BROOKE’S REVIEW

Norwegian author Maja Lunde’s beautifully-written novel The History of Bees follows three generations of beekeepers, representing the past, present, and future of society. Stories of families and their desires to create a legacy for their children are a common theme among the three eras explored by Lunde.

Here are the three interwoven narratives explored in this novel:

“England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive—one that will give both him and his children honor and fame.

United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper fighting an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation.

China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao’s young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him.”

The metaphor of the bee is a strong one. Bees can only survive in a colony. They rely on each other and their environment, and they support much of the vegetation on Earth. What readers are left pondering is how to ensure there is a sustainable future, along with both how strong and fragile our environment and families can be.

PRAISE

“The History of Bees is spectacular and deeply moving. Lunde has elegantly woven together a tale of science and science fiction, dystopia and hope, and the trials of the individual and the strengths of family.” - Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author of THE TEA GIRL OF HUMMINGBIRD LANE and SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN

“When you think of coming to tears over a novel, a story about bee keepers and honey is not your first thought. But such is the genius of debut novelist Maja Lunde that her tale of three eras—the long past, the tenuous present and the biologically damned future—is strung on the fragile hope of the survival of bees. Without ever banging an apocalyptic drum, Lunde paints an achingly pure picture of what happens if we fail to protect the bees, our biospheric conscience, our fragile, sacred spinners of gold.” - Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author of THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN and TWO IF BY SEA

“As a lover of honeybees and a fan of speculative fiction, I was doubly smitten by The History of Bees. Maja Lunde’s novel is an urgent reminder of how much our survival depends on those remarkable insects. It is also a gripping account of how—despite the cruelest losses—humanity may abide and individual families can heal.” - Jean Hegland, author of STILL TIME and INTO THE FOREST

AUTHOR

Maja Lunde is a Norwegian author and screenwriter. Lunde has written ten books for children and young adults. She has also written scripts for Norwegian television, including for the children’s series Barnas supershow (“The Children’s Super Show”), the drama series Hjem (“Home”) and the comedy series Side om Side (“Side by Side”). The History of Bees is her first novel for adults. She lives with her husband and three children in Oslo.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

The History of Bees by Maja Lunde is a highly recommended novel spans the generations with alternating chapters from families in 1851, 2007, and 2098.

In 1851 William Savage is a biologist and seed merchant in England. After an agonizing bout of depression that left him bedridden for months, his passion for research returns. He becomes obsessed with building the perfect beehive, one that will benefit the bees and his family for generations. Mainly, William is focused on his son Edmund's education to prepare to take over his life's work.

In 2007 George is a beekeeper in Ohio whose ancestry is traced back to a long lineage of beekeepers. He still makes his hives by hand according to the dimensions passed down through the generations and recorded on old yellowed diagrams his wife Emma found in an old trunk and framed. His whole family has the detailed instructions to build their unique hives memorized. George and Emma sacrificed and saved for years to send their son Tom to college so he could return with new ideas to keep the family business going.

In 2098, Tao is a pollinator in China. The bees have long since disappeared. She climbs the pear trees daily along with the many other workers and painstakingly hand pollinates each flower with a specially developed feather brush. Tao spends her precious free time trying to teach her three-year-old son Wei-Wen hoping that he will be chosen to be further educated. Otherwise in five years, at the age of eight, he will be done with school and sent into the fields to begin helping with the hand pollination. When Wei-Wen has an accident and is taken away to the hospital, Tao is desperate to find him.

While The History of Bees is about our dependence on bees and the devastation that would occur with their disappearance, the main theme is really the bond between parent and child - more specifically the desire of parents wanting their sons to take over their passions and the sons wanting no part of it. It is the story of the bees that ostensibly ties these three narratives together, but the stories are really about the expectations of individual families. Ultimately Tao's story will provide the thread that will truly tie the three narratives together.

I read the English translation of The History of Bees, which was originally published in Norwegian. While I'm sure the translation was very good, the voices of George and Tao almost seemed a little simplistic at times. Since this is Lunde's first book for adults, that may explain it. William is a decidedly annoying character. Certainly, however, she did an excellent job making their three different voiced separate and distinct and mixing historical fiction, present day, and future dystopian narratives into one coherent novel.

I had two problems with The History of Bees. First, the narratives do meander off course at times, which slows the actual flow of the novel down a bit. Secondly, the distracting focus on sons taking over in all three time periods might have been alleviated with a daughter written in as one of the offspring for which the parents had expectations, or, if all main characters were fathers with expectations for their sons. In William's time period the sexism makes sense, although ultimately it is a daughter who cares about his work. Certainly both George and Tao could have had daughters without damaging the flow of the story. (This doesn't seem to concern other reviewers, so it may just be me.)

