The Bear Went Over the Mountain

by William Kotzwinkle

Book Overview

William Kotzwinkle, the esteemed author of The Fan Man and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, is in top comic form in this outrageous and uproarious parable.

Meet Hal Jam--a big black bear who finds a manuscript under a tree in the Maine woods, dons a suit and a tie, and heads off to the big city to seek his fame and fortune. What follows is a riotous magical romp with the buoyant Hal Jam as he leaves the quiet, nurturing world of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805054383
• ISBN13: 9780805054385
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

I love this book - even the cover makes me smile.

I love this book. I read it about 25 years ago and it just made me happy. It’s a great commentary on the world wrapped up in a bear named Hal Jam who doesn’t know he’s a bear … and apparently neither do the humans he comes in contact with. As I said I read it a long time ago and no longer owned the book. But since I always regretted letting it go, I had to buy another copy.

A Bear Necessity

You have to read this book! It's a total send of of everything that is "Politically Correct". As the story progresses more and more people are so busy trying to be hip and cool that they totally fail to notice the lead character, supposed New York Times Best Selling author Hal Jam is in fact a bear. If you don't fall off your chair laughing at the paragraph on "rutting out of season" I swear you have no sense of humour. In times like these it's great to have a lovely, light hearted read like this.

Read it and weep - with laughter

There's so much truth about the publishing world in this drop-dead-funny satire that it's a wonder the publishing world ever published it!Outrageous premise of a man who writes The Great American Novel, loses the manuscript in the woods, and becomes so depressed that he goes into hibernation and becomes beast-like. The flip side of the equation, the part that makes this book a dangerous one to read in bed beside a sleeping mate, is that the manuscript is found by a bear who manages to sell it on a trip to New York. The bear is courted by NY's best and finest celebs, and he impresses reviewers, agents, and editors with his hyper-intelligent and deeply moving monosyllabic grunts and one-word responses to interview questions.But the parts that'll make your trying-to-sleep spouse want to kill you are the love scenes between the bear and the object of his affection, a 'fur-bearing woman,' (a lady who doesn't shave her legs).Don't miss it. Buy two, and give one to your favorite quirky friend.

I hear you like pie?

Aesop for the 90s! One of the most enjoyable stories I have read in years, and as a fable, it hits evey target. Yes yes, we all know that the idea has been done before and some of the targets are pretty easy, but it is so damned funny, and warm, that I would take this over Being There any day. One of the things that particularly impressed me was the sheer consistency of the bear in everything he did, even when he was adapting to life as a human.

Laugh out loud funny!

One of the funniest books I've ever read, Kotzwinkles telling of the story almost has you believing that a bear could actually pull all this off! The hero of the story is a bear who one day finds a book manuscript hidden in the back woods of Maine, reads it and thinks its such a wonderful story that he takes (steals) it to New York city with the idea of selling it. After adopting an alias (Hal Jam), he peddles the book around the NY publishing world and meets many quirky and self absorbed people on his way to eventually becoming world famous. Throughout the story he vacillates back and forth between wanting to remain in the comfortable but strange and "hard to figure out" world of man - with its unlimited quantities of sweets and women; and wanting to return to his beloved forest where life is so much simpler. The plot is very much like the movie "Being There", except with a slapstick slant. Everyone that the bear meets reads deep and profound meaning into Hal's brooding silences and short, out of context statements. It kept me laughing out loud for two straight days, I can't remember the last time a book did that to me!