A Review of Andrew Krivak’s “The Bear”
The Last Human(s)
Andrew Krivak’s latest novel, The Bear, is rather unusual. While it is ostensibly set in the future, it could very well also be set at the beginning of time in some regards. It’s the story of the very last humans on the planet, a father and his daughter, who interact in nature in ways that resemble the storytelling of indigenous peoples. That’s what makes it so unrooted in a specific time and place. Of course, we are never told why they are the last human beings on the planet. Was it the cause of a virus or some deadly plague? Readers of this book will never know. But that’s not a short falling. In many ways, it is meant to play out as though this is a story that could have been handed down from generation to generation, something that’s as old and universal as time itself. It’s the story about survival, if not the unmaking of creation, much as it is about creation itself.
The man and his daughter are never named in this book. They live in a house in the woods where the father teaches his daughter survival skills as she grows up. Each summer solstice, they visit the place on a nearby mountain where the daughter’s mother is buried — the mother having succumbed to the pressures of childbirth a few months after the daughter was born. Then, one day, when the daughter is 12, the two set out for the coast of the ocean to gather saltwater in which they can make salt. I don’t want to give too much away, since this is a short novel, but tragedy strikes and the sole remaining human is left to cope with surviving and returning the ashes of the fallen to the mountain where the mother is buried. However, winter is rapidly closing in, to which the sole remaining human takes comfort and wisdom from a talking bear this person crosses paths with. More about the talking bear later.
As you can tell, this is a deeply melancholic book — one that’s about mourning and death, but also the struggle to persevere in the face of that. What we get is essentially a survival tale: a catalogue to survive a long and deadly winter. The Bear, however, is never boring. We feel invested in this character, simply because this is the last person we have left. All that remains to be seen is, if this person should survive, what future is in store for him or her? Will the days pass in loneliness, missing the presence of the other who has perished? Will the days be full of hunting and gathering, and making themselves useful as the sole human inhabitant of the earth? And what about the talking bear? What will become of them?
You may be bracing at the mention of a talking bear, wondering what kind of child’s story is this? Well, I can say that the novel is less science fiction (though perhaps it is in a dystopian kind of way) and more folk tale and fable, culled from the wisdom of ancestors. My church tells these kinds of stories all the time: how a seagull is tricked into releasing light into the universe that it holds in a box, for instance. That’s what makes The Bear remarkable. This is the type of tale that feels culled from the ancient, not from the futuristic. Plus, this isn’t a story about one attempting to overcome what has wiped out the rest of humanity, set in the dying days of a plague. By the point of this novel’s start, humanity is long gone. There is the odd hint that there may be others out there, but The Bear doesn’t go there. This is all that is left, and what is left must cope with an intense sense of grief and sorrow.
Needless to say, I was quite enamoured by this enhancing work of fiction. Krivak has obviously spent some time in the forest, because his survival narrative seems true and factual. That makes the more outlandish elements of the work seem grounded. I’ll bet that not once will you marvel at how Krivak makes a talking bear seem so realistic and true to life. Nature being able to talk is treated as simply as an art we humans have long lost in our quest to dominate and tame it. That makes The Bear a bit of an environmentalist story. It has a deep-seated sense of wisdom, but it also has heart, too. You long for the character to not just survive but make it home, though you won’t know precisely what they’re going home to with the loss of the other. It’s been a long time since I turned the last page of a book (electronically, in this case, as it was a NetGalley download) and felt such a profound sense of melancholy for ending a book. And the book’s not a long one: I read it in a couple of hours, making me wonder if it’s more a novella than a proper novel. Nevertheless, The Bear is an exhilarating experience that I know I won’t easily forget.
To that end, I would really recommend going and checking this book out. I’m not entirely sure what it’s doing with a small, literary press, because this story is so universal and so good that it deserves a much broader and wider audience. This is the type of book whose story is so relatively approachable and marketable that it deserves to be read by all. In fact, it kind of reminded me of The Old Man and the Sea in some ways, not only just in terms of length, that I have to wonder at what types of literary awards this book is going to be lavished with. I hope there’s a big one or two because The Bear is truly something worth savouring from an author I’d like to hear more from. Andrew Krivak is truly one to watch, and The Bear just seals the deal on that sentiment. This is an excellent read, bar none, and you should treat yourself to it. It’s a marvel and is, quite simply, marvelous.
Andrew Krivak’s The Bear will be published by Bellevue Literary Press on February 11, 2020.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
