A Dancing Bear
Growing our selection of fiction podiobooks, we present A Dancing Bear by David Free.
What if getting the girl meant becoming a terrorist wet boy?
On an unnamed university campus late in the 20th century, a young man named Fenton Bland joins a society of student Maoists in order to get near the girl he loves. But the girl turns out to belong to the chief Maoist — and he turns out to harbor alarming aspirations in the field of revolutionary terror. And so Fenton, wearing a forcibly grown beard, finds himself propelled into a bizarre covert world of death lists, backyard bomb labs, untraceable handguns, and attempted wet jobs of wildly varying quality — a world in which he must choose between losing the girl forever or else participating, perhaps very soon, in a successful terrorist atrocity.
Along the way he must contend with a motley cast of characters, few of whom enjoy optimal grips on reality. There is Gus, the Maoist kingpin who in his quest to become a practising terrorist will draw the line at nothing, not even a car bombing (”I’m listening, mate — provided you’re not referring to my Kombi.”) There is the fiery student radical Pamela Scratch, linked to Fenton by an infinitely regrettable sex act perpetrated in a sandpit at the age of five. And there is the incarcerated and patently guilty multiple murderer Neville Claude Aggot, whose spectacular escape augments the already long list of impending homicides that Fenton must at least try to avert as the novel hurtles, like a Kombi full of high explosive, towards its climax…
November 16th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Love it so far. Can’t wait for more. Good job.
November 19th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
David Free does justice to the work in his reading of A Dancing Bear. I read many of the chapters of the novel on the official webste some months back and was so excited to listen to these five chapters. It is a great new release from the first australian author. Below are a few elements that I observed about this story.
1) Funny
2) Descriptive
3) Great cast of characters
4) Great storyline
I will be adding a blog entry about this novel at myspace in the next couple of days so feel free to stop by.
February 1st, 2007 at 8:49 pm
The first chapter and maybe even the second I wasn’t so sure about this book. I felt the descriptions were far too detailed and extravagantly explained for my taste. But once the story gets moving, the extreme attention to detail and great descriptions end up adding a sick and perverse kind of humor to the story that make it absolutely engaging.
I can’t wait for the rest of the story.
April 11th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
This was a great story. I thought it started off a little slow, but a couple chapters in I was hooked. This story just keeps getting better all the way to the end.
April 21st, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Osher / Free — If there’s anyone writing today who can equal your sense of language, your eye for the darkly absurd in life, and your satiric wit generally, they must be in hiding. I will be truly disappointed if you don’t write a second novel.
– Etan
April 26th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Just finished the final chapter, what a great book! Well written, well read.
Thanks for a great time David!
-Jon
April 26th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
This is the author, just leaving a quick note to thank you good people who have taken the trouble to leave your responses. I welcome all feedback, but must admit I have a weakness for the positive kind. Especially I should thank Dianne, who drew my attention to the podiobooks site in the first place - without her there would never have been a pod version.
David
May 14th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Saturatingly funny, and yet u cant have enough of it; each phrase, each incident is to be savored. Dont listen to this in public places or while commuting! You ll make a fool of yourselves by the sounds of swallowed guffaws.
May 27th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Poor Fenton Bland. His life at college is rapidly spiraling out of control. It’s bad enough that he’s stuck in the class of Professor Ivan Lego, whose theory of socioliterology — the concept that any writing is wrongfully oppressive because “it owes its very existence to a foundational act of suppression, namely, the suppression of non-language” — is taking the academic world by storm. It’s even worse that he’s inadvertently given Pamela, a student activist with whom Fenton shares a deep, dark shame, the idea to strike a blow for the disenfranchised by campaigning for the release of a notorious serial killer. Still worse, Fenton’s relationship with his lesbian faux-vegetarian deadbeat housemates is worse than ever (not least because of the dead cat). But worst of all is that the student Maoist group that Fenton joined solely for the purpose of getting close to the beautiful Charmaine is singularly focused on announcing itself by assassinating someone, and Fenton is stuck right in the middle of the plot.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a good sense of what “Maoists” are. Neither do I. Nor, for that matter, do the members of the Maoist group. And that, in a nutshell, is what makes Mark Osher’s delightful A Dancing Bear such a spot-on primer to the college experience. It’s all there: the students whose big plans and grand statements are undermined by their own lack of understanding (and ability). The academics whose outré theories are driven by self-promotion rather than genuine relevance. The everyman stuck in the middle, trying to do what is right but restrained by his own passivity. And, of course, the university public bathrooms (check out the start of Chapter 25).
