Setting Free the Bears (Paperback)

Well the plot itself is rather strange and somewhat incomprehensible. A young Austrian college student bumps into a very quirky fellow, and together the tour Austria on motorcycle. Just when you think the book will turn into a funny road story with an Austrian twist the author decides to split the story in two, with the a narrative of the main character camped out at a zoo and his strange friend narrating his (pre-war) family history. Very disappointing, and very dull. The ending concludes in comical fashion back at the zoo. But this fun ending is too little, too late.

Bottom line: a very amateurish effort by the often outstanding John Irving. A definite miss.

I couldn't finish this one, not in THREE separate attempts, at three very different times in my life, three different frames of mind. There's nothing wrong with my reading skills. I'm forced to conclude the rest of you are lying.

Siggy and Hannes are simply not characters one can care about, and the actual writing is wretched.

If you take the middle section, called ''The Notebook," and remove the bits about the zoo, what you are left with is the prehistory it the Siggy character, a biographical compilation of one family from right before World War II up to the time that the Soviets withdrew from Austria. In this section you get a highly detailed and personal account of what was taking place from the point-of-view of the street. I found it strangely similar to Morton's A Nervous Splendour--a feeling of history contained in a microcosm. While fictionalized, Irving gives a clue as to his research on page 222 where in the fictional diarist lists some books of "influence."

The other parts of the story were less successful, at least for me. This could have been because I was looking to learn about Austria and Vienna, and took less enjoyment from the crazed antics of Siggy and Graff. Although many scenes were vivid--the climactic meeting of motorcycle and beehives, the brutality of the milkman to his horse--the overall plot was extremely disjointed. While I am likely to read another Irving novel, due to his reputation, this novel has soured me on the idea for the moment.