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In this fiercely funny, razor-sharp satire of our media-saturated culture, the sovereign nation of Las Vegas is host to Bear v. Shark II. After a disappointing loss in the first computer-generated match-up, the bear is out for blood. With an essay entitled "Bear v. Shark: A Reason to Live," young Curtis Norman wins a national contest and four tickets to the sold-out event. As the Normans head cross-country in their SUV, they encounter a dizzying barrage of voices weighing in on the upcoming spectacle -- everyone from the Freudians, theologians, pundits, and self-published authors on the radio to the bear and shark fanatics, cultists, and resisters at pit stops along the way. Overwhelmed by factoids and ten-second debates, Mr. Norman grows ambivalent about the impending event and the family with whom he can't seem to connect. Still, the Normans push on to Vegas, toward an apocalyptic, surprisingly emotional ending.
Bear v. Shark: The Novel is based on a true story.
Or, rather: It is based on a true story.
Imagine a true story. Imagine this true story in a solid, middle-class neighborhood, modest and truthful. Imagine its joists, its beams, the steady, cautious slope of its shingled roof. Imagine its crisp, righteous corners, those near-perfect 90-degree angles, knowing as you do that a perfect 90-degree angle -- like a perfect circle or a perfect butt -- doesn't really exist in the Real World, but knowing that these angles have aspired to perfection, nonetheless (or else what's a heaven for?). Imagine the clean closets, the sensible floor plan, the utter lack of luxury or flourish. Imagine that the materials are first-rate, chosen and guaranteed by men who care about doing a job right dammit. Imagine that everything checks out, yes the basement is unfinished and dank, but it's the truth, take it or leave it.
Good.
Now, imagine, based atop this monument to forthrightness and plain dealing, imagine a ramshackle unit constructed willy-nilly, catch-as-catch-can, higgledy-piggledy, all pastiched together with hyphens and the thin, colorful threads of ideas, a motley edifice, part bungalow, part high-rise, part rambler, there's stucco and brick and wood and vinyl siding, not unplanned, not unplanned, charming or interesting being the absolute best way to describe this place if you're standing on the bushwhacked front lawn of Truth, not unstable in its own right but perched upon, based on, the cautious, steady slope of the shingled roof of Truth and teetering, teetering, the wholedamn situation fixing to collapse into tainted wreckage, in which wreckage lie nearly equal parts Truth and Lie, Irony and That Which Is Not Irony, such that context and purity are forever lost, and the pieces are indistinguishable.
How shall I regard that naily 2 by 4? Is it a metaplank, a superplank, a plank self-referential? A complex and ambiguous plank, and all the more so for its apparent simplicity, its garish honesty regarding its own dimensions? Has anyone even bothered to measure the
2 by 4? In short: Is this a postmodern stick?
Say, are we to look through or at that cracked window?
Linoleum: Authenticity or the death of authenticity?
Imagine that.
Copyright © 2001 by Chris Bachelder
Chapter 1: Parlor Game
So it's kind of like a parlor game, then? In essence?
I guess so.
Well that sounds fun. Bear against Shark.
It's Bear v. Shark. What's a parlor?
Oh...You know, a parlor. A parlour.
...?
Um, like a salon.
What?
A lounge, essentially.
A lounge game?
Well, you know, it's like where you play it.
What's a parlor?
Like a living room. Technically.
Parlor?
Yes.
In a building?
In a home.
How big a TV you put in there?
Copyright © 2001 by Chris Bachelder
Anonymous
Posted November 15, 2003
This is a short book and well worth the read, that is if you can stand a seemingly random jumping plot. It keeps you fascinated although it runs slow and leaves you dry near the end.
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Overview
Given a relatively level playing field -- i.e., water deep enough so that a shark could maneuver 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 fiercely funny, razor-sharp satire of our media-saturated culture, the sovereign nation of Las Vegas is host to Bear v. Shark II. After a disappointing loss in the first computer-generated match-up, the bear is out ...