Why does John Irving include bears?

Answer 1

Excerpt from an interview:

"I've never been as interested in bears as people are interested in my bears. In Vienna I knew a guy who had an old circus bear he sort of looked after, and I looked after the bear on weekends when he went away. I knew what they were like and to what degree they were trustworthy and to what degree it was not safe to think of them as just a kind of big dog. The thing I remember most vividly about the bear is that it is a dangerous animal for many reasons, but principally because its face is always concealed. Its face is enduringly expressionless. It's not like a dog that will raise its hackles, not like a cat that will sort of narrow its eyes and flatten its ears. It has this huge head and a furry face and very small expressionless eyes that don't change. Its eyesight is very poor so it's always sort of squinting at you (he squints) and its sense of smell and its hearing are very keen, so it always has this expression the most terrifying aspect of which is: "Who are you? What are you?" And the judgment of what you are can suddenly change. Because it doesn't see you clearly. It doesn't know what you are." - John Irving