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2nd out of 72 books
—
17 voters
The Bear Comes Home: A Novel
by
Rafi Zabor
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: "A hilarious, richly imagined bear's eye view of love, music, alienation, manhood and humanity . . . that recalls Pynchon at his most controlled."—Publishers Weekly
As Rafi Zabor's PEN-Faulkner Award-winning novel opens, the Bear shuffles and jigs with a chain through his nose, rolling in the gutter, letting his partner wrestle...more
As Rafi Zabor's PEN-Faulkner Award-winning novel opens, the Bear shuffles and jigs with a chain through his nose, rolling in the gutter, letting his partner wrestle...more
Paperback, 480 pages
Published
September 17th 1998
by W. W. Norton & Company
(first published July 1st 1997)
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A friend recommended this as a good read in advance of a trip to New York. By the time I'd read a hundred pages I was so enthused I recommended it to a handful of friends, even though i was fairly confident they wouldn't like it. I don't think I know anyone else who would like it, but it's just so fucking good.
It's about a talking bear whose true passion is jazz music. But it's not a lame allegory, and the author doesn't play it for surrealism. The prose sings, it's extremely referential in a pl...more
It's about a talking bear whose true passion is jazz music. But it's not a lame allegory, and the author doesn't play it for surrealism. The prose sings, it's extremely referential in a pl...more
I read this as a companion piece to Marian Engel's "The Bear," so I guess I'm now an expert on bear/human romantic relationships. (Until someone writes a book about a MAN who has an affaire with a female bear. Hmmm.)
I found this one to be often splendidly verbose, and often just plain wordy. After a while, I just slimmed the lengthy descriptions of numerous jazz performances. The female characters initially seemed interesting, but eventually seemed shallow and plot-driven. And though I felt a li...more
I found this one to be often splendidly verbose, and often just plain wordy. After a while, I just slimmed the lengthy descriptions of numerous jazz performances. The female characters initially seemed interesting, but eventually seemed shallow and plot-driven. And though I felt a li...more
Simply the finest book on the experience of creating music that I've ever read. The Bear is a phenomenally compelling and sympathetic character, the milieu that he lives in is instantly recognizable, and the passages that cover gigging and recording are transcendent. I've personally bought and distributed at least 10 copies of this book (not counting the multiple personal copies I've bought to replace ones I loaned out to friends and never got back).
I have to admit to being a bit amused by the c...more
I have to admit to being a bit amused by the c...more
For me, this book had everything. Characters I really want to follow through life. An engaging plot that works wonderfully by its own logic, even though (like so many contemporary novels) it's based on an oddball premise. Best of all, a deep communion with great music, expressed in luminous language (much better than my style in this review!). Jazz musicians can enjoy this as insiders, while people who don't know jazz would (I believe) run out and buy all the jazz recordings they could after rea...more
It's rare to find a jazz player who can articulate the experience of improvisation and ensemble playing so well through written language. Jazz critics are great at articulating what they hear, but in "The Bear...", Zabor writes from the perspective of the player. I enjoyed a crazy plot full of very believable characters, and it was humorous to me how Zabor acknowledged, through the encounters between the bear and various people in the story, the implausibility of a bear that not only talks, but...more
Rafi Zabor’s 1998 debut novel The Bear Comes Home is a tale of an up-and-coming NYC saxophone player and his quest to create a personal style that will build on rather than imitate his heroes Coltrane, Monk and Mingus. He also happens to be a walking, talking bear with opposable thumbs. His name’s The Bear, but friends call him Bear.
The Bear has the sensitive soul and single-minded obsessiveness of an artist struggling to find his voice. He’s also in love with a human woman, the law is after him...more
The Bear has the sensitive soul and single-minded obsessiveness of an artist struggling to find his voice. He’s also in love with a human woman, the law is after him...more
A good story that only occasionally wavers. I think it set out to be a little over the top and it succeeds. In some ways it is quite extravagant and self indulgent although this is probably intentional. It's a book about seeking transcendence through playing great jazz solos.
The story basically concerns a talking bear that plays the saxophone and has sex with humans. The bear is presumably some sort of mystical symbol for our inner spirit or something but he is also used for decent comic effect....more
The story basically concerns a talking bear that plays the saxophone and has sex with humans. The bear is presumably some sort of mystical symbol for our inner spirit or something but he is also used for decent comic effect....more
A fascinating and enlightening novel about the sexes, the species, and music. You know, about life in general. I have to say that I've seldom been so excited by a novel while in the act of reading it. The characters live on the page, the evocation of life in the city, the country and on the road are vivid and exciting. The writing about everything, especially music, is terrific. The humor is genuinely funny, and the pathos is genuinely moving. Hell, there's even a listener's guide with informati...more
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A jazz-playing grizzly bear. This is the only fiction I've ever read written by someone who sounds like he really knows jazz. The respect paid to giants, chord progressions, even the feeling of improvisation or trying to get a group to play well. However, the main character turns out pathetic over a long period of time, and that gets tiring.
The precocious sheen fell off of my life in the late 90s. Evidence of this can be found in the fact that I checked out this book, what, ten years ago? I read it, quickly even, and remember finding fault with the jazz references. What could i have been thinking? Please, I hope my judgment doesn't allow any such wavers in the near future.
