The Tribune | Weekend |13
Friday, November 19, 2021 Engel’s most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between a librarian and a bear. Her first editor at Harcourt Brace rejected the manuscript, noting that:
Almost all of Engel’s story takes place in or around an old, octagonal house on a small island – Cary’s Island – on a remote lake – north of Highway 17, past Fisher’s Falls near the Northern Ontario village of Brady.
She delves deeper into the library and discovers scraps of bear folklore and studies collected by the Colonel, which inspire her spiritually.
The octagonal house and island estate which previously belonged to the Cary family is called “Pennarth” (the Welsh Gaelic work for “Bear’s Engel wrote her novel Head”). As the during an uncomfortable, author explains, busy and tumultuous the octagotime in her life. In 1973, nal house was she had started the Writinspired by the ers’ Union of Canada writings of Orson in her home in Toronto, Squire Fowler and was elected as its and probably first Chairperson. She dates back to was raising twin children the 1850s. The and going through a orderly, and intripainful divorce. At the cately decorated time she was undergoing ‘Bear’ was released to acclaim and controversy in house contains an regular psychotherapy ses- 1976 extensive library of sions and worried about her nineteenth century mental health. books. Behind the house are several smaller buildings, including one She started writing hoping to contribute to a shed that is the lair of a large, semi-tame bear. collection of erotic work by other serious writers which, because of lack of funding, did not make The novel revolves around the 27-year-old it to publication. Initially she only had a 31-page librarian Lou, who has been given the job of draft but, in time, she developed it into the 141page novel. Part of the inspiration for the book documenting the entire library and contents of the was derived from the First Nations legend The house which has been donated to her employer Bear Princess, as recorded by folklorist Marius – the Heritage Institute. Withdrawing from a Barbeau. The story was then suggested to the humdrum and monotonous life in Toronto, Lou writer by the Haida artist Bill Reid. Early titles for savours the opportunity to work in the isolation of the book included The Bear of Pennarth and The Cary’s Island. She studies and catalogues the great Dog of Gods. library and becomes deeply involved with her work. Slowly and carefully, she begins to approach Although initially rejected by Harcourt Brace, the island’s resident bear, who was a pet of the late fellow Canadian author Robertson Davies praised Colonel. the book to McClelland and Stewart editors, and Engel started a lifelong friendship with company Lonely and detached, she begins an intermitpresident Jack McClelland. The first printing was tent sexual relationship with the estate’s caretaker, released in Toronto in May 1976. Homer Campbell. She also, aided by an elderly First Nations woman, gains the confidence of the * * * bear. Marian Engel’s classic book Bear takes place in “It gave her a strange peace to sit beside him. It the district of Algoma in northeastern Ontario. was if the bear, like the books, knew generations of It is a heavily wooded area with a natural mix of secrets, but he had no need to reveal them.” deciduous and conifer forests. This part of the Canadian Shield is a district that has many lakes - Marian Engel and rivers. Bear
- Marian Engel Bear
The novel was eventually published by McClelland and Stewart after being championed by the author Robertson Davies. It won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction in 1976. It was Engel’s fifth novel, and is her most famous. The story of a lonely librarian in northern Ontario who enters into a relationship with a bear.
As Lou approaches the end of her contractual work with the Heritage Institute the bear follows her to the riverbank. “It was the night of the falling stars ... They swam in the still black water. They did not play. They were serious that night. They swam in circles around each other very solemnly. Then they went to the shore, and instead of shaking himself on her, he lay beside her and licked the water from her body.”
Her bond with the bear is altered, and Lou leaves the island with a sense of renewal. *
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The Canadian Encyclopedia notes that the book has been called “the most controversial novel ever written in Canada, and the notoriety around its subject matter brought Engel to national attention for the first time. Engel’s writing craft was admired, The Globe and Mail noting her “fine use of understatement, control and economy”. The book was received favourably outside of Canada as well; the Times Literary Supplement in London wrote a positive review. The 1976 Governor General’s Literary Award Jury, which included authors Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro, and Mordecai Richler awarded Bear its English-language Fiction Award, one of the highest literary prizes in the country. Marian Engel’s future writing illustrated contemporary life with a focus on the day to day experiences of women. She described her work as an exploration of “how to deal with an imperfect world when you have been brought up to look for perfection”. Doubled identities were commonly used to illustrate the challenge of traditional gender roles and the imagined possibility of the “other”. Engel went on to publish five other books: My Name is Odessa Yarker (1977); The Glassy Seas (1979); Lunatic Villas (1981); and The Tattooed Woman (1985). She died in Toronto of cancer on February 16, 1985. Elizabeth and the Golden City, the novel Engel was working on at the time of her death, was left unfinished. It was incorporated into Marian and the Major: Engel’s Elizabeth and the Golden City by Chrystyl Verduyn and published in 2010. • Sir Christopher Ondaatje is the author of The Last Colonial. He acknowledges that he has quoted liberally from Wikipedia; Lifelines: Marian Engel’s Writings (1995) by Christyl Verduyn; and Marian Engel by Jean Wilson: The Canadian Encyclopedia Historica Canada (2019).
