What Book to Read?

In what feels like a big coincidence, but probably isn’t, my book club has chosen to read The Secret Life of Bees (2001) just the session after we had read Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. The apparent coincidence is that both these books deal with religion, civil rights and racism in rural America. It isn’t really a coincidence, because these are central themes in America’s history, and it is natural that American literature should reflect this. But I find it interesting that two such different books should have all this in common.

The Secret Life of Bees is set in South Carolina in 1964 – the year President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act which outlawed discrimination on the grounds of race (as well as religion and sex). Lily Owens, now fourteen, lives with her bitter and overbearing father, and the belief that at the age of four she was the accidental cause of her mother’s death. She is cared for by Rosaleen, her father’s black housekeeper. As soon as the Civil Rights law has been signed, Rosaleen tries to register to vote, with disastrous results. She and Lily find themselves on the run from the law, and are taken in by three sisters who keep bees.  Lily finds she has a lot to learn – and not just about bee keeping.

The story is narrated by Lily and is in part about her growing up. She is a consummate liar, but they are the lies of a clever child; she learns to make the more adult choice of reality. But the truth can be a burden: ‘I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth,’ she says, ‘and I didn’t know which one was heavier.’ She can be both naive and wise – possibly a bit too wise for a fourteen year old with her background, though her love of reading – anathema to her father – may have helped her maturity. ‘I realized it for the first time in my life,’ she says, ‘there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don’t even know it.’ This is a nice idea, but is it a likely one for a fourteen year old? She is, much less surprisingly, unthinking in her racism, until she has learnt to see differently. The bee keeping sisters are black; one of them questions taking Lily in because she is white. ‘I hadn’t known this was possible –to reject people for being white. A hot wave passed through my body.’ But later she feels really good when she realises that her new black friends don’t think of her as being different. ‘Up until then I’d thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided that everybody being colorless together was a better plan.’

Central to the story is a Black Madonna statue. It is actually a figurehead from a ship. The sisters and their friends know this, but nevertheless venerate the statue as if it were Mary, mother of Christ. They have created their own rituals around her and their religious observance owes something to Roman Catholic practices – though as Lily notes, nothing the Pope would recognise. The author had what she describes as a ‘vivid spiritual transformation at mid-life’, as a result of which she became interested in feminist theology, and so it’s not surprising that she gives Mary a special significance in the lives of these women. But I see the Mary story as being as much to do with the value of mothering, which is a theme in the book, as it is with religion. It’s not motherhood itself that matters – it’s mothering behaviour. The life of the bees also centres round the queen, or mother; a hive without a mother soon disintegrates. Kidd doesn’t go as far as saying that working with bees confers grace, but she comes close to it; honey seems almost a magical substance – which perhaps it is.

This book reminds me of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), having some of the same themes such as coming of age and southern racism; even the tone of the writing is similar – which should be a recommendation. It contains humour and tragedy, warmth and wisdom. What is there not to like? And I did enjoy it. But, unlike Gilead – or To Kill a Mockingbird – it didn’t stretch my mind or even my imagination. It may be that the much denser writing that characterises Gilead derives from the fact that it is told by a seventy six year old, whereas the protagonist here is only fourteen, and can’t be expected to have mature insights. Or maybe it just isn’t as subtle. I can imagine it being someone’s comfort book, but it won’t be on my list; I didn’t find it special, as others obviously have.

You can read more about Sue Monk Kidd here. The book has been made into both a stage play and a film; it received a mixed reception, winning awards for ‘Favorite Movie Drama’ and ‘Favorite Independent Movie’ at the 35^th People’s Choice Awards but being considered too maudlin and sticky-sweet by others. You can read more about it here.