Book review
I love the science of bees, the history of bees, woven throughout this narrative. That was my #1 reason for requesting this title – my nephew is a bee keeper, and my great-uncle before him, while I believe in letting bees live in some hidden place on my seven acres.
This novel took a long time for me to get into, with two time frames and several POV characters to keep track of. George, William, Tao, the past (1850s and 2007), and the near-future (‘by 2029 China had lost 100 billion bees’).
It’s taking a long time to get past the scene where a dad takes a leather belt to his son, and later spends months in bed, clinically depressed, filthy, smelly, unbathed, until this only son finally comes in to see him, and this marks a turning point: the father who whips his son isn’t going to kill himself anytime soon, after all. Somehow, I have not managed to care about this character. Except for the scene where he first starts teaching, and his historical aside about a bee enthusiast whose career tanked because of detailed drawings of bee genitalia (and proving no such thing as King bee) – that would be a great scene in a movie. Thilda is in that classroom, that memorable day. This is why novels that seem to move slowly really don’t. So much happens below the surface; a swift, silent undercurrent carries the momentum of the story forward even if it appears that not a great deal of action unfolds.
And I must add Francois Hub’ers ‘New Observations on the Natural History of Bees’ to my queue.
The only aspect of him I like is his passion for bees. The way he’s held back from his true calling (an academic situation) is just depressing. This is what we get with historical fiction, I know. The truth is bitter and painful and tough to swallow.
This is a well written novel, rather slow at times and freighted with detail, yet fraught with tension and conflict. The characters are well drawn; you don’t have to like them to appreciate how honestly they’re depicted.
I’ll never complain of too much science – though I have no way of verifying all the details on Colony Collapse Disorder, pesticides, weather (climate change), pheromones, and GMOs.
The father/son theme contrasts with a mother/son theme. There is an image of a boy named Wei-Wen, on the final page, that is simply riveting. Unforgettable. The story ends with the word ‘hope,’ and for that, I’ll grant it all five out of five stars, even though some heart-rending scenes make me want to fling the book against a wall. I imagine Kindles have ended that irrational practice. Anyone who follows my reviews knows I tend to knock off a star if the author has me grieving the loss of a beloved character.
No, it’s not a spoiler. I haven’t said which characters will die.
In all, this is a splendid novel, carefully researched, richly imagined, and impossible to forget.
- Goodreads rating – 3.81
- SUMMARY – Carol Kean