A Dancing Bear is consistently hilarious, combining effective satire of academic, political and individual pomposity with regular moments of slapstick, laugh-out-loud humor. However, equally impressive is the novel’s philosophical heart. For all of its worthwhile silliness, A Dancing Bear also is concerned with deeper questions that confront all collegians, and, for that matter, all thinking people. Can I steer my life where I want it to go? Or am I locked in to a path set by outside forces or simple inertia? What would it take to change my life? A Dancing Bear seamlessly works these weighty themes into its rollicking tale, ultimately proving satisfying on many levels.
June 15th, 2007 at 5:08 am
Me again. Its great to see that David’s book has gained some extra attention because it really does deserve it. If anyone hasn’t listened to it yet then it is a must. And be sure to check out the official website for the hypertext.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Thanks again for the positive remarks, everyone. It may interest you to know that “A Dancing Bear” is now in print, and available from Amazon and a few other online retailers. See my website for details.
David
September 15th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I listened to chapters 1-4 today while cleaning. This is some good stuff. My favorite part is the way he really skewers the left and academia. As an active member of the former, I appreciate his apparent familiarity with some of our more silly behaviors. We need the satire! Fair warning to listeners… while I personally like it… the author is given to long, long descriptions. He’s also given to pretty elaborate digressions. Maybe they’ll all turn out to be critical later, I don’t know. I don’t mind a meandering text so long as all it’s component parts are fun, but some people get all uptight about that sort of thing.
I hope he has more made up philosophical excerpts. Those are a lot of fun and I’m sure they author had a lot of laughs writing them.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Up to chapter 14 now. I am probably what you would call a podiobook junkie. Have listened to probably 50 or so now, some outstanding, some not so much. But I can honestly say yours is the first one to make me laugh out loud several times an episode. Sure, others have put a smile on my face, even a big grin, but none have made me need to pause the playback to have a good guffaw, until now. Thank you David Free, I truely love your humour and would give your book 6 out of 5 stars if I could.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Thanks guys - I always appreciate thoughtful feedback - the more detailed, the better! Brady, I hope those early digressions DID turn out to make sense later on. And Steve, I hope the last half of the book didn’t disappoint …
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:24 am
Its now been over a year since I listened to this book, and every now and then my thoughts wonder back to different parts of this story. Very few books stick with me like that. Good job Mr. Free.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:06 pm
It’s really nice to hear that, APT - thanks for taking the time to drop by and say so.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
David, Thanks for the enjoyment your book has given me. I have just finished listening to the pod version. My (now distant) memories of thoughts and women and university were brought wonderfully back to life in Fenton’s internal monologues. I discovered your book via an advert while in Clive James’ website and connected immediately with the lunacy of a world where Ivan Lego is seen as important and words don’t matter. As one of the previous posts comments, I too laughed out loud at many points. I also enjoyed your satirical “roasting” of literary theory and of the current tendency to jump to wild conclusions from trivial evidence (Fenton’s flat and the police contention that Aggot had been there). Well done and thanks.
June 11th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Many thanks Mark - it can make an writer’s day, waking up to a comment like that. And thanks for letting me know that my campaign over at Clive’s site is bearing some fruit!
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Thanks again to everyone who’s taken the trouble to leave ratings and comments - I appreciate every one of them (and hope for more in the future!) Anyway, in case people are interested, I’m now blogging at http://adancingbearblog.blogspot.com/
Please drop by and leave a comment.
September 16th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Thank you very much for writing this incredible story, and for reading it aloud for us….just incredible…thanks man!!
POS
September 17th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Appreciate it Per Ove - Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for taking the time to comment.