The Bear Went Over the Mountain FROM THE PUBLISHER
Once upon a time in rural Maine, a big bear found a briefcase under a tree. Hoping for food, he dragged it into the woods, only to find that all it held was the manuscript of a novel. He couldn't eat it, but he did read it, and decided it wasn't bad. Borrowing some clothes from a local store, and the name Hal Jam from the labels of his favorite foods, he headed to New York to seek his fortune in the literary world. Then he took America by storm. The Bear Went Over the Mountain is a riotous, magical romp with the buoyant Hal Jam as he leaves the quiet, nurturing world of nature for the glittering, moneyed world of man. With a pitch-perfect comic voice and an eye for social satire to rival Swift or Wolfe, bestselling author William Kotzwinkle limns Hal's hilarious journey to New York, Los Angeles, and the great sprawling country in between, where a bear makes good despite his animal instincts, and where money-hungry executives see not a hairy beast with a purloined novel, but a rough-hewn, soulful, media-perfect nature guy who just might be the next Hemingway.
FROM THE CRITICS
Edward Neuert
You shouldn't judge a book by its epigraph. Having said that, however, I note that the title page of William Kotzwinkle's new novel, The Bear Went Over the Mountain, is scarier than most:
The bear went over the mountain
The bear went over the mountain
The bear went over the mountain
to see what he could see ...
This insubstantial nugget leads into, appropriately enough, an almost fiber-free novel about the soulless shell that is American book publishing. Kotzwinkle's hero is an affable bear who moseys out of the Maine woods one day and finds the manuscript of a novel hidden under a tree, where it's been ditched by a disillusioned English professor. Bear takes briefcase, reads novel, and likes it. And after stealing a suit of clothes and acquiring the name Hal Jam from a jar of one of his favorite foodstuffs, he sets off for the big city to find an agent, a publisher and perhaps a tasty pie or two. He gets all these in short order, along with a place on the bestseller list, movie deals and talk-show celebrity.
Kotzwinkle has assembled a cast of just the sort of characters you'd expect: a hyperkinetic public relations maven, a driven Hollywood agent, a shallow publisher -- none of whom has ead more than the "coverage" of the book in question. There are few surprises in these characters, and fewer still in the plot. The book has much the same tension as Jerzy Kosinski's Being There -- will anyone notice Hal's true nature as he ascends the ladder of celebrity?
At the heart of The Bear Went Over the Mountain lies the framework of an interesting fable. But you can't help thinking that the great American fabulists of the past -- Mark Twain or George Ade, for example -- would have packed twice its pith into half its 300-page length. This is a novel that, while it satirizes the connection between Hollywood and the publishing world, is fully a product of that union. Kotzwinkle, who proudly lists the novelization of E.T. on his bio, and who scripted Nightmare on Elm Street, IV, has already optioned the book's film rights to Jim Henson Productions. What you have here, surely not for the first or last time, is a novelization before the fact. Better to let Fozzy Bear add his interpretation and catch the whole thing on video. -- Salon
Publishers Weekly
This is certainly the season for satirical looks at publishing. After Olivia Goldsmith's The Bestseller comes this delightful fable by Kotzwinkle (whose E.T. shares with Winston Groom's Forrest Gump the distinction of being its author's best-known title despite having been read by comparatively few people). Kotzwinkle has imagined a disconsolate Maine professor, Arthur Bramhall, who sets out to write a bestseller, only to have a bear steal it, thinking it's something to eat. This is no ordinary bear, however; he has aspirations to becoming a person (they eat so much better, and with much less trouble, than bears do). What better way to establish an identity than by becoming a celebrity novelist? Soon, the bear has found a pseudonym, Hal Jam, an agent and a publisher. With his distinctively masculine presence, and a monosyllabic way of talking that reminds many of Hemingway, he's on his way to stardom with a novel that everyone agrees has its roots deep in the natural world. Soon, he has a Hollywood agent, too, and the admiration of a Southern writer whose specialty is angels; both of them succumb to Hal's exuberant love-making (since a bear normally does it only once a year, a lot of libido is saved up). A pillar of the Christian right wants Hal's support for a run for the presidency, and Hal is only too willing, since he thinks "candidacy,'' like most words he doesn't know, means something to eat. Meanwhile, Bramhall, who is turning into a bear as fast as Hal is becoming human, launches a lawsuit to recover his lost book. How it all works out, and how Hal finds himself a sequel, is the meat of Kotzwinkle's hilarious and sometimes touching parable. The book business is unmercifully skewered (having read only a few lines of the novel, Hal's publicity person writes a summary on which all interviewers depend), but the spirit is mostly kindly, and in Hal Kotzwinkle has created a real star.
Library Journal
Here's one author you'll never forget. We don't mean Kotzwinkle, who does have best sellers like E.T. (LJ 8/82) to his credit, but his latest protagonist: a bear in the Maine woods who discovers an abandoned manuscript and heads to New York to seek literary fortune.
School Library Journal
YA-Hal Jam takes a manuscript that he finds under a tree in rural Maine, breaks into a store to secure appropriate clothing, and heads for New York City to transform the manuscript into a runaway best-seller. Jam thinks, talks, and behaves like a human with bearlike tendencies; the only unusual part of this scenario is that he is in fact a bear. Kotzwinkle has created a very funny novel, satirizing many different aspects of the literary world. While Hal Jam becomes more and more human in behavior, the real author of the manuscript, Arthur Bramhall, falls further and further into reclusiveness searching for possible ideas for a future novel. As he retreats from humankind, his bearlike characteristics become more and more permanent. Only a brief attempt to identify himself as the author of the famous novel shakes Bramhall from his winter slumber. As Hal Jam thrives in his new environment, he encounters all the negatives found in a fast-wheeling money-driven society-drugs, alcohol, greed, and under-the-table agreements. His human behavior struggles with his still-prominent bear behavior. He has the normal desires of a male bear and acts upon them. And no one sees the bear. There are a lot of outrageous scenes, both in rural Maine and in urban areas. Sophisticated students will understand the underlying satire; others will laugh just for the sake of laughing.-Dottie Kraft, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Home
