Tonight I bring you two books about animal lovers who love their animals far, far more than I or my mother ever could have dreamed was possible. One, beautifully written and widely considered a national treasure by its author’s home country, is about a most unusual type of relationship. The other, part of a long-running fantasy series, concerns a gifted, troubled, less than stable young man whose soulmate has twice as many legs as normal:
Bear, by Marian Engel - Marian Engel was one of Canada’s brightest literary talents. Born in Toronto, she was raised in a series of small towns in Ontario, did graduate work at McGill University, and finished her education in Provence. She married mystery writer Howard Engel in the early 1960’s, gave birth to twins, and split her time between raising her children and establishing herself as a writer during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. She wrote novels for adults (No Clouds for Glory, The Honeyman Festival, Monodromos, etc.), short stories, and two children’s books (Adventure at Moon Bay Towers and My Name Is Not Odessa Yarker). In her spare time, Engel also kept up an active correspondence with other well-known authors such as Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, and her graduate thesis adviser, Hugh MacLennan.
If that weren’t enough, Engel also taught at universities in Alberta and Ontario, served as a trustee of the Toronto Public Library, and became a passionate advocate for the rights of authors and readers, both in Canada and abroad. She won the Governor General’s Literary Award, roughly the equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize, in the mid-1970’s, and was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1982. Her death a few years later at the tragically young age of 51 was mourned throughout the Canadian literary community, both as a hugely talented author and as a bright, warm, beloved human being.
So what is she doing in one of these diaries? And why is her finest book, the selfsame novel that won the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction in 1976, a Book So Bad It’s Good?
It’s certainly not the quality of the prose; Engel was an elegant writer with a wry sense of humor and a notable ability to grab and hold a reader’s attention. Her award-winner has been called the finest novel ever written by a Canadian, a funny, sweet tale of a young woman’s coming of age. Very much of its time in its exploration of a woman’s intellectual, emotional, and erotic life, the book has become part of the Canadian literary canon alongside the blustery memoirs of Farley Mowat and the lapidary short stories of Alice Munro.
No, it’s not that this is a truly bad book. It’s a very good one. It’s simply that the subject is…well…how do I put this without scaring the children…unusual.
For Bear, which began life as a contribution to an anthology of short erotic fiction, was rejected by Engel’s regular publisher on the grounds that "Its relative brevity coupled with its extreme strangeness presents…an insuperable obstacle in present circumstances,” is that simplest of tales: the love story of a lonely young librarian and a bear.
No. You are not imagining the last word of the above paragraph. Bear really is about a romantic relationship between its protagonist, Lou, and a tame black bear. Set in an isolated part of northeastern Ontario, in an octagonal house inspired by the writings of 19th century sex theorist and architectural activist Orson Squire Fowler, Bear relates what happens when Lou meets bear, Lou becomes obsessed with bear, Lou tries to seduce bear, and bear acts like, well, a bear.
There’s more to the book than this, of course. Lou has come to the octagon house not in quest of love, but to catalogue the library of its former owner, Colonel Cary, who donated the property to her employer. She’s come to hate her old life in bustling, dreary, stultifying Toronto, and welcomes the opportunity to work and live in the fresh, bracing air of the wilderness. Soon she embarks on a sexual relationship with the property’s caretaker, befriends a First Nations woman, Lucy Leroy, and works on reclaiming her mental equilibrium as well as documenting Colonel Cary’s library.
She also becomes obsessed with Colonel Cary’s pet bear, which lives in one of the octagon house’s outbuilding. At first this is simply curiosity – pet bears are not common, you know – but soon Lou, aided and abetted by Lucy’s advice on how to approach a wild animal and Colonel Cary’s collection of bear folkore, is in much deeper than she could have expected. Soon she’s comfortable enough with the bear to cuddle up with it while she reads about the Colonel’s military career, her feet buried in its thick, warm fur, as she muses that “a woman rubbing her foot in the thick black pelt of a bear was more than [soldiers] could have imagined. More, too, than a military victory: splendour.” She even manages to entice the bear into giving her a bit more than splendour thanks to the judicious application of honey to certain delicate and private parts of her anatomy, never mind that the bear finishes the honey (and Lou) and ambles off, farting in his bear-like way, before Lou has completely come down from her post-orgasmic high.
