Bear Came Over the Mountain, The by Alice Munro ~ June Book Club ~ Short Stories

[JoanP]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

Short Stories - Some SeniorLearn Favorites - JUNE 1 til mid JULY

It is said that a good short story should include: * a strong theme, * a fascinating plot, * a fitting structure, * unforgettable characters, * a well-chosen setting, * an appealing style.  Let's consider these elements as we discuss the following stories.  Is it necessary to include them all in a successful story?  
  

Notice that the titles are all links to the stories.

Discussion Schedule:
June 1 -June 9: *The Book of The Funny Smells--and Everything (1872) by Eleanor H Abbott *The Necklace or The Diamond Necklace (1880) -  by Guy de Maupassant
  *A Pair of Silk Stockings (1896) by Kate Chopin
June 10- 14: *Babylon Revisited (1931) by F.Scott Fitzgerald
June 15- 17: *First Confession (1939) by Frank O'Connor
June 18-20: *A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1953) by Flannery O'Connor  
June 21-24: *The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973) by Ursula LeGuin
June 25-28: *The Half-skinned Steer (1997) by Annie Proulx
June 29-July 2 *The Bear Came Over the Mountain(1999) by Alice Munro
July 5 -July 9:  *The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chechov 1894

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The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro

Here's a brief bio of our author, Alice Munro, who was born on July 10, 1931 in Wingham, Ontario, Canada. She attended the University of Western Ontario and, after two years, left school and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. Her highly acclaimed first collection of stories was published as Dance of the Happy Shades , which won the Governor General's Award, Canada’s highest literary prize. Her story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" was adapted for the screen as the film "Away from Her," starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent.  It debuted at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Sarah Polley's adaptation was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to "No Country for Old Men." In 2009 Munro won the Man Booker International Prize, which "seeks to recognise a living author who has contributed significantly to world literature and to highlight the author's continuing creativity and development on a global scale."  That same year she published the highly acclaimed short-story collection, Too Much Happiness.

Topics for Consideration

June 29 - July 2

? What do you think of the way the author introduced us to Grant and Fiona plus a brief bit about her parents?? ? Did you understand the second paragraph when you started reading it?  That the time had jumped forward so quickly? ? Were you as confused as I when you started to read about Fiona dressing to go out in the cold? ? Did her clothes seem wrong??

DL Contact: Adoannie

[ANNIE]

Welcome to all who join us here to read and discuss another short story!

I would like to start out with a request.  And that is, please read this story twice.  I read it two weeks ago and didn't like it but when I reread it yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to find a rather challenging little piece of quixotic writing.  Reminded me of the short stories that I read regularly in The New Yorker magazine back in the dark ages of my life.  Made me really miss my copies of that magazine.  But, they hired a new editor and she made changes that many of us didn't like so we cancelled our subscriptions, which may have not been a good idea.

So if you are all ready, please take a look at the simple questions up in the header under  "Topics For Consideration" and tell us what you are thinking.

[PatH]

OK, I'll take your advice--read the story tonight, then read it again tomorrow.  I'll get back here after that.

[ANNIE]

Thanks, PatH!  Just an aside here.  Does that cover with the author's picture on it, look familiar?  To me,  she looks like Erma Bombeck.    

[JoanP]

What a story!  You hear of such things happening when one spouse becomes a patient and the other is at home.  If one is an Alzheimer's patient, it's even more difficult to retain the marital relationship as we see here. The patient begins to forget the spouse and takes comfort from those nearby.   Didn't that happen to Sandra Day O'Connor's husband before he died?  As I remember it, both the family, including the judge, were all delighted that dad found happiness with new romance at the end. Remember that?

Have you seen the film adaptation, "Away From Her?"  Bruce and I did - and had quite a converstation after seeing it.  The film stayed close to Alice Munro's story - she made it easy for the adapter with her detailed description, I think.

I'm going to follow your advice, Annie  - and read through once again.  I'm having trouble remembering where the title came from.  After reading of the Half-Skinned Steer, I'm afraid some will confuse the two stories...certainly no one will skin the Bear in this story!

