A review by backpackfullofbooks
Bear Woman by Karolina Ramqvist
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.75
“Seeking out neglected female fates and trying to revive them has become quite a popular endeavour.”
“I always kept a number of books going simultaneously and when I found one I liked a lot I got so attached to it I had a hard time finishing it.”
“TV series were the new novel.”
“Writing was an addiction.”
“She’d been forced into isolation, but I had chosen mine.”
~
A strange mix of auto-fiction and history, this book follows an author as she conducts research on a real historical figure (the bear woman) for a book/screenplay she is writing.
This book follows the author in her research but also in her personal life and has a distinctly fractured structure where thoughts and incidents bounce around, are discarded and revisited in a slightly chaotic order.
You do get the outline of the story of the bear women mixed in with this but the author makes it clear that some of the narrative is from her imagination and illustrates how authors often use the sparseness of information as a way of spinning their own creative narrative.
This is much more about writing and research than it is about the bear woman.
~
This was not what I was expecting at all, from the description I was anticipating a duel timeline historical fiction. I think that the promotional methods went a bit wrong.
Fortunately I do enjoy this kind of deeply introspective book and generally enjoyed the reading experience. There really wasn’t much in the way of plot or linear story telling which made me a bit more passive in my reading but quite a relaxing writing style despite the occasionally intense subject matter.
~
I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a very meandering read and who is interested in the ways that writing can be informed and inspired by real life.
“I always kept a number of books going simultaneously and when I found one I liked a lot I got so attached to it I had a hard time finishing it.”
“TV series were the new novel.”
“Writing was an addiction.”
“She’d been forced into isolation, but I had chosen mine.”
~
A strange mix of auto-fiction and history, this book follows an author as she conducts research on a real historical figure (the bear woman) for a book/screenplay she is writing.
This book follows the author in her research but also in her personal life and has a distinctly fractured structure where thoughts and incidents bounce around, are discarded and revisited in a slightly chaotic order.
You do get the outline of the story of the bear women mixed in with this but the author makes it clear that some of the narrative is from her imagination and illustrates how authors often use the sparseness of information as a way of spinning their own creative narrative.
This is much more about writing and research than it is about the bear woman.
~
This was not what I was expecting at all, from the description I was anticipating a duel timeline historical fiction. I think that the promotional methods went a bit wrong.
Fortunately I do enjoy this kind of deeply introspective book and generally enjoyed the reading experience. There really wasn’t much in the way of plot or linear story telling which made me a bit more passive in my reading but quite a relaxing writing style despite the occasionally intense subject matter.
~
I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys a very meandering read and who is interested in the ways that writing can be informed and inspired by real life.