The Bear

The Bear
William Faulkner
131 pages
Read in 10 days

Not proud of how many days it took to read this book. If I read just 13 pages a day on average, then it will take me 61 days to read The Way We Live Now. What can I say, life gets in the way sometimes.

There are just 5 chapters in the book and I think it can be broken down as follows:

1 and 3- The Hunt...respect for nature.
4 - The boy making sense of his life, his land, and his upbringing
5-The hunt again, trying to relive the same feeling, only the world has completely changed and the frontier is being taken over by industry.

I enjoyed this book tremendously and using the reference from Newsweek as a guide on how to view the book. I definitely saw the environmental themes.

The first 3 chapters detail the hunt for Old Ben, a large black Bear, who is an almost mythical creature for the locals. Many bullets and traps have been set for Old Ben , but he will not go down. I felt, through Faulkner's words, that I was indeed in the camp and out in the hunt. As I said before, the men look to the woods and Old Ben with respect. We watch the main character, a boy named Ike, as he grows up a more confident and accomplished hunter. When Old Ben is finally killed, with the aid of a wild dog that was trained by Sam Fathers (Ike's mentor), we get the feeling that life will never be the same.

In chapter 4, the writing is noticeably different. Ike is now 21 and the chapter starts with four paragraphs that have no period; a stream of consciousness style of writing. I felt the approach was deliberate to show an instability in Ike's life. As if we were him talking through all of his emotions in coming to the decision to give up the land that was part of his inheritance...There were times, however, in this chapter, where it got a little muddy for me. I could feel the sense of urgency as the boy states his alarm at the way the land has been taken from the Native Americans and the history of slavery...when he says:

I'm trying to explain to the head of my family something which I have got to do which I don't quite understand myself, not in justification of it but to explain it if I can. I could say I don't know why I must do it but that I do know I have got to because I have got myself to live with for the rest of my life and all I want is peace to do it in.

You see that he is trying hard to understand things that he does not understand.

The last chapter, he returns to the hunting grounds before a logging company comes through and destroys the land. He can hear the trains come closer and sees firsthand as industry quickly swallows up the forest.

Faulkner was definitely ahead of his time...this story was first published in the 1930s. The story, itself, takes place in the late 1800s. The themes here about the effects of industrialization and expansion on our shrinking wilderness is something that was not as hot a topic in the 1930s. It is an impressive story that is as appropriate today as it was then.

Next story is Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Perfect for the summer. Just wish we would have weather that resembles it soon!

So, here we go...

Well hello there. If you happened upon this blog, congratulations. Simply put: this blog is meant for me to document my personal challenge to read through all 50 books that Newsweek recommends we read now: http://www.newsweek.com/id/204300. It truly is a diary that I can look back on or share with my children when they get older. However, if people join and start talking about the books, I would love it. Call it a virtual book-club.

A few things about me:

1. While I am always reading, I would not call myself a voracious reader. Sure, my whole day is spent reading emails, marketing materials, blogs, newspapers, magazines, and "tweets" for my job, when I sit down to read a book, I am unfortunately so tired, I end up reading a page and I am out.
2. I keep busy...I have two wonderful young children under the age of 5. My wife is going to nursing school so that means that the bulk of the parental duties are on my shoulders. Not complaining at all, just between work and kids, the free time is not really there.
3. Which is BS...Like most Americans, I finish dinner, put the kids down and then I plop down in front of the TV and zone out for a few hours. Why not devote more time to reading? So, instead of turning on the TV right away, I am trying to get a habit to get in at least an hour of reading every night. I hope that time grows even more. Really, I don't need TV. Cooking shows are fun, a couple comedies are cool too...but after realizing I was not going to get through the last 5 "24" episodes because, well, I don't really care if Jack saves the world again, I made the effort to read more.
4. Which is part of why I am embracing this article in Newsweek. At the same time I said "enough is enough", this issue came in the mail and I said, "ok, Newsweek, it's ON!"
5. The Iran election also is a motivation for this, as well. In the aftermath of the results, I was following a couple sources on Twitter to see what was happening overseas. My heart was with all the protesters and while I understood what was happening on the surface of all the demonstrations, I really didn't quite understand the background to it. I was 8 years old at the time of the Islamic Revolution and saw Iran as many Americans did - They hate America and want to destroy us. The "tweets" and reports from the Daily Show's Jason Jones showed a much different picture. These were people who wanted to be liked in the world, they wanted to be free...I read up on articles in Salon.com, Newsweek, New York Times, pretty much anything that gave some background on how we ended up at this point in history. While I have a basic understanding now, I realized that is a very complex picture there. I was excited to see that there are several books about Iran (including the graphic novel, Persepolis) on the list. I hope these books help me gain understanding of what is going on there.
6. I majored in Psychology and Sociology in school. While I was required to take literature classes, I do not call myself a literary critic. And really, that isn't the point. I will give my thoughts and plot summary to the books, but hopefully I will talk more about why this book is pertinent now. Literature is, I feel, completely subjective. Each person who reads a story will get something different from it. Case in point: in college, we read Hemingway's short story, "Hills Like White Elephants." Our professor was going over symbolism in the story and said that the suitcase that was left behind signified an abortion...Em, wha? Not what I got from the story at all. So, no discussion of symbolism, if you want that, take a class.

Ok, so there is the background. Now the rules:

1. I will not read the books in order, but once I start a book, my intention is to finish it.
2. I don't have a set time frame. It would be great to say that I am giving myself a year to do it, but 50 books is basically a book a week. Could be done, but I am not going to kill myself trying.
3. The intention is to post once I finish a book...I may put posts during reading when I came across something important, or that I find interesting.

So, yesterday, I went to a local used bookstore and started looking for the books on the list. Got 10 of them for about $45. I ended up getting an 11th at Barnes and Noble. Now, the first book:


No. 5 on the list...William Faulkner's, "The Bear". Newsweek calls it: "A boy comes of age in the 1880s by learning the ways of the fast-disappearing Mississippi forests. The best environmental novel ever written." You can get it on Amazon. Now, I have 47 pages left in the book I am reading now (The Mad Ones, if you must know)...should be able to finish that today and then it will be onto The Bear. See you soon.