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Touchstone.
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Formatted review available at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2071898971

3.5 Stars. The three protagonists are multiple generations apart, but their lives are all linked by the fate of bees:

• Sichuan, China in 2098: Pollinating insects completely disappeared from Earth over half a century before, so humans have assumed the bees' job. In order to survive, humans have refined the arduous process of hand-pollination. Children's are trained for the job as soon as they enter school and they begin working when they turn eight-years-old. Like any parent, Tao wants her three-year-old son Wei-Wen to have more opportunities than she did. She spends her little time off teaching him, so that he can attend a special leadership-training school and avoid a lifetime of back-breaking labor. When Wei-Wen mysteriously collapses and is taken away by the authorities, everything changes. She blames herself because she thinks it's her dreams for him that put him in a bad situation. She is willing to sacrifice everything to find her son.

• Hertfordshire, England in 1851: William is a biologist whose academic specialty is superorganisms. Superorganisms are individual insects that function together as a single organism; they need each other in order to survive as a whole. William sank into a deep depression after his mentor belittled him for sacrificing his life's work to have a large family. When his passion reignites, he becomes obsessed with building the perfect beehive, one that will benefit both the beekeepers and the bees. He wants his son Edmund to continue his research, but Edmund is disinterested in his father's attempts to lure him into the family business. William's obsession with making his son carry on his legacy prevents him from seeing the true heir to his research.

• Ohio, USA in 2007: George descends from a long line of beekeepers. He devotes his entire life to his bee farm and ensuring his bees are thriving. He wants his son to take over the farm, but his son is more interested in his college studies and cultivating his writing career. The stress of bee farming increases when bee colonies begin disappearing in the southern USA. While his bees are doing fine so far, the future of his farm becomes uncertain.

The History of Bees is about letting go and resisting the impulse to exert control over everything. Every parent and mentor in this book has a fixed vision for their child's or apprentice's future. There seems to be the expectation that the next generation "justify [their] position on this earth." Trying to tame the natural order has disastrous consequences. Each character has a firm idea of their child's place in the universe and the means through which that place will be achieved, but it's not until they relax their control that they are able to gain clarity. One major lesson is that one doesn't have to choose between life and passion. Sometimes that passion is our contribution to our families and the future.

There are so many beautiful moments of interconnection throughout the story. Tao decorates her son's room with fluorescent star stickers that used to adorn her own childhood room. She feels as if she created "a bond between my own childhood and his, between us and the world, between the world and the universe." On a larger scale, there's a moment when Tao watches a documentary about the beekeepers who were affected by Colony Collapse Disorder. History comes alive for her. At another time she may have thought the interviews were just "testimonies from another time" from "people who had nothing to do with [her]," but with experience she realizes that "every single personal catastrophe meant [her] own."

This book was originally published in Norwegian, but I read the English translation. I chose this book because I love dystopian fiction and the "in the spirit of Station Eleven and Never Let Me Go" blurb called my name. I can see the Station Eleven comparison more clearly than Never Let Me Go. The thing that draws me to Kazuo Ishiguro's work is the haunting, melancholic atmosphere and I just didn't get that from this book. 

I debated on whether to round my star rating up on down. I decided to round up because somehow it managed to worm its way into my heart! The downsides of this book were the pacing and some of the characterization. It was slowly paced at times, so my interest waxed and waned. It occasionally comes across as a "message" book, but it's not overly heavy-handed. It almost had a YA feel to it—especially George's chapters—even though there are no young adult main characters. (I found out after writing this review that this is the author's first novel for adults.) Tao was my favorite of the three perspectives. She felt the most human, while William and George felt like characters. Even though the male characters didn't feel as authentic to me, they still had interesting stories. William is strange and insufferable, but his passion for the natural world is contagious. Some of my favorite chapters were actually in his sections, when he talks about the lifecycle of bees (at the 45% & 87% mark of my copy). George is old-fashioned and set in his ways. He's never able to say the right thing. His folksy simplicity didn't always ring true to me, but I could understand the dreams and fears that motivated his actions and resentments.

In The History of Bees, the author draws "connections between the small and the large, between the power of creation and creation itself." Every living thing in this book is "fighting the ordinary, daily struggle" for their descendants and survival. The three protagonists are decades, sometimes centuries, apart. They don't know each other and they may not live to realize how essential their contributions were, but together they make a huge impact on mankind's fate. The characters' lives and the lives of their offspring didn't go as planned, but their creative solutions influence humanity's future path. This book gave me a larger appreciation for all those who've come before us and made an impact on our lives, even if they would never get a chance to benefit from it.

An enjoyable read on the topic of Bees!!!
The History of Bees follows three story lines - George a beekeeper in 2007 US, William a naturalist in 1852 England and Tao a manual pollinator in 2098 China. Each story has a connection to bees as well as parents and their connection to their children. Really bees do represent our future so I find this appropriate!
I liked how Lunde had a common thread between all the storylines. I like that this is a fiction book as maybe it will reach more people. I like how she ends on a message of hope. I really hope that we can conquer Colony Collapse Disorder.
I did find the middle to drag a bit but overall really enjoyed The History of Bees.

