The Bear Came Over the Mountain
- Sep 17, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 8
★★★☆☆
My wife, Megan, picked as her next book what she thought was an Alice Munro novel titled Away from Her, but it turned out that I’d mislabeled the ebook. What she read instead was a single story (“The Bear Came Over the Mountain”) from that collection, which was originally published as Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. This story was adapted into the 2006 Sarah Polley film, Away from Her, and the collection was reprinted as a tie-in to the movie. Megan was so affected by the story that she insisted it be the next thing I read because she was dying to talk about it. So I did, and so we did, and now that we have here I am.
The Bear Came Over the Mountain, though short, is filled with layers of complexity, abundant food for thought, and plenty to contemplate. It’s no wonder Megan was anxious to talk about it. The story made her both sad and angry in equal measure. She’s trying to coin a new portmanteau to adequately capture her feelings. “Sangry,” anyone? On its face, this is a story about a couple dealing with the effects of Alzheimer’s. Under the surface, however, this is a story about hurt, betrayal, trust, ulterior motives, of using and being used, and, ultimately, about what, exactly, is “love,” and what does it mean to love someone. My reaction to the characters, the events, what we learn about them, and what they choose to do (and why) wasn’t as strong as Megan’s, but I get where she’s coming from. Nobody is all good or all bad, nor are our actions singularly one or the other. Life, people, actions, and choices all exist in the middle gray. How we feel about them, how we respond and react to them, is distinctly personal.
The success of Alice Munro’s story, then, is that she has managed to create something that lingers, that has as many interpretations as it has readers, that a mere 49 pages can be so compelling. Given all that, three stars might seem like a slap in the face. But it’s not. I liked it. I solidly liked it. I didn’t really like it, and I didn’t love it. But liking is good, and this is a good story well worth reading.
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