Of course this fascinating love story doesn’t end well; Lou eventually tries to consummate her relationship with the bear in the most literal sense and ends up badly scratched by its claws. This understandably changes her relationship with her hairy boyfriend, but the sense of peace and inner renewal she’d gained during her time with Colonel Cary’s octagon, library, and ursine companion remains. The novel ends with Lou, physically scarred but spiritually healthy, returning to the urban world, emotionally at peace and ready to take on the challenges of a changing world.
Just why Engel chose to expand upon her erotica in quite this way is not clear; she was reportedly inspired by a First Nations legend about a bear princess, but the actual book is different enough from the legend that it’s hard not to wonder if some of her personal tumult bled through into the actual novel. Her marriage was on the rocks, she was trying to get the Writers’ Union of Canada off the ground, and she had two children to raise. It may not be a coincidence that Bear is dedicated to her psychotherapist – but then again, the entire book may be a metaphor for the sacrifices a woman caught up in the throes of Second Wave feminism and the doldrums of the 1970’s might be willing to make for emotional and physical satisfaction
Regardless, Bear did more than chronicle Lou’s spiritual and romantic needs. It got generally good reviews, both in and out of Canada, with Engel’s prose coming in for particular praise (the Toronto Globe and Mail in particular lauded her “fine use of understatement, control, and economy,” wisely avoiding the obvious statement that said understatement, control, and economy was probably what kept the book from descending into parody, not pornography). There were dissenters, of course – novel Scott Symons called Bear “spiritual gangrene” and “a Faustian compact with the Devil” – but the Governor General’s Literary Award jury, which included luminaries like Mordecai Richler and Alice Munro, disagreed. The GG cemented both Bear’s status in the Canadian literary canon and Marian Engel’s status as a major Canadian novelist.
That might have been the end of that…except that for some reason the 1970’s paperback cover, which featured a nearly nude Lou (looking uncomfortably like Jane Fonda in her Barbarella days) became an Internet sensation in 2014. Imgur reprinted the cover with the caption “What the actual fuck, Canada?” and before one could say “Farley Mowat is a big loud poopyface” Bear was suddenly back in the news. Critics termed it “the best Canadian novel of all time” and “a quintessential Canadian book,” the CBC proclaimed it one of the “Books that Make You Proud To Be A Canadian,” and the publisher issued a new edition as part of its New Canadian Library series. This came complete with a critical afterword and a new cover that showed a much more realistic Lou, complete with scratch marks.
Whether Marian Engel would agree that her book is the Canadian equivalent of Huckleberry Finn/The Great Gatsby/To Kill A Mockingbird can never be known, but I think it’s safe to say that she wouldn’t be unhappy at the sales. She might even be amused that what began as a racy little fundraiser is now considered a classic, not to mention an Internet meme….
Brightly Burning, by Mercedes Lackey - Mercedes Lackey is one of the most prolific, and best selling, fantasy novelists currently working. Her books, most of which are set in the fictional kingdom of Valdemar, are classic high fantasy, replete with quests, heroic deeds, magic, ordinary people called to do the extraordinary, and a good, peaceful land pitted against aggressive, evil neighbors. They’re especially popular among young people, since many of her protagonists are teenagers struggling to find their place in the world.
The Valdemar series in particular has proved remarkably durable. The covers are striking and frequently beautiful, the characters are vividly drawn, and there’s an unexpected (and refreshing) strain of progressivism that can be difficult to find in a genre founded by class-conscious British dons like JRR Tolkien. Men and women are legal and social equals, gays and lesbians face little stigma (at least among the Heralds), and for all that the country is a monarchy, it’s a remarkably egalitarian place in many ways.
Most notably, the Valedemar series includes a trilogy about Vanyel Ashkevron, a gay Herald/Mage who is one of the first openly LGBT characters in speculative fiction, and if some of his story seems dated today, remember that the books were written only a few years after Diane Duane’s The Door Into Fire had featured a love story between two men.
