Helpful Score: 1
"The Bee Sting" by Paul Murray-- a celebrated Irish author, longlisted for this year's Booker prize-- of course I had to read it! Then, being 656 pages, I had to wonder what I had committed to.
This is a family saga, told from the point of view of four of the household members (at least, initially). The Barnes family is reeling from the economic crash following Ireland's Celtic Tiger boom. The father, Dickie, runs the family's car dealership and things are bleak. His wife, Imelda, is introduced as a fashionable beauty who is appalled at her husband's recent business failures and does not let him forget it. She has resorted to selling off the family's goods on Ebay. Not only are the finances plummeting -- maybe just as importantly-- so is their standing in the community. Ever since the days when Dickie's father, Maurice, succeeded building the business, townsfolk have viewed the family as a bit high and mighty. People are now savoring the fall from grace as the family seems to disintegrate.
The first two sections are told from the children's viewpoint. We meet Cass, in high school and making her plans to run off to Trinity College in Dublin. Her brother, PJ, is in grade school and is plotting his own runaway escape. While there is great care taken to draw out these characters, the portrayal of the parents, especially the father, seems flat through the children's eyes.
Once we get to the parents, however, the world starts opening up. Prior to this, the parents seem no more dimensional than a 1950's television sitcom family. We get the background on Imeldaâ brought up in a rough childhood and uneducated, she had her heart set on a fairytale future where she was going to be rescued by a Prince Charming. This section of the book is told in a stream-of-consciousness manner, almost completely void of punctuation, in a manner reflecting her lack of education. This might seem annoying at first, but this device effectively relays her moods and emotions.
Up until this point, Dickie scans as a rather bland and ineffectual father figure... boring! His background is quite a bit different than his children are aware of. It seemed he embraced the role of husband, father, and dull businessman while completely abandoning the path his life wanted to run. Daddy has a past. Daddy has secrets.
The characters are wonderful, believable, and easy to sympathize with. As each one tells the story we get details the others are not aware of, much like a "Rashomon." As the story returns to events we are enlightened-- it dawns on us why characters have been acting as they have, in part due to these black holes in the family's understanding of each other.
There is a fifth section, told in second person. Here we rapidly switch from character to character with Cass now in college, PJ struggling to keep his parents together, Imelda feeling conflicted over an attempted seduction, while Dickie has thrown himself whole-heartedly into converting a family shed into a survivalist / end-of-days shelter for a future catastrophe. A real confrontation builds when a shadowy villain steps forward to force a crucial, life-changing call to action.
Again, a very long book. It moved along quickly for me as the revelations fleshed out the characters and kept my interest. I am conflicted about the final section of the book. I did not like it at firstâ and I have seen some reviewers openly hostile to the way it was handled. On second reflection, I see what Paul Murray was doing... it was just a little jarring after the careful pinpoint layering upon layering in the bulk of the telling. Still, an excellent read... the character building was brilliant.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This is a family saga, told from the point of view of four of the household members (at least, initially). The Barnes family is reeling from the economic crash following Ireland's Celtic Tiger boom. The father, Dickie, runs the family's car dealership and things are bleak. His wife, Imelda, is introduced as a fashionable beauty who is appalled at her husband's recent business failures and does not let him forget it. She has resorted to selling off the family's goods on Ebay. Not only are the finances plummeting -- maybe just as importantly-- so is their standing in the community. Ever since the days when Dickie's father, Maurice, succeeded building the business, townsfolk have viewed the family as a bit high and mighty. People are now savoring the fall from grace as the family seems to disintegrate.
The first two sections are told from the children's viewpoint. We meet Cass, in high school and making her plans to run off to Trinity College in Dublin. Her brother, PJ, is in grade school and is plotting his own runaway escape. While there is great care taken to draw out these characters, the portrayal of the parents, especially the father, seems flat through the children's eyes.
Once we get to the parents, however, the world starts opening up. Prior to this, the parents seem no more dimensional than a 1950's television sitcom family. We get the background on Imeldaâ brought up in a rough childhood and uneducated, she had her heart set on a fairytale future where she was going to be rescued by a Prince Charming. This section of the book is told in a stream-of-consciousness manner, almost completely void of punctuation, in a manner reflecting her lack of education. This might seem annoying at first, but this device effectively relays her moods and emotions.
Up until this point, Dickie scans as a rather bland and ineffectual father figure... boring! His background is quite a bit different than his children are aware of. It seemed he embraced the role of husband, father, and dull businessman while completely abandoning the path his life wanted to run. Daddy has a past. Daddy has secrets.
The characters are wonderful, believable, and easy to sympathize with. As each one tells the story we get details the others are not aware of, much like a "Rashomon." As the story returns to events we are enlightened-- it dawns on us why characters have been acting as they have, in part due to these black holes in the family's understanding of each other.
There is a fifth section, told in second person. Here we rapidly switch from character to character with Cass now in college, PJ struggling to keep his parents together, Imelda feeling conflicted over an attempted seduction, while Dickie has thrown himself whole-heartedly into converting a family shed into a survivalist / end-of-days shelter for a future catastrophe. A real confrontation builds when a shadowy villain steps forward to force a crucial, life-changing call to action.
Again, a very long book. It moved along quickly for me as the revelations fleshed out the characters and kept my interest. I am conflicted about the final section of the book. I did not like it at firstâ and I have seen some reviewers openly hostile to the way it was handled. On second reflection, I see what Paul Murray was doing... it was just a little jarring after the careful pinpoint layering upon layering in the bulk of the telling. Still, an excellent read... the character building was brilliant.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