Jumping back and forth in time was quite effective, I thought.  No, I didn't get confused, but appreciated the way Munro introduced us to the early days of the courtship, if you could call it that - didn't Fiona propose to Grant?  Is that important to remember?

I loved her descriptions/contrasting mother and daughter...enjoyed experiencing how time caught up with Fiona...turned her into her mother... A clever way to describe Fiona then and now.

She was a tall, narrowshouldered
woman, seventy years old but
still upright and trim, with long legs and
long feet, delicate wrists and ankles, and
tiny, almost comical-looking ears. Her
hair that was as light as milkweed fluff
had gone from pale blond to white
somehow without Grant’s noticing exactly
when, and she still wore it down to
her shoulders, as her mother had done

Back later!

ps  Yes, she does, Annie.  Loved and miss Erma!

[BarbStAubrey]

Well I had to read it twice to make heads or tails out of how it was printed on the page - I fund this site that made it coherent for me so I could follow the story.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/12/27/1999_12_27_110_TNY_LIBRY_000019900?currentPage=all

They are all fixing each other - Marian sure knows how to take care of herself - Had no idea there was that much immigration to the US and Canada from Iceland.

The story sure makes a pitch for sexual intimacy being separate from the bonds of marriage - that there is a greater attachment that is honored - makes you wonder when and how the concept of sex only within marriage started - during childbearing years it organizes things and gives stability to family life  - I wonder if that was the original impetus or was it a machismo thing where women being property meant she was faithful to her "owner"  but he like the Bee example in the King and I could flit from flower to flower to flower. This story has both women as the flitting bee - so what is this a ménage à quatre...?

[jane]

I've just read it once, and I don't know that I can do it again.  I found it to be very sad.  I read it's supposed to be a love story.  A married man who has had multiple affairs is someone it's hard for me to understand.  Was Grant devoted to Fiona? Yes, I guess so...at least as she slips farther and farther into dementia...or is that guilt on his part? Hmmm...I guess I need to think about that.

And the title?  It makes no sense to me.

[JudeS]

Jane
I agree. I can't read this story again-or rather I have no intention to do so.

Personally I never liked this author's writing. This story does little for me. Certainly doesn't make me think differently.

But she says it all with the title: The song is one from camp- You sing the same old line over and over again. The Bear Came Over the Mountain. Just like this man's never ending need to conquer women to prove he is a man. Perhaps not having children added to this behavior.
But I don't really care about him or his "adventures'. It left me cold.

[JudeS]

Sorry, there are two more lines to this song:
After he goes over the Mt.
And all he could see
Was the other side of the Mt.

The Bear goes over a lake and other places always ending up with:
The other side of Lake etc.

In long bus rides the children had to come up with other things he saw. But he only ever saw the other end of the thing.

Did the author want us to see this as a twist on his behavior? Now his wife finds a lover?
Again I don't care about these people.
Sorry.

[salan]

My husband's cousin had alzeimer's and was placed in a nursing home.  He knew his wife at first, but later forgot that he was married and found a "girlfriend" in the home.  His wife found it amusing and somehow comforting that he had someone there.
Sally

[jane]

I'm still ruminating on the title of this work, and I thank Jude for the explanation of the camp song.  I'd never heard it or about it before.  So does it and this short story have the same "That is all there is" meaning as the famous Peggy Lee song?

jane

[ANNIE]

Well, some of you are ready to hang Grant for what he did in the past and what he's doing now.  To me this is a love story about a man determined to save his wife from being transferred to the second floor of the Meadowlake Home where those patients had disturbed minds and were bedridden. Which meant to him that Fiona would go down even faster.
Remember, in the beginning paragraph, after he has agreed to marry her, he knew that he wanted never be away from her.  She had the spark of life. [/b]

So after he went to see Marian, whom he had seen in the parking lot of Meadowlake taking out Aubrey's wheelchair, he agreed to go to the dance knowing that more would occur, and it would become the solution for keeping Fiona on the first floor. He does think that he might enjoy Marian with her crepe skin, darkened to the color of a walnut.  Well, he must save Fiona and also he must save himself. 
Grant doesn't want Fiona laying about in a bed on the 2nd floor if he can prevent it by bringing Aubrey to visit.  This way he might see more of her before the inevitable loss of memory.

