![]() ![]() ![]() Brilliant little lines illuminate how a literary bear’s mind might work, like when the grandmother bear is aghast at someone abstaining from sweets, saying, “What would I use as a metaphor for the best part of my life if there were no longer any sweets?” While she doesn’t call attention to the connection between the first performative steps as a trained circus spectacle and the act of writing a private life for the public, by putting them side-by-side in the prose, Tawada highlights it for us. When the grandmother polar bear (the first narrator) begins to write her memoirs, she labors painfully over the beginning, a description of being trained to walk on two legs. And right away, Japanese-German author Yoko Tawada uses this fantastic conceit to deliver provocative contrasts. This book actually is the story of three generations of a polar bear family, taking place in both the Soviet Union and Germany (before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall). ![]() Then the hypothetical reader gets into the first paragraph on the first page and realizes this isn’t a metaphor at all. Do they both take winter river swims? Is it a comparison between the dwindling ice caps and an emotional state? Or is it just a general metaphor for feeling out of place among the human species? I imagine picking up this book, seeing the title, and wondering why the main character’s life is compared to a polar bear’s. Memoirs of a Polar Bear is one of those books where I wonder if the summary on the back takes something away from the reading experience. ![]()
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