Back in the 1970s, Canadian novelist Marian Engelâs
Bear was hailed as a feminist classic in the making. Freshly reissued, its shrewd insights into female desire feel no less relevant, while its appreciation of the pleasures â and perils â of solitude, and of the vast consolations of nature, seem only more compelling. Its heroine, Lou, is a young archivist. She lives âlike a mole, buried deep in her officeâ, her loneliness barely relieved by tepid sex with her boss. Everything changes with a summer posting to an island estate, whose library sheâs to catalogue. There, she finds a bear. She eats with the bear, swims with the bear, and â well, does rather more besides with him. This droll, sensual tale is as strange and powerful as myth.