JoanP,
I am going to look in my library for the movie.  Is it new? 

JudeS,
My reaction was exactly like yours.  That's why I read it twice.  I do think its a love story of kind
and I will confess when I agreed to read Alice Munro, I mixed her up with another Alice, Alice
Hoffman, whose books are humorous. 

Barbara St A,
I liked your description of the whole story but hope its not true.  Men are always going to have an egotistical bent in their lives but I certainly hope that the women of today are not thought of as property. 
Having said that, ,  how many times have you been asked while registering anywhere if you are retired?  My pat answer is that women don't always get to retire.  They still seem to be the homemaker in the marriage.  Although some of us would cry "no" to that statement,  I just don't agree with them.  Its those little things that we still do, that most men never think of.  The planning of meals, the making of grocery list, buying the husband's unmentionables, sometimes even his shoes.  I have a young friend, mother of three children, who has a very well paying job with a bank and her husband travels often.  Who do you think is in charge there?? Enuf!' already!


 

[PatH]

Well, I find a lot to talk about in this story, but I'll start with the title.  There's an important one word difference between it and the song.

The bear went over the mountain (3x)
To see what he could see.

And all that he could see (2x)
Was the other side of the mountain
The other side of the mountain (2x)
Was all that he could see.

It's sung to the tune of For he's a jolly good fellow.

The bear WENT over the mountain.

Here it's the bear CAME over the mountain.

We are now on the other side, watching the bear approach and find out what's the same and what's different.  Grant still loves Fiona, feels she is an essential part of his life, and is still promiscuous.  We do have a flip side in Fiona, though; she's always been faithful before, and now she's interested in someone else.

[JoanP]

Oh good catch, Pat!  The bear went over, but he came back.  Now it's Grant - he's back, he's fighting for Fiona - even to the point of saving her by bringing Aubrey to her.  Quite a reversal!


But I'm going to quibble with you a bit when you say - "Grant still loves Fiona, feels she is an essential part of his life, and is still promiscuous."  Is he?  Do you with Marian?  In a way...  You have to consider his motive, I guess.  He's trying to pursuade her to bring Aubrey to the home to save Fiona from dying of a broken heart. "If he is able to break her down, get her to the point where she might listen to him about taking Aubrey back to Fiona...

No matter, Marian isn't buying it - she doesn't want to take Aubrey back.  She wants to keep her house and would lose it if Aubrey goes back to Meadowlake.

ps.  Netflix has "Away From Her,"  Annie - 2006

[Ella Gibbons]

An interesting story, Ann.  I've read it once and I think the characters in it are very human.  It's the story of a marriage, of a marriage that has gone rather stale over time - it does seem that way to all of us who have been married for over thirty years, as I remember, but we still love our partners.  Still the memories are there, the romance that was and at times still is.

The grass is not always greener on the other side; sometimes all there is to see is the other side of the mountain, as Grant found out, after numerous affairs.

He still loves Fiona and Fiona put her arms around Grant in the end, she, too, remembered, if only briefly, that love remained. 

[JudeS]

If you are trying to interpret the title in various ways- Here's another.

Grant Needs Fiona and she has always been there cooking his supper and cleaning his house.Looking back at her he still "loves" her.
He has been over the Mt. and come back.

Nowhere does it specifically say that Fiona has always been loyal. In Grant's mind she has been the Mt. that has made all his "travelin' over" possible.

She had to lose her mind in order to dump the guy.  What in heavens name was the woman thinking -remaining married to a perpetual philanderer?
Was she stupid, insecure or had her own adventures?
Grant is a creep. Are we supposed to admire him now ?
I guess if you are determined to find that itty, bitty good part in even the worst people you could find something to admire. in Grant.   
But why try?

[salan]

When I read the story, I remembered that I had seen this movie on tv sometime back.  I also remembered that I had read this story a long time ago.  I don't need to read it again.
Sally

[ANNIE]

Grant went to Marian with a plan already in his mind.  He could only hope that she would respond to his plan for Aubrey. I don't agree with the grass is always greener, Ella. I feel that Grant was willing to do anything that would keep Fiona safe from transference to the 2nd floor where those with dementia live. He isn't ready to say goodbye to Fiona.

