Responding to this book is no small feat, because there's so much going on. Some of it is excellent, and some of it is awful. The finished book is a big literary casserole in which the good and the bad are mushed together into a product which is memorable but strangely unsatisfying.

The frame story is that Winkie is a teddy bear who has, through his own means, developed the ability to move about, and built his own life. At the beginning of the book, he lives alone in a cabin in the woods, lonely and bereaved. All of a sudden he is arrested by a small army of law enforcement agents for reasons he can't really understand and walked through a Kafka-esque hell of American jurisprudence.

That's the frame story. But the real beating heart of this book lives in three reminiscences. Trapped and knowing his time may be over, Winkie goes over his life, trying to figure how it might have been different. He remembers his first owner and his last owner, and the days each of them stopped loving him. These parts of the book are remarkably affecting, and I actually cried while reading these reminiscences--something I haven't done over a book in over ten years.

In the third reminiscence, Winkie relives the discovery of his ability to move. His new form of life is the product of a previous existence of such extreme isolation and boredom that he could qualify as a new Sartre. But this makes him a new being, with an entirely new relationship to the universe, a man/woman with his own cub and a life of his own making, a life that the human world is unwilling to leave alone.

But as smart and moving as these memories are, the frame story undermines this with a barrage of trivial twaddle so bad it almost made me throw the book aside unfinished. Suspected of violations of the Homeland Security Act, Winkie suddenly finds himself in court, accused of every significant crime in Western history, including consorting with Witches, the sexual quirks of Oscar Wilde, and even the transgressions of Socrates as related by Plato. I gather this barrage is supposed to be funny and satirical, but it comes across as merely sloppy.

I can't figure why a book that at some points is so touching would, at other times, try so hard to sneak up behind itself and kick its own butt. Perhaps the author thought the camp humor of the frame story would make the memories more poignant. Unfortunately, it feels like the author doesn't trust the audience and thinks he needs to hold up a big sign to let us know he's making fun of President Bush and the HSA. So let me say, Clifford, one writer to another: if we can get the existential merits of the discursions, we can certainly grasp more subtle mockery of current events without having it smacked in our faces.

If you can pick through the parts of the book that fail, the parts that succeed are definitely worth it. Some of this book may be the most moving content you read in quite a while. But other parts of this book are flabby, histrionic, and uninteresting. It's up to you which is worth more to you and your limited reading time.

So I logged on to this page to sell this book after I finished it because it was so awful. It's only going for a penny (which tells you its true quality) and thus I will instead convince you to save your money by writing this review. I will put it in easy to read and understand bullet format.

Why I hate this book:
1) It's billed as funny and it isn't (and trust me, I know funny, I'm a clown fish).
2) His agenda is so blatant it's pathetic (even though I agree w/his standpoint).
3) The baby bear is so stupid. Wow, it reads all these quotes from intellectuals. Let's all go sing Kum Bay Yah.
4) Winkie is tried for every crime imaginable. This is just stupid and absurd (and NOT Kafka style absurd, which is cool).

There you have it, a story about a teddy bear that gets tried for terrorism. That sounds like a plot worthy of a great book, but it's simply boring. I really can't understand why people can rate this 5 stars. I wished I'd never read it. Save your money!

Clifford Chase's fiction debut is interesting. I would want to say it's part Lewis Carroll, one third Kafka, and a little bit of Gregory Maguire, yet Chase's voice and story is wholly unique, for which of these authors have every written about a bear accused of terrorism? Yes, Chase's story is uniquely American and in step with current questions of the war on terror. And beyond this, is a subtle queer questioning of American society, as if a fictional rendering of Jasbir Puar's "Terrorist Assemblages," influenced with dashes of Foucault (and indeed, Chase does quote the French philosopher). Yes, it seems that of all things, this story about a bear falsely accused of terrorism, is more or less not just a satirical look at terrorism and the war against it, but a remark on how American society has treated queer people, which can be conjectured through the bear's sex changes, his lesbian best friend, and attacks upon Winkie by the religious right. Thus, the story is very queer. However, despite the many sided analysis that can come from its reading, as well as simply laugh-out-loud parts, the book is heavily weighted in philosophy and at times loses its satirical edge to be replaced with melodramatic character development written in flashbacks. My critique here is that the story loses its momentum as the author tries his best to make Winkie a three dimensioned, likeable character, which takes place for a good two third of the book--a good two thirds in flashbacks. The result, in addition to comical courtroom scene, is more or less satisfying, but one is left to feel as if his or her efforts to read it were a bit wasted. However, it's a short novel of 236 pages--with pictures!--and in this light, it's a charming story about freedom and self-making in the frame of a falsely informed society and a corrupted government, despite the at times bland and daunting flashbacks.

Let me say something right off the bat: this book is not for people who identify as conservatives (broadly construed). Ok? If you support the Patriot Act or the war in Iraq, or if you are against gay marriage, or if you are a creationist, this book is not for you; do not buy it. You will most likely find it offensive. Also, if you require your books to be clear, and cut-and-dry when it comes to what is real and what is not, and whose reality is real, this is not for you.

It seems to me that many of this book's reviewers expect that Chase would write a novel without making it his own, or putting a piece of himself into it, or incorporating his worldview into the story. That expectation is ridiculous. Don't confuse your disagreement with Chase's politics with poor writing or a bad story.

It's not merely a cute story about a bear who comes to life, although it is that. This story about a magical childhood toy is, beneath that thin surface, a story about identity, selfhood, and growth. It is absurd, and is clearly meant to be absurd, to convey its point. You are not meant to know whether or not the events in the story are supposed to be literally real, or to know what kind of reality they take place in. The story's sense of reality shifts, and you need to move with it, and suspend your sense of disbelief. The ambiguity of what is real and what is not is a crucial part of this novel, and to enjoy it, you need to be able to appreciate that ambiguity.

Rather than hating this book because it isn't what you want it to be, let go and read it and enjoy it for what it is, because what it is is amazing.

This unique novel has great potential but doesn't live up to it. Apparently even the publisher feels this way, because the jacket description only describes the more satirical aspects of the story. Here we have a teddy bear that comes to life and then is falsely accused of being a terrorist. There are great possibilities for sharp satire in that simple premise, but Clifford Chase spends most of the story exploring Winkie's outlook on the human world. That's actually okay because this portion of the story is most successful for both the writer and the reader, notwithstanding the tendency for cloying sentimentality. However, there is one real problem as Chase inserts a pretty sorry version of himself as a character, with way too much information about his childhood problems (see some earlier reviews for details). Meanwhile, Winkie's arrest and trial for terrorism are utilized as commentary on the War on Terror, with law enforcement officials represented as railroading innocent people because they're "different," and the public is shown as a reactionary mass willing to give up freedom for security. At a basic level this satire is compelling, but in this book it doesn't mesh well with the more sentimental side of the story, and Winkie's trials and tribulations are so over the top that Chase's satire veers way too far into the absurd. A book that doesn't quite work out is no big deal, but here many readers will probably conclude that Winkie's tale doesn't go where they hoped it would. [~doomsdayer520~]