annotation: Bear Season
Jan. 29th, 2025 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matsushima posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
pineislandI found Bear Season by Gemma Fairclough on a list of 2024 horror books and I was pleased to discover that it's epistolary, told [supposedly - we'll get there] through faux-investigative journalism (my favorite style of epistolary novel) and through the thesis of the woman who disappeared, Jade Hunter. (When I googled the book, the full suggested search was Bear Season: On the Disappearance of Jade Hunter by Carla G. Young, which might've been the pre-release title? because it's not on the cover but it does give away (advertise?) the epistolary format.
However, I was disappointed that Jade's thesis - and, if she's a doctoral student, shouldn't it be a dissertation? or is this a U.K. vs. U.S. thing? - does not even attempt to imitate the form of a thesis. Nor does it go full "ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY" stream-of-consciousness as Jade loses her mind or… whatever is going on with her. (I'm ~71% of the way through the book, according to my ereader app.)
I spent all night mulling it over, what I would've done with this section. I think I would've started off really formal, with lots of citations; "BEAR: A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY IN FOLKLORE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER BY JADE HUNTER," and so on, with the formatting and everything. I'd even want to do like "Stet," and maybe have multiple layers of revisions, like one version was dedicated to Jade's mother with a bitchy, "I made something of myself. Sorry you didn't live to see it." (This is something Jade's mum says to her shortly before she dies of cancer.) Then another version of it that's more like "For my mother," with no commentary, etc.
Then I would have the document devolve into diary and, finally, stream-of-consciousness.
I know, I know; look at me, this asshole, explaining how I would've written someone else's book - but I guess I was disappointed because I love found fiction. It's my favorite form. I've written a short story in the series of LiveJournal entries and comments (which I sold to Archive of the Odd), flash fiction in the form of a press release about the discontinuation of technical support for a computer chip brain implant, a syllabus set in a world where alterhumanity is objectively real in the sense that everyone can see that you are a wolf or an elf or whatever. I spent two semesters revising "Not a Princess Diary" which is, surprise!, told in the form of a diary of the princess's best friend. I am obsessed with this form.
I've thought about epistolary fiction a lot and I'm disappointed that Bear Season did not deliver on it's promise!
Most of my best work comes from a sense of disappointment with something I read. ("Not a Princess Diary," you might guess, was inspired by The Princess Diaries - but you would be wrong! It's actually inspired by the half-assed, phoned-in MG sequel series, Notebooks of a Middle School Princess.) So I guess it's time to write a fake thesis about … something. Inspiration will strike eventually.
However, I was disappointed that Jade's thesis - and, if she's a doctoral student, shouldn't it be a dissertation? or is this a U.K. vs. U.S. thing? - does not even attempt to imitate the form of a thesis. Nor does it go full "ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY" stream-of-consciousness as Jade loses her mind or… whatever is going on with her. (I'm ~71% of the way through the book, according to my ereader app.)
I spent all night mulling it over, what I would've done with this section. I think I would've started off really formal, with lots of citations; "BEAR: A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY IN FOLKLORE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER BY JADE HUNTER," and so on, with the formatting and everything. I'd even want to do like "Stet," and maybe have multiple layers of revisions, like one version was dedicated to Jade's mother with a bitchy, "I made something of myself. Sorry you didn't live to see it." (This is something Jade's mum says to her shortly before she dies of cancer.) Then another version of it that's more like "For my mother," with no commentary, etc.
Then I would have the document devolve into diary and, finally, stream-of-consciousness.
I know, I know; look at me, this asshole, explaining how I would've written someone else's book - but I guess I was disappointed because I love found fiction. It's my favorite form. I've written a short story in the series of LiveJournal entries and comments (which I sold to Archive of the Odd), flash fiction in the form of a press release about the discontinuation of technical support for a computer chip brain implant, a syllabus set in a world where alterhumanity is objectively real in the sense that everyone can see that you are a wolf or an elf or whatever. I spent two semesters revising "Not a Princess Diary" which is, surprise!, told in the form of a diary of the princess's best friend. I am obsessed with this form.
I've thought about epistolary fiction a lot and I'm disappointed that Bear Season did not deliver on it's promise!
Most of my best work comes from a sense of disappointment with something I read. ("Not a Princess Diary," you might guess, was inspired by The Princess Diaries - but you would be wrong! It's actually inspired by the half-assed, phoned-in MG sequel series, Notebooks of a Middle School Princess.) So I guess it's time to write a fake thesis about … something. Inspiration will strike eventually.
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Date: 2025-01-29 12:41 pm (UTC)