The Bear Comes Home

Rating:
Summary: Great book for musicians or anyone musically inclined.
Review: Every musician or anyone who believes they have a special harmony with music should read this humorous, insightful and moving book.

The author does a good job of digging deep into the higher meanings of music and life, but knows when to pull in the reins at the right moment (Isn't that right, Bucky?) And anyone who can write a book that holds James Garner's Rockford Files, Thelonious Monk and great German philosophers in equal regard can't be all that bad.

I think this is mentioned on the back cover, but it bears repeating: Like a good solo, the author throws in every lick he knows and avoids cliche's.

One of my favourite images of the book is the bear teaching a "bird" in the woods Monk's "Well You Needn't." It had its blatent and hidden messages, but, when at the end of the book the "bird" returns to haunt the bear with the half learned tune ("Need - n't") and the bear replies, "Well, at least it isn't 'Nevermore'," we smile. It is like throwing "Here Comes the Sun" in the middle of a solo during "Summertime". It is immediately recognizable and appreciated. We all are in on the joke.

Although some of the Monk and jazz analysis went over my head, I found the book enjoyable from start to finish. The only exception being the sex scene between the bear and his human girlfriend in graphic detail. They were two of the hardest pages to get through and I'm still wondering why the author felt he had to include it in the book. Perhaps it was to show the bear not as this mystical musical being, but something more normal, more flesh and blood.

Read this book, pass it on or buy it as a present for the musician in your life (they'll love you for it). However, be prepared for the perplexed looks and stares when you start describing this "book about a saxophone playing bear.... No it's not a children's book..."

TSM

Rating:
Summary: One of the best I have ever read
Review: I just finished The Bear Comes Home and I really loved it. It is so wonderful to be rocked out of reality while reading about a talking, sax playing, sometimes sensitive, sometimes bearlike bear. I laughed and I now look at the world in a whole different light. The jazz theme was new to me but I enjoyed experiencing music through words.

Rating:
Summary: Very different, but very cool book
Review: One of the most unusual books I've yet to read, but unquestionably one of the best. Anyone who's lived in New York, plays jazz, or ever gone through bad times should read it. I've owned this book for years now (thanks to a recommendation from Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight/Idiot's Delight), and I still continue to re-read it.

Sincerely hoping Rafi comes out with another novel in the near future.