The first Valdemar books, The Arrows of the Queen series, appeared in the mid-1980’s and were an immediate hit. They introduced Valdemar, an idyllic land ruled by a series of wise monarchs and their troubleshooters/guardians/war leaders/civil servants, the Heralds. The Heralds, who wore white as a symbol of the special magic they used, were ordinary men and women who were chosen for their work by Companions, intelligent, inherently good beings that took on the form of large, white, blue-eyed horses. Companions ensure that the monarch always reigns wisely and well, that the rights of the people to their homes and their personal lives are respected, and that the immensely powerful, immensely talented Heralds are seen as instruments of good, not the lackeys of a totalitarian feudal regime.
I haven’t read many of the Valdemar books – I was already in my twenties when they came out and was more interested in alternate history and military SF – but I have no doubt I would have devoured them if they’d been around ten years earlier. At their best they’re enjoyable, fast reads, and the underlying message of courage, kindness, and finding one’s special mission in life regardless of the odds is one that should not be forgotten.
So what is Brighting Burning doing in this diary?
It’s not necessarily a bad book; Lackey is a skilled, fluid writer with a gift for snappy dialogue and decent worldbuilding skills, and by the time Brightly Burning was published in 2000 she had over three dozen books to her credit, most of them about Valdemar. The story – a misfit finds his place in Valdemarran society, then must face a challenge that threatens all he holds dear – breaks no new ground, and of course the protagonist is a Herald, but a series book should stick to the formula, at least in part. No, Brightly Burning, which tells the story of legendary herald Lavan Chitward, called Firestorm for his pyrokinetic powers, is a Book So Bad It’s Good not because of its prose, or its formula, or its place in a long running, popular series.
It’s because Lavan marries his horse.
Oh, it’s not technically a marriage, and Kalira, Lavan’s Companion, isn’t really a horse. It’s a lifebond, see, and it’s necessary because Lavan’s powers are so strong that he needs the mental control that only Kalira can provide. If it weren’t for Kalira he’d go crazy and –
Well. Let’s start at the beginning, with Lavan himself. Sixteen years old, he’s wrenched from family and friends when his mother accepts a high guild position that requires the family to move from countryside to the Valdemar’s largest city, Haven. There Lavan, who has none of the social graces deemed appropriate for an upper crust teen, finds himself alone, friendless, and adrift. His parents, who of course don’t understand, decide to send him to a specialized school for emo kids that will allow him to choose a trade rather than follow his mother into the textile trades.
Alas for Lavan, this well meaning but somewhat inept attempt to help backfires badly when he’s bullied and terrorized by older boys. He tries to tell his parents, who pooh-pooh him and dismiss his concerns even after he tries to tell his mother that the chief bully wants him to steal some valuable cloth, then begins to have horrible headaches that keep him out of class. He manages to enlist some of the other younger students in a grassroots effort to resist the bullies, but that only makes them angrier and more determined to make Lavan pay for being weird, defiant, and Not Like Us.
Eventually the bullies decide that the only way to keep Lavan from disrupting their entire cozy little lifestyle of hellish torment and general meanness is to “discipline” him with formal beatings. They’re about to inflict the first set of lashes, seemingly unnoticed by any adults, when the room and the bullies are suddenly engulfed in a raging inferno. Lavan, who is tied up and waiting for his beating, passes out before the flames actually reach his tormenters.
He wakes to find that a) the parents of the dead bullies are not happy, b) much of the school is now in ruins, and c) a Herald named Pol has shown up to question him about the disaster. Pol’s questions are probing, to say the least (he’s investigating a mass murder, for crying out loud), and Lavan’s firestarting gifts start to manifest a second time to defend him. A second disaster is averted only by Lavan managing to deflect the flames away from Pol toward torches in a nearby garden.