A long, realistic story about a bear who is crazy-good on the trumpet, set in jazz-era NYC. Zabor really, really knows the musical genre and reading this and downloading at the same time could give you a well-rounded collection. He treats what is an absurd subject with compassion, humor, and gusto. Wonderful book.
magical - not only one of the best books about music ever written, one of the most interesting set of characters I have come across, too. The Bear embodies humanity better than any human cipher, and this is a gloriously inventive, romantic and tragic story. A gem.
The best novel ever written about sex between humans and bears, easily beating out Bear by Marian Engel, not to be confused with Madeleine L'Engle, who never writes about sex with bears.
More significantly, the second best novel ever written on jazz, the best one being The Horn, by John Clellon Holmes. The bear's woodshedding experiences, his life on the road, his coming to understand jazz,and maybe best of all his meeting with Ornette Coleman in a club that's been raided because of a bear on the...more
More significantly, the second best novel ever written on jazz, the best one being The Horn, by John Clellon Holmes. The bear's woodshedding experiences, his life on the road, his coming to understand jazz,and maybe best of all his meeting with Ornette Coleman in a club that's been raided because of a bear on the...more
Never finished it because I lost it! I kept thinking that whatever fellow cantabridgian found it would return it to the library. Will go back to it some day.
Quirky, unexpected and spectacular read about a Bear who plays the saxophone and thinks and acts like a human being, lots of jazz riffs in the book.
Unusual fantasy about an alto sax playing bear in love with a woman (who reciprocates). We had a terrific book club discussion on this. In some ways it's another male middle-aged crisis, but also unique in its approach and marvelous in its language and description of the philosophy of identity. It's loaded with references to music, art, and literature. I wanted to read an annotated edition. Winner of the Pen Faulkner Award. Reminded me of Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad in its treatm...more
Strange story of a jazz-playing, talking bear that makes perfect sense. Zabor's love of music and ability to describe it are incredible.
This was a really odd book about a bear living in New York. It was interesting and well written but really a mind bender.
Rafi Zabor is a jazz musician and music critic. Here, he crafts a widly inventive tale of a bear blessed -- or cursed -- with the genetic quirks of superb intelligence and a passion for the saxophone. Everything else in the book is deadly realistic. How the bear pursues his dreams, and suffers from his differences, makes the novel a fabulous read.
I also tagged this as a great book group. I thought it was -- but be prepared. Several people in my group were deeply offended by it. The bear, you see...more
I also tagged this as a great book group. I thought it was -- but be prepared. Several people in my group were deeply offended by it. The bear, you see...more
All the beastiality made me mad, but good story
great, ambitious piece of work--an alto-sax playing bear tries to discover the meaning of life, falls in love; the descriptions of trying to hit the heights of 'Trane and Bird are the best pieces of writing on playing music I've ever read..
I had to give up on this book after about 230 pages. Lengthy, dense, prose with no story to keep me interested. I love jazz but this books is like trying to read sheet music with no instrument in sight. Maybe I'll come back to it one day, but I just can't slog through it anymore.
The best description I've ever read about what it feels like to improvise (I'm a jazz musician). Great book.
Jul 23, 2008
Gerald
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
musicians, philosophers
Recommended to Gerald by:
A guy who plays
Musician Michael Bolger recommended this book to me, and I can see why. It's as much about the inner musings of jazz musicians as Vikram Seth's An Equal Music gets inside the heads of classical chamber players. Jeez, I thought I'd graduated from the college of musical knowledge, but most of this stuff was way out, man. More...
Yes, the premise is entirely bizarre--jazz-playing bear lives among us as if this is somehow possible and acceptable--but the story is compelling, if only for the passages about jazz. Some may get squeamish during the atavistic intercourse scenes, but that comes with the territory--you read a book about a bear living the American Dream, you should be prepared for the obligatory sex passages.
Very unique story of a bear who plays saxophone and yes talks. Once you accept this fact, Bear becomes this complicated human and not so human character full of philosophy, love, and insecurity. There are vibrant and entrancing descriptions of jazz music that relate to music lovers. Bear really is just the 'other' in society trying to fit in without denying himself or isolating himself.
This is my 'must have' book for jazz lovers. It contains a bear, a saxaphone and a love story. What more could you ask for?
Written in a series of long riffs, like improv on the page Rafi Zabor actually pulls off the almost impossible task of writing jazz, rather than writing about jazz. If John Coltrane is your man, this is your book!
Written in a series of long riffs, like improv on the page Rafi Zabor actually pulls off the almost impossible task of writing jazz, rather than writing about jazz. If John Coltrane is your man, this is your book!
One of the strangest books, in a good way, I've ever read, both in subject and in style. Sometimes the author is painfully verbose and sometimes so straight to the point and with such literary genius it makes you want to keep reading. I could think of a dozen ways to edit this book, but, overall an enjoyable read.
Spider Robinson could not recommend this book highly enough in a recent podcast. Apparently a fictional account of the rise of a musician on the talent order of Coltrane, who will change the music world forever. The catch? He's an intelligent bear who plays the saxophone.
A fantastic discovery, a thrilling surprise. One of the richest novels I've ever read, and easily the best descriptions of and written understanding of music I've yet encountered — what motivates musicians, what captivates fans. Innovative, exciting, possibly genius.
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