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Title: Bee Season: A Novel by Myla Goldberg ISBN: 0-385-49880-2 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 15 May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (227 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Spelling, Spirituality, & Shoplifting
Comment: Myla Goldberg's first novel is a real find. "Bee Season" is a coming-of-age tale like no other that I have read; if you come to this novel expecting a lightweight tale about a child prodigy in a spelling bee, you will be pleasantly surprised. Goldberg weaves