We're departing from our normal pollinators and garden books with this most excellent novel:
The Secret Life of Bees.
The Secret Life of Bees is a novel by American author Sue Monk Kidd. It's set in 1964, and is a coming-of-age story about loss, betrayal, and the interracial landscape of the civil-rights era of the American South.
The book has received critical acclaim and was a New York Times bestseller. It won the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards (Paperback), and was nominated for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. The mysteries from a simple jar of honey leads the characters on a journey of discovery.
Several symbols and themes are found in book. One major symbol is the bees and bee-related objects. Bees are a main symbol and motif in the novel.
Bees are a symbol of two main things: Guidance and the power of a female community, which is seen in the theme. A major theme is that Lily is looking for a connection to her mother or some mother figure. In the story, she meets many strong women; she not only grows up with Rosaleen, who is a surrogate mother to Lily, but she also meets the Boatwright sisters and the Daughters of Mary, who enhance this symbol of power in a female community in relation to bees.
Bees can also symbolize organization or "living in a civilized community". This can be connected to the black community and specifically the Boatwright sisters in this novel. Bees are very organized, and every bee needs to do her job. In the novel, a quote says, “when a queen bee is taken from a hive, the other bees notice her absence”, and it is very similar with the Boatwright sisters.
Once May's twin April died, May was never the same; she became emotionally sensitive. Once May took her own life, the Boatwright sisters, once again, had to learn how to move on and live with a loss and missing bees.
Honey represents wisdom and knowledge. In the plot, Lily is looking for the Black Mary that is on a honey jar, and after finding the source of this honey, the Boatwright sisters take Lily and Rosaleen in, and begin to share their wisdom and knowledge, about bees, life, Lily's dad T. Ray, and Lily’s mother Deborah.
It's got beekeeping and excellent story-telling, so we give it two thumbs up!
Author: Sue Monk Kidd. Publisher, Penguin Books. Copyright 2002. Copies are pre-owned. Hardback. 302 pages.