[Ella Gibbons]

Ann, I agree, read my post again.   I said "The grass is not always greener on the other side; sometimes all there is to see is the other side of the mountain,

I also said that Grant still loved Fiona.

[ANNIE]

Oh,Ella, I'm sorry!  I did read that comment backwards!  Sorry!  Yes,
Grant still loved Fiona and was willing to do almost anything to keep her in his world.

I am going to read something that I marked for a repeat perusal.  See you tomorrow online.
It was great seeing you today.  We truly enjoyed our brunch witH you.

[ANNIE]

I couldn't quite understand Grant's mother whose opinion of Fiona's mother whose hair was white and worn long and whose house was a mess. Seeing these things told her all she wanted to know about attitudes and politics?  

JudeS,  
That's another way of looking at Grant and you could be right and you put it so well.  But, remember how he promised Fiona that their lives were going to change after his philandering was exposed?  Fiona inherits money and a family home at a convenient time and Grant retires. They actually were having a good time together.  They each live a different life inside their home and enjoy sharing the preparing of their evening meal.  I feel that the author has in a very subtle way made Fiona and Grant's life similar to her parent's life. You can grow up disinterested in your parent's way of living but the atmosphere around you definitely rubs off.

Seems this author has a way of showing us the two sides of Grant but not of Fiona.  After graduation from college, he was handed a job on a silver plate by Fiona's father.  Was her father trying to make life easier for her?  Did he see something in Grant that needed support?  We get the idea that the doctor didn't object to his wife's politics, just listened with a smile on his face as she ranted on.  Did he see that Fiona had a lot of her mother's personality in her without the political opinions?  The little bit that we are told about the father let's us know that he loved his wife, in spite of her messy housekeeping and her politics.  The author as given us a lot to think about.

For instance, as Grant ponders Fiona's symptoms, did you find yourself comparing your symptoms of late to Fiona's?

When you were reading about Meadowlake, did "Shady Pines" come to mind?

[JoanP]

We seem to be focused on what happened early in the marriage...Grant went over the mountain - at a time when this sort of thing was common in academic circles - was it the 60's?
 As Jude pointed out, we know nothing about what Fiona was doing at this period.  There's the intimation she was a flower child maybe? Grant's mother took one look at her and had her pegged.  I know, appearances aren't everything. But it was clear Fiona wasn't interested in his field of study...those Icelandic gods.  And Grant was very vague about why she couldn't bear children - twisted tubes or something.

The point is - times were different back then, but over the years, they came through the early turmoil - and were comfortable with one another when Fiona's condition began to surface.

Yes, I did find myself comparing myself with Fiona, Annie.  Sometimes I find myself going into a room - and wondering why I'm there.  That makes me worry - until suddenly I remember and then I relax. A frightening illness - maybe more so for the family members who have to watch it progress.  Does it sound as if Alice Munro had first hand experience with Alzheimer's?
ps Annie, should I know what Shady Pines is?

[ANNIE]

Joanp,
Ahhhh, "Shady Pines"!  Evidently, you haven't watched Golden Girls.  One of  my favorite old sitcoms.

You know, I hadn't thought of Fiona as a flower child but maybe growing up in her mother's presence, she might have been one.  Fiono's MIL judged Fiona's mother as the big liberal and maybe she transferred the way she felt to Fiona.

How about her pseudo adoption of the dogs??  Maybe a way for her to handle the fact of never having children.  That makes me wonder if Grant wanted children.

[horselover]

Alice Munro Puts Down Her Pen to Let the World In
By CHARLES McGRATH
The renowned short-story writer says her writing days are over. She plans to see more people, she said, "to get out on the surface of life."

From The New York Times, July 1

[ANNIE]

Horselover,
Well, that's interesting! I wonder why she is really "putting done her pen"? Her fans will miss her short stories and she does have fans. Was "The Bear who Came over the Mountain" her last short story?
I didn't know she was a hermit!  Where did sha find all these people to write about?  One would think a writer has to do a certain amount of time "people watching".  Or maybe she has run out of stories to tell?  We read a book last decade and when I looked up the author, he was a hermit in a Texas town who rarely left home.  Makes my admiration for authors climb higher!