Thank you so much for an advance of this title in exchange for an honest review. I am worried about the future of the bees, and I have always wished a tiny bit that I had a hive. I thought I'd be reading about a fictional story about beekeeping, but the manner in which the author tied 3 different stories together, in different time periods...the distant past, recent past and the future, was so well done. It was also different cultures, as well as family issues. The author has a way of making the words flow off the page that I enjoyed. I really loved this book. I would actually give it a 4.5 if I could.

Rating wise this book is a tough one for me to call. There were parts of it that were excellent while also having parts that seemed to drag a bit. However, the author, Maja Lunde, was able to weave a tale of three generations of bee keepers. Each one covered a time span. The past, was represented by William, a seed keeper who wants to build a perfect bee hive thus securing his fame and his family's future in the world he inhabits. In the present time, we meet George who battles the modern age in farming as he strives to bring his son into the world and the passion he holds for the bees. Finally, there is Tao presenting the future where bees are no longer living. She and her husband are employed in the process of painting pollen unto the fruit trees to ensure not only their survival but also that of the people who now exist in a world that no longer resembles what we have come to know. These three characters come together with their families to provide the reader with many glimpses into their family dynamics and the way of life each lead in the world that they inhabited.

For this reader Tao's story was the most interesting. Her son is taken ill on a day trip into the country and is whisked away mysteriously. She begins a search for him, leaving her husband behind and through her travels we see a world of the future that is none too bright and exceedingly sad.

I found this book to be very earthy, one that paints a strong picture of our reliance on these little creatures that bind together in their hive and work as a unit. They definitely have something to teach we humans about binding together to accomplish goals.

So now it comes to rating this novel. In my mind I feel that the subject matter rates a five. However, because the writing was at time wandering and somewhat disjointed, I will give it a four. I realize that this book was translated into English so some of this meandering might have been caused by that issue.

Thank you to NetGalley and Touchstone for providing me with an advanced copy for an unbiased review.

Three stories intertwined expertly. This book kept me intrigued from the first page to the last page.

Lundy does a great job fleshing out flawed and despondent characters. The stories are linked together by a fine thread and each would have worked on it's own as a great read.

This is definitely an interesting take on dystopian fiction - three interconnected tales, each taking place in a different time and place, all heavily featuring bees. The writing is very crisp and poetic. My favorite section was probably Tao; my least favorite was William. Overall, the story really came together towards the end of the book.

Great read! Looking forward to reading more by this author! Highly recommend!

There are three stories in this wonderful novel about the history and destiny of bees and their ties to humanity. The stories take place in 1851, 2007 and 2098. 1851 tells the story of British shopkeeper William Savage, whose dream is to build a better bee hive to ensure his children a better future. 2007 centers on George and his son, Tom. George is a beekeeper who longs to build up his business together with Tom, but Tom’s longings lie elsewhere. In 2098, Tao has the horrendous job of hand painting pollen on trees in an effort to provide enough food for the Chinese inhabitants. There are no longer bees in her world. It’s a very physically taxing job and she fears for her little son who will soon be old enough to join the workers. But then tragedy strikes and Tao sets off on a perilous journey looking for answers.

I absolutely loved this book. Each of the three stories touched my heart. The chapters are short and I would no sooner get pulled into one story than the author would switch to one of the other stories so there are often cliffhangers. I was never disappointed to switch as I found each of the stories as fascinating as the other. This style of writing really moved the book along and kept me wanting to know more. This Norwegian author cleverly maps out this beautifully written book so that each of the stories have a final connection.

Bees. Such little creatures but so very important to our existence. Our world has seen what might happen should bees disappear completely. The author has provided a fascinating look at the beginning of bee keeping, the period when bee colonies first started encountering difficulties and what the future might look like without hard working bees. Even more than a study of bees told in a very moving way, this book also touchingly delves into the bond of parents and their children.

Most highly recommended.

The author deftly intertwines the narratives of bee keepers in 1852 England, 2007 United States and 2098 China. Within these stories abound the dedication of the keepers and the problems with dwindling bee populations. The author stresses our responsibility to nature as well as the importance of family bonds. A wonderful literary debut.

The writing (the translation, really) is skilful and lovely--the author deftly creates three separate worlds that are each believable in their own way. But they don't necessarily come together quite as deftly.

This is an intelligently written book. Thought provoking, it spans 3 timelines over 250 years. Each of the 3 characters has a connection with bees. Englishman William in 1852 is an academic who designs a new beehive. George is one of the first commercial American bee keepers to experience a collapse which wipes out almost all of his bees in 2007. In China, Tao is a young mother and one of an army of workers who hand pollinate the fruit trees because, at the end of the 21st Century all bees are extinct.
All 3 characters began their stories positively, but soon I became engrossed in their various difficulties- initially with family relationships and eventually spelling out the scary consequences of a life without bees - 'Colony Collapse Disorder'.
As a result of reading this I aim to be more environmentally aware, certainly I better appreciate the importance of bees!
Thank you, NetGalley, for allowing me to read this book on my Kindle.