Pol, rattled by this, sensibly leaves Lavan alone to calm down. He’s off speaking to a city guard about how they’re going to cope with this immensely powerful, immensely gifted, immensely dangerous kid when suddenly Kalira, an Heralded Companion, trots up in a tinkle of silver hoofs and a toss of snowy white mane and tail. She heads straight for Lavan, and before you can say “Holy inappropriate relationship, Batman!” she not only Chooses Lavan as her Herald, but instantly lifebonds with him in a relationship that’s equal parts best friend, confidant, soulmates, and romantic partner.
This is not what usually happens when a Companion picks a Herald. Heralds, who include Valdemar’s ruler among their ranks, can and do fall in love, marry, and have children, which is a good thing because otherwise the royal family would have died out almost immediately. The same goes for the Companions, who can and do mate with each other to produce the next generation. A lifebond between a Herald and a Companion is all but unheard of, and Kalira’s assertion that Lavan needs such a connection to control his firestarting powers doesn’t prevent tongues from wagging, heads from turning, and a girl who has a crush on Lavan from making a move on him, lifebond be damned - and let’s just say that if there’s a worse blow to a teenage girl’s ego than being rejected in favor of an all-wise magical creature that looks and acts like a horse, I don’t want to hear about it.
Lavan’s erstwhile girlfriend is not precisely happy about this turn of events, but Lavan himself is delighted. Kalira is able to stabilize him and his power, he finds new friends, and life is finally good. Unfortunately, that’s when Valdemar’s ancient enemy Karse attacks, hellbent on destroying Valdemar for good and all. Lavan, who is hideously powerful despite his youth and inexperience, is immediately rushed to the front to be deployed as a sort of living terror weapon against the Karsites. Along the way the Karsites ambush Lavan, Pol, and Pol’s family. Pol is badly hurt, and Lavan, who may be in control of his gift but is still emo to the nth degree, pretty much reduces the Karsites and their encampment to what one might call “crispy critters.”
This violent but heroic act earns Lavan the by-name “Firestorm,” and you can just guess what happens when he gets to the battlefield. The Karsites, who were not even slightly expecting an angry teenager to start blasting their infantry with what Stephen Donaldson might call “corruscating gouts of flame,” are thrown back in confusion. The tide seems to be turning in favor of Valdemar pretty much solely because of Lavan when a Karsite sniper decides that this won’t do and shoots not Lavan, the actual threat, but Kalira.
Companions may be wise and powerful, but they are neither invulnerable nor immortal. Kalira dies almost immediately, and Lavan, who’s suddenly alone, unbonded, and out of control, basically goes berserk. He lets loose with the magical equivalent of Fat Man, Little Boy, and their less colorfully named ilk, and the resulting inferno not only consumes the Karsites, it comes within an eyelash of consuming the Valdemarrans as well. Only Pol and a couple of other Heralds using their own magical abilities allow the Valdemarran forces to escape relatively intact as Lavan burns, and burns, and burns….
Needless to say, there isn’t all that much left by the time the smoke clears sorry for the pun but I couldn’t resist, it’s been a hell of a week and don’t even ask about the ice dam in my living room, okay?, either of the Karsites or Lavan. Pol eulogizes his trainee, who went out in a literal blaze of glory, and Lavan Firestorm goes down in history as one of Valdemar’s greatest heroes and martyrs.
That he was also lifebonded to a member of another species, killed a whole bleepload of bullies who never had the chance to grow up and change their ways, and likely would have ended as the equivalent of one of those somewhat unnerving adults who’ve found Jesus/EST/Zen/Odin/whatever to keep them sane doesn’t quite make it into the legend. This is probably just as well, since Lavan Firestorm, who heroically avenged his horse lifemate/Companion and saved the kingdom, is a much more attractive figure than Lavan Chitward, emo kid who burned up a bunch of bullies and nearly reduced his own country’s army to raw material for soap.
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Have you ever had a pet that acted more like a human than a dog/cat/gecko/hermit crab? Questioned the sanity of a friend or relative who claimed to own such a creature? Read Marian Engel? Mercedes Lackey? Are you Mercedes Lackey in which case I take it all back, no kill I, it’s just one book, have mercy upon a poor little blogger!? Now is the time and place to tell all….
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