Well, if you compare it to the greatest novels of all time, no it doesn't hold up. I just read it because a co-worker had a copy. I liked the journey of the archivist woman, and the themes of isolation and discovery. I could have done without the woman shitting with the bear every morning. I was prepared for the bear sex, I wasn't prepared for this horny ass woman trying to fuck this bear when the bear didn't really want anything to do with her. But you shouldn't be comparing it to Kafka or Beckett, you should be comparing it to other Canadian literature. It's more like an Alice Munro or early Margaret Atwood, just with more bear sex. There's all that stuff about being a woman in a man's world, and being viewed as an object of sexual desire by everyone (her boss, Homer), and her desire for the bear seems sort of related to that.