Its heroine, Flora 717, is born into the worker caste, destined for nothing but the basest drudgery. Set in a honeybee hive, the novel is a parable about the consequences of groupthink. Laline Paull’s transfixing first novel, “ The Bees,” isn’t explicitly about the real-world problems that threaten their survival, but the story’s inspired imagining of hive life compels one to wonder about the extraordinary complexity and sophistication of these insects - and to care about their fate. Now my thoughts are hovering around bees again, but for a less foreboding reason. Especially when walking (inevitably barefoot) through a particular Eastern Shore clover patch, I could focus on little else than trying to avoid their sting. Bees - which is to say, the fear of them - dominated many summers of my childhood.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |