Do Not Feed the Bear

This is one of those books that I was a little bereft to finish because I loved reading it so much. I was hooked from the first two chapters, and the last book I enjoyed the start of this much was Hotel World by Ali Smith. I found ‘Do Not Feed the Bear’ an easy read because I adored the characters in the book and quickly became invested them. (There’s only character I loathed but the author intends this and writes him with almost forensic precision!) There are passages in this book that are utterly gorgeous that I found myself immediately re-reading them. Within the book there are characters who deal with bereavement and guilt, and the author holds those issues really well. There is also a lot of warm humour throughout this book, with some joyously funny scenes. People have a capacity to be funny and compassionate and that’s well described here. It’s a hopeful book and one I know I’m going to return to. I’m recommending to all my friends who love a good book!

This book is a dreamy delight. I had to read it non stop and stay up all night reading it and fell in love with so many wonderfully depicted characters who were so real I felt I might bump into them on a walk. The beautifully poetic writing made me weep, laugh, sigh, giggle, reflect. I had to read it twice, the second time more slowly, to make sure I hadn\’t skipped too quickly over any beautiful phrase or sentence that captured so effortlessly the innermost thoughts and experiences of any character. The different voices beautifully revealed the magic of this wonderful book. I shall be buying lots of copies of this book as a gift for very lucky friends.

Sadly this was one of the rare books that I gave up after being about a third of the way through. Something was annoying me and I started to realise it was the lack of quotation marks around spoken text. This meant the words “he/she said” were used too much and started to made it irritating to read. Maybe I’m too old!

I got a third of the way through this novel. That was enough. Other reviewers can offer plot spoilers. A plus point – it is about different forms of catharsis and healing and, in different ways, different characters are recovering from psychological problems and even trauma. But the big minus, it feels like the author, who is a therapist, has taken the archetypes from the therapists\’ text book and made them into barely alive characters. There is the woman who lost her mother and lives with the guilt. There is the woman who lost her fiancé far too young and married the first person who appeared to show any sympathy. There is an indecisive late twenties who cannot leave her mother. There is a man who cannot get over the loss of his wife. And so it goes on. A third of the way through, they have not done much yet. A lot of ground has been laid. But you can see the way it might be going. In case you don\’t \’get\’ some of the psychology of the characters involved, we also have an Irish wolfhound providing smell based psychological insights. Is this a game therapists play? Imagine you were your dog. What would he say about what was going on here? Just to headline a few more issues, we have sentences that resemble a therapist\’s voiceover – the games therapists play and the games patients play. This may be OK on a therapist\’s reading list – for patients who want to do their homework and see which way the wind might be blowing. I am not sure it is great literature.

When I read the short summary of what this book was about it intrigued me enough to want to read it, but I was expecting a rather hackneyed cliche ridden story trying too hard to be \”heart warming\” and \”life affirming.\” However I was gradually completely won over, and loved the book, and the reason is quite simply because Rachel Elliott is a very good writer indeed. Yes, the book does flit backwards and forwards in time, and there are a lot of characters to take in. But in fact it\’s always interesting, absorbing, often funny, and oh heck I admit it, heart warming and life affirming. I polished it off in a few days and thought the writing style was original and clever and intelligent, in fact everything I like in a book. OK there are cliches, dogs! quirky characters! and plenty of poignant moments. But they are lovely… verging on profound \”we always think its other people we miss rather than ourselves\” (oh gosh that did resonate with me)…\”without hope all we have is nostalgia\”… And I\’m from St Ives btw so had fun imagining where the characters were, though of course I hasten to add it bears no resemblance to the real place, just shares the name! This is one of those books that shows what writing is all about, it will make you want to grab life and live it to the full.

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