#169 The Myth of Bears- Rick Bass
Trapper and Judith are married and live deep in the forest,
isolated rom the world, relying only on each other. But Trapper is bordering on
insanity, or a prolonged version of cabin fever.
“In Trapper’s nighttime fits, he imagines that he is a wolf,
and the others in his pack have suddenly turned against him and set upon him
with their teeth; he roused in roused in bed to snarl and snap at everything in
sight.”
She decides to leave him, and run away. But where? She is a forest
woman and doesn’t want to go to town, she is like the Northern Lights. For now
she is just glad to be free:
“The sadness of leaving him being transformed into the joy
of freedom, and the joy of flight, too.”
He is a trapper, so naturally he goes hunting her. She feels
comforted by his pursuits but doesn’t relent. “It’s not that he is a bad man,
or that I am a bad woman, she thought. It’s juts that he is a predator and I am
prey.”
He thinks about trapping her with gold chains and sugar. He
has no introspection. Everything to him is about the hunt, finding ways to
catch what he wants. “The mistake last time was that he didn’t hold her tight
enough.”
As he pursues Judith, he is being pursued by the wolves,
symbolic of his growing insanity.
“The wolves that have been following at a distance draw
closer, knowing they are safe when a fit wells up from within him; at such
times they know that he is not a man but one of them.”
She is incapable of fully leaving, his pursuit is what gives
her identity: “It’s terrible without the thought of his out there chasing her,
hunting her. It’s horrible. There’s too much space.”
This is a very strong story, full, earthy, animalistic. It
makes me want to go watch Jeremiah Johnson.
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