Setting Free the Bears was published by Random House in 1968, Irving’s first novel, written when he was twenty-six and studying at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The novel follows two young Austrian men — Hannes Graff and Siggy Javotnik — on a motorcycle trip through the Austrian countryside that culminates in Siggy’s plan to liberate all the animals from the Vienna Zoo.
The novel alternates between the present-tense picaresque of the motorcycle journey and a historical narrative: Siggy’s journals, which recount his family’s experiences during the Anschluss, the war, and the Soviet occupation. This dual structure allows Irving to explore the relationship between Austria’s traumatic past and its amnesiac present — the young men’s aimless freedom existing against the backdrop of a history their country refuses to confront.
The novel already contains the elements that would define Irving’s later work: bears (literal and metaphorical), Vienna, violence erupting into comedy, elaborate plots hatched by idealistic young men, and a conviction that the world is both wonderful and terrible in equal measure. But the execution is not yet at the level of Garp or Owen Meany — the novel is sometimes self-consciously clever in ways that Irving’s mature work avoids.
Collecting Setting Free the Bears
First edition (Random House, New York, 1968): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $200–$500
- Without jacket: $30–$80