Also known as The Bear.
And here I thought I was done reviewing Curwood's xenofictions. Guess not. It does help that this book (and his other works) is available for free due to being public domain. Spoilers ahead!
An elderly grizzly named Thor takes in an orphaned black bear cub known as Muskwa. The two soon bond and from here on out they're up against two hunters and their hounds, who are tracking them down.
Okay, so I'm a bit xenofiction fan, particularly canine xenofiction. That's why (for the most part) all of Curwood's works I've taken a look at have been canine xenofiction. There was Nomads of the North, which had a shared POV between a dog mutt and a black bear cub, but the dog's POV vastly took over the book in the latter half.
So how do I like this book? It's good. Not great or anything, but I liked reading it, despite bears not being my favorite animal. The animals don't talk, but you still get a good sense of personality of both old Thor and young and curious Muskwa. It's not a very long book, but just long enough.
Honestly, the only parts I didn't really care about was the hunter's POVs. I get that Curwood wanted to use the good hunter to get across the point that sometimes nature is the most beautiful when observed and not hunted, but it felt a bit forced. I think maybe it would've been more effective (from the bear's POV at least) if these humans were more like an almost faceless threat the bears could face, similar to how hunters were handled in Bambi by Felix Salten.
Right now the banter between the hunter characters just wasn't that engaging for me and I kept longing to go back to the bear-POV ones.
However, it's still an overall good book and I enjoyed reading it. If you like bears, I guess you could pick this one up.
Rating: 3.5/5
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