[PatH]

Thanks, horselover, I missed that article yesterday.  Here's a link; someone let me know if it works.  As a NYT subscriber, I can look at anything, and my links don't always work for others.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/books/alice-munro-puts-down-her-pen-to-let-the-world-in.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I see she's 82, so she certainly gets to do what she wants.  Her most recent book, Dear Life, came out last fall.

In 1970, she and her husband moved back to the house he grew up in, and she's still there (he died in April), so there's a parallel with the story.

[PatH]

In our story, written in 1999, Fiona is 70, so she and Grant would have been in their 30s when the sexual turmoil and freedom of the 60s hit.  He had already been having affairs, but things became easier for him, and he took advantage of that, though not as much as his colleagues.  Finally, when things started getting out of hand, he reformed (maybe), took early retirement, and they moved to the house she grew up in.

I don't understand the mentality of having affairs if you're happily married, but it's clear that he loves Fiona.  She has been important to him throughout, both emotionally and physically, and is still so.

He is definitely fighting to make things as good for her as possible, especially to keep her from deteriorating when she doesn't have to, to keep her out of the dreadful 2nd floor.

[jane]

I had somehow gotten the impression that Grant was "urged/forced" to take early retirement because of his affairs with students, etc. 

I'm still not sure Grant loves/loved Fiona.  I don't see how a man has multiple affairs if he loves his wife.  That doesn't make sense to me.  I wonder if it's guilt/regret that makes him now try to stick by Fiona as she stuck by him during his "wandering" years.

jane

[JoanP]

Not sure if this is a sad story, or an uplifting one.  Grant is "willing" to romance the "walnut-stained" Marian - he clearly finds her unattractive and is not tempted by her - but is willing, just to bribe her to deliver Aubrey to Fiona.  If he didn't care for Fiona, would he make this ultimate sacrifice?  Wouldn't he just leave her to be relegated upstairs?

In the end, I think it's a sad story, though - considering what could have been.  As a young man -  "He wanted never to be away from her. She had the spark of life."
It's sad - we write the ending with each day we live...but learn that when it's too late.

[BarbStAubrey]

Grant sounds like a sex addict who is trying to control his world to eliminate more pain with his only tool - sex - so he feels pain for his wife and her future and wants to control her circumstances with sex and that justifies his addiction as having value. I think his manipulating her sex life is more about him not liking to see her demise than about love - as Jane suggests, love looks a lot different than taking time from you wife and degrading the relationship with countless affairs. I've heard the story at many an Al-anon meeting...not impressed. 

[horselover]

The saddest scene in the story is when Grant, while talking to the case worker, wonders if Fiona is just putting on an act to punish him. Can you imagine what he must feel guilty of if he thinks she would go through this to punish him?

[PatH]

I had somehow gotten the impression that Grant was "urged/forced" to take early retirement because of his affairs with students, etc. 
jane

He was either pushed out, or saw the handwriting on the wall and got out just in time.

I'm still not sure Grant loves/loved Fiona.  I don't see how a man has multiple affairs if he loves his wife.  That doesn't make sense to me.

It doesn't make sense to me either; maybe an emotionally whole person can't act that way.

But he does seem to love her, to find value in her existence.  It's partly a matter of tone, the language of someone about a person they care about.    She is "sweet and ironic".  When he sees her hair has been cut, "they had cut away her angelic halo".  He realizes he stopped his philandering way of life just in time--"it might have cost him Fiona".  And the last lines: "He kept his face against her white hair, her pink scalp, her sweetly shaped skull.
He said, 'Not a chance.'"

[ANNIE]

In the end, I give Grant a C(average) for his efforts to save Fiona from the second floor.  It would seem that after living 70 years, he could have thought of another solution to get Aubrey back to visit Fiona.  He could have sent a paid escort service to pick up Aubrey once a week and Marian could just make sure he was dressed properly and the escort could do all the heavy work of getting him and his wheel chair to the car. Same with bringing him home.
 
We haven't talked much about Marian's flirty ways with Grant when he went to visit her home and then, there were her phone calls inviting him to the dance.  She sort of set herself up and because Grant is such an egotist, his solution came to him easy as pie. No problem! He is the escort extraordinaire!  Hahaha! So, now he is a happy camper, Marian is a more pleasant wife to Aubrey, and Aubrey and Fiona are delirious!

