Animal fantasy can be a bit overbearing at times

THE BEAR WENT OVER THE MOUNTAIN, by William Kotzwinkle, Doubleday New York, 306 pages, $22.50.

“The Bear Went Over the Mountain” is a modern beast fable about a bear that finds a manuscript in the Maine woods and takes it to New York City where he becomes an overnight success and adopts the nom de fur: Hal Jam. He gets a national tour, guest appearances on all the morning shows and as much honey as he can suck down. Plus, the women love his raw animalism — and even a few men find him alluring. But what Hal Jam really wants is to be a bona fide person.

All that considered, it’s still safe to say the most irritating aspect of this book, written by Maine resident William Kotzwinkle, is the title. It’s bloody impossible to get the annoying songette out of your head once you start reading. Every time your eyes fall on the comical jacket cover of a bear (wearing a tweed coat, work shirt and tie) poking his bewildered head out of a crowd of bustling New Yorkers, the song will start in your head: “The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see.”

Pretty soon, you’ll want to shoot the bear.

And actually, it’s not just because of the irritating obstinancy of that grating tune. The whole joke at the premise of the story wears thin quickly. Oh, it’s funny enough from time to time. For instance, Hal Jam doesn’t share the high-dollar addictions of the rich. In fact, alcohol brings out his wild side — a part of himself he’s fighting to supress around humans. But he loves to eat, and Kotzwinkle finds plenty of places to insert Hal Jam’s food fixations, such as when a pusher is trying to sell him drugs:

“Grass, hash, crack,” said the Jamaican entrepreneur, falling into step beside him. “What you fancy, mon?”

“Potato chips,” said the bear.”

When the story begins, Hal Jam is an anybear wandering through the woods snorting around for food. He comes across the briefcase of Arthur Bramhall, a discouraged University of Maine professor who lost a previous manuscript in a house fire. (A similar event happened in real life to Kotzwinkle and his wife.) Bramhall, who’s floundering in his career, places the new, improved manuscript — the best thing he has ever written and his key to happiness — outdoors overnight for safekeeping. The bear finds it, gets hold of some clothes, stands erect and heads for stardom. Pretty soon he’s hanging out with the likes of Chum Boykins, a literary agent; Bettina Quint, a horny publicity director; Zou Zou Sharr, a Type A agent with a major management corporation; and Eunice Cotton, whose best seller “Angels in Bed” has catapulted her out of the hairdressing industry and into the gimmickry of modern publishing.

Meanwhile, in a kind of cosmic role reversal, Bramhall slowly transforms into a real bear back in Maine. He hibernates in a cave, makes raucous love to a granola woman, and is even getting new tufts of black hair all over his body. He growls when he’s mad and sniffs the air for signs of peril. His happiness, it turns out, is not in a book but on the edge of a stream.

The story itself, which is reminiscent of the film “Being There” (right down to the encounters the unwitting Hal Jam has with rough guys in the ghetto and with the president), unfolds in chapters that alternate between Bramhall’s and Hal Jam’s experiences. Sometimes it has the feel of a folk tale, especially since Kotzwinkle has an easy writing style and the Maine scenes draw heavily on myths of backwoods wisdom. But more often it is a wacky expose of the way ruthless commercialism leaks into the soul of American culture and suffocates the instinctual awareness of life.

Lots of readers may find the simplicity and situational comedy quite entertaining — like watching Saturday morning cartoons for adults (complete with sex scenes, four-letter words and scatalogical references).

Kotzwinkle, who also wrote the book version of “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,” is having a good time with his craft. But the book simply goes on far too long and is far too self-consciously clever and meaningful for its own good. “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” is, finally, beastly banality.