel writer. I spent a whole semester studying travel narratives, and I can say his are some of the best. He mixes the intimate aw shucks prose style of colloquial America with the understated dry wit of the British (as he lived there for 20 years). His asides are factual and interesting. Normally asides pull the reader out of a story; but when the story is a long walk along the Appalachian Trail, you welcome the respites. Bryson's unwoodsman attitude fits very well, and makes the trip even more enjoyable. The book is more like Steinbeck's Travels With Charley than An Assault on Everest. At times, Bryson is almost mocking these more stoic travel epics. It's like the fat, middle-aged every-man goes on an extraordinary journey. People can read Bryson and imagine themselves there, having all the same stupid adventures. I liken it to a mix of Richard Halliburton's classic travel narratives, if he had taken Patrick F. McManus with him. Bryson's even fatter and more cynical travel partner gives an interesting outside view that many other such travel narratives lack. Their personalities work so well together. It is like that best-friend roommate you had in college that you couldn't stand. You get on each other's nerves, but you have a great time doing it. I read In A Sunburned Country first, where the two take a trip to Australia, so I guess I knew they wouldn't kill each other by the end of this book. The lack of that surprise aside, it is still an interesting book. I'm about half-way through, I can't wait to finish.
Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
This is an excellent way to tell a non-fiction story. It is written in a way that you can not know it's true. I've read other non-fiction written in a more fictional manner like Mailer's Oswald's Tale, and a dearth of bad historical fiction. This is the first one that made me forget it was real. The letter from Perry's father to the parole board is a little bit of cheating to get the backstory. The differences between the real Perry and the image of him his dad presents is interesting, and made deeper with his sister's letter. It shows how difference of perception in narration can color the reader's thoughts. Here we are given a few viewpoints, and can decide for ourselves. Too often we assume the narrating POV is correct. What if the narrator (or lead POV) is lying or insane? That's one of Lovecraft's best modes of storytelling. This story really pulls you in. Capote's craft shines in this one. I'm not a huge fan of his other works like the Grass Harp. I also have gotten sick of tired murder mysteries after reading/watching far too many in my teens. This one surpasses the masses. I like the multiple POVs that come together. It is now an old trick, often used in fantasies, but it still works. I want to find out how the characters fit together. The prose style is pretty effortless and seems to fit each POV very nicely. That is one of the hardest things to do as a writer. Too often our POV is just ourselves. This may not be too bad with one POV, but when you start to get more it becomes a problem; especially if the characters are very different in education, station, regional upbringing, and other circumstances. So far, Capote has done it pretty well.
"Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind"
Clementine's hair was a great device to show the timeline. I also love funky color hair on women, it even improved Kate Winslet. I love blue and purple, but she even managed to make green look fairly good. It was great how such a small thing could do so much for the understanding of the movie. It could have been done with hairstyles, but I liked the different colors. It also helped reveal her character.
The dark camera work did a great job of simulating memory. The fuzziness that cleared, and then grew more fuzzy, is exactly what memory would be like. It also helped in composite computer shots so the viewer couldn't se the proverbial strings. Some times Carrey was acting as Carrey, and not a character; but I thought this fit very well into the character. It felt like the character was written/rewritten specifically for Carrey. It was also a little interesting to see him as the calm, reasonable one; with Winslet the more free-spirit. Winslet did a good job in her role. She has come a long way from bumbling through a portrayal of Ophelia. She captured that walking the line craziness that I have seen too often in girlfriends and friends in the goth community. My only real complaint having been through relationships with characters much like her is that I didn't want them to end up together in the end. I wanted Joel (Carrey) to realize that his memories and experiences of/with Clementine made him who he is. Without those, he would not be the person he is, but that he would still be better of without her. You don't see that very often in movies. In this instance, that would have seemed a happier ending for me.
I watched Dark Crystal for the umpteenth time. I loved it as a kid, and it is still a great story. I wish Henson would have done more of these darker stories. It is a timeless classic. It is a not-so-simple fantasy quest tale and so much more. It has enormously broad appeal, complex plot with history and prophecy. If this were made today, it would have been done with CGI. I normally don't care too much. If the story can be done in CGI, anime-style animation, live-action, hell even claymation; if it fits the story, I'm fine. That said, I think this would have lost something if done in CGI. Perhaps it's just my raised in the 80's sensibilities. Perhaps the generation not raised on the Muppets and Fraggle Rock wouldn't think the way I do.