This continues to be a delightful discussion with all of us seeing different sides of the characters and presenting them delightfully.  I look forward to everyday seeing what else you all have found inside this short story.   

Unfortuneately I am going to be away for several days, celebrating the 4th of July with parades starting tonight in downtown Columbus and tomorrow morning here in downtown Gahanna plus a big family picnic and our annual fireworks in the evening.  Yes, we attend it all every year. We have two grans in the high school marching band so we have to go to the parades. 

Carry on and I'll check in on Friday, the 5th.

[PatH]

We don't really know whether Grant has done something useful.  When he comes to her in the final scene, she again recognizes him as her husband, and has a rather odd reaction to Aubrey's name.  I'm not sure whether she has forgotten him, or is embarrassed now that she remembers she has a husband too.

“Fiona, I’ve brought a surprise for you. Do you remember Aubrey?”
She stared at Grant for a moment, as if waves of wind had come beating into her face. Into her face, into her head, pulling everything to rags. All rags and loose threads.

He may have simply confused her further.

[BarbStAubrey]

Since the whole story is about what Grant thinks will work and how he will fix things to work as he thinks best - her confusion was probably part of her entire life trying to dope out what to do to please Grant, a man there was no pleasing - his mountain was sexual conquest and doing what he thought was the right thing with sex being the answer to everything. Her life before the home was no different than when she has dementia - her wished amount to naught. 

[JoanP]

When you say Fiona spent her entire life trying to please Grant, I immediately thought of Iceland... her reluctance to show any interset in Grant's work teaching the stories of the Norse gods...

Fiona had never learned Icelandic and she had never shown much respect for the stories that it preserved—the stories that Grant had taught and written about.
Will she remember that it was Grant who gave her the book on Iceland?   

"But in the last few years she had
developed an interest in the
country itself and looked at
travel guides.  She didn’t really
plan to travel there. She said
there ought to be one place
you thought about and knew
about and maybe longed for
but never did get to see"

"there ought to be one place you thought about and knew about and maybe longed for but never did get to see."    Did you understand what she meant by this?  Do you agree?  Do you have such a place?

[JoanP]

If you are interested in reading another of Alice Munro's stories as a point of contrast, you might try her  
Gravel written in  2011.

Tomorrow we'll meet another philandering husband - like Grant in some ways - in Chechov's   The Lady with the Dog.


This discussion will remain open for additional comment even as we move on tomorrow...

[PatH]

Did Fiona spend her whole life trying to please Grant?  She certainly did make efforts to please him, but in a healthy marriage both partners work at pleasing the other.  However, from rather slender clues, I have the feeling that Fiona mostly ran her life to suit herself.

[PatH]

I have a bit of free time, so I'll take my last chance to feed in a bunch of minor comments.

The Four Insurgent Generals: these are Franco and three of his buddies in the Spanish Civil War.  They are the enemies in the song (they'll be hanged by Christmas) so that makes it a pretty left-wing song for Fiona to play.

No, I'm not an expert on left-wing songs written shortly after I was born, but it's in one of my folk song books.

[PatH]

Munro mentions one of my favorite Icelandic incidents:

In his classroom, after being coached by his nearly voiceless mother- in-law (her affliction was cancer in the throat), he risked reciting the majestic and gory Icelandic ode, the Höfudlausn, composed to honor King Erik Blood-axe by the skald whom that king had condemned to death.

The skald (composer and reciter of poems) was Egil Skallagrimsson, psychopathic Icelandic poet.  Egil had incautiously let himself be captured by King Eirik.  There was a lot of bad blood between them--they'd each killed a lot of the other's relatives--and Egil was to be executed in the morning.  He spent the night writing the poem, and when he was brought before Eirik he recited it.  The poem was so good that Eirik wanted it, but he couldn't accept the poem and then kill Egil, so he let him go.

The magnificence doesn't come through in my translation, but it certainly sucks up to Eirik, praises him highly.

I think it's pretty funny that a bloody bard can buy his life from a bloody king with a poem.