Bear, Naked Lady

Of course I’d heard about it. CanLit’s dirty little secret. Is that the one where . . . she has sex with a bear? I was expecting titters. I was expecting to make jokes about how at least it wasn’t a porcupine. What I wasn’t expecting was a strikingly forthright exploration of freedom and passion, sexuality and literature. I came for the notoriety; I stayed for the intense expression of what it is to be alive.

Marian Engel’s Bear was a chance find in a Little Free Library in my neighbourhood, a glistening island among the usual rubbish. And not just any copy: a 1977 Seal edition with the original illustrated cover. That cover. The controversial one, where a bare-breasted woman, barely dressed in floaty pink fabric, leans against her shaggy lover. A decade ago, this image was dug up by internet foragers alongside the caption “You have some explaining to do, Canada.” The popularity of the post prompted McClelland & Stewart to issue a...