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Jump to navigationJump to searchThe History of Bees by Maja Lunde and Diane Oatley (translator) (view source)
Revision as of 14:07, 31 March 2018
, 14:07, 31 March 2018no edit summary
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|title=The History of Bees
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|website=http://www.majalunde.com/
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|amazonukcover=1471162745|aznuk=1471162745|aznus=<amazonuk>1471162745</amazonuk>
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However, from page to page this is a very readable novel that hardly seems like a translation. I appreciated the various symbolic uses of bees. For instance, William contrasts fatherhood and productivity thus: 'Like the drone, I sacrificed my life for procreation.' For Tao, raised in a country where individuals can feel swallowed by the vastness of the wider population, a bee colony serves as a reminder of the benefits of working collectively for the greater good. Moreover, bees represent a middle ground between wildness and domestication: 'bees cannot be tamed. They can only be tended, receive our care.'
Though it responds to the seriousness of recent and projected future ecological disasters, this novel is not a downer. On the contrary, its final word is 'hope'. It's also a very beautifully produced book, with an embossed bee on the dust jacket, a black and gold honeycomb pattern across the spine and boards, and a detailed black-and-white bee illustration featured in the corners of occasional pages. If you appreciate lovely physical books and have enjoyed work by [[;:Category:David Mitchell|David Mitchell]], Margaret Atwood or Dave Goulson, I can heartily recommend this.
Further reading suggestions: [[Generation A by Douglas Coupland]] also opens with the disappearance of bees. Put [[Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell]] and [[A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson]] together and you might get something like Lunde's book.
