Bear V. Shark

This book is great. Reads like an amateur Vonnegut writing. Some great insights on the terrifying grip media culture has on America. Give it a few pages, the beginning is slightly confusing due to Bachelder's style, but definitely worth any deciphering!!

I really enjoyed this excellent satire on the media, however it may not be for everybody. There is something intrinsically difficult about satirising one type of media in another. Bachelder attempts to get around the problem by using a very fragmented structure - there are lots of very brief chapters (usually only a page or two) and even within the chapters the style is highly fragmented. He often appears to be attempting to create the sensation of media and information overload, interweaving multiple threads simultaneously (internal monologues, conversations, radio shows, baseball scores). For me, he succeeds most of the time but the style is occasionally a little wearing. It helps that the book is packed with cultural and historical jokes - often delivered in the form of malapropisms - constantly making the point that information does not equal knowledge. The book is set in the near future where the media, primarily television and the Internet, are even more all pervasive than today. Televisions sense that the viewer is bored and changes the channel automatically. Everybody is on-line all the time. It is a future with zero attention span. Bear v Shark is the question/joke/theme that runs through the book. "Given a relatively level playing field -- i.e., water deep enough so that a shark could manoeuvre proficiently but shallow enough so that a bear could stand and operate with its characteristic dexterity -- who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark?" In this future Bear v Shark has overwhelmed the culture, it has become the 'eternal question'. It is the only thing anybody seems to be interested in. Society is split between shark followers and bear followers (only a small minority of weirdoes is undecided). The plot (to the extent that there is one) follows the Norman family on their way to the (next) big event of the century: Bear v Shark II. Bear v Shark II is a fight between a computer-generated bear and a computer-generated shark (a real bear and a real shark would not be realistic enough) to be held in Las Vegas (which has seceded from the rest of the USA). The plot is not really important and the characters are merely ciphers; they exist purely to drive the satire. This is not a character led drama; in fact I found it difficult to feel anything at all about the Norman family. A successful, original, thought provoking satire. Highly recommended.

This book took me quite some time to even begin to grasp. But suddenly, once I figured out how to read the author's writing, it took on a life of its own. Don't put this book down, even if you hate it. It builds to a conclusion that makes you want to throw the book, because you are left simultaneously so fulfilled and completely unsatisfied. Brilliant satire, hilarious writing and a disturbing look at our future means that Bachelder has constructed a true gem.

If you like The Simpsons and The Onion and were waiting for a brilliant young novelist with that sensibility to incorporate that kind of satirical aim with silky prose, loaded with original aphorisms and biting observations about infomercials and an entire culture drugged by TV hype, I suspect you will like this novel. Close to a hundred chapters with each chapter around two pages, this novel is comprised of potent epigrams that made me sometimes think I was listening to one of my favorite comediens Steve Wright or at other times watching my favorite cartoon The Simpsons, or at other times reading something from The Onion. As far as plot goes, a family goes to Vegas to watch a pay per view special event, what is a hyped up battle between a bear and a shark, hence the title. Of course, this premise is simply the excuse to write his satire. If you read "page turners" in the sense of "what happens next?", then this is not your kind of novel. But if you love the humor of Steve Wright, The Simpsons, and The Onion and appreciate incredible writing style and polish, I'm almost sure you'll love this novel, as I do.

This novel is really quite amazing. Knowing the author may make this review sound biased, but the fact is, goign into it, I knew little of the concept other than the title and the ever-present question. To my pleasant surprise this book deals with media and our world's use of it as a crutch. Being an advocate for media literacy this book really connected with me. It is by far the best novel to tackle the subject and it is definitely a great book for anyone else interested in this topic, or just anyone interested in something a little bit different, a littl bit daring, a lot bit funny, and more than a little profound. In all other reviews I've heard this book and it's author compared to Vonnegut. But unlike Vonnegut who tries feebly to mask his symbolism, Bachelder puts it right out in the open, making no apologies and no exceptions. A truly worthwhile and necessary read for anyone planning to live in America in the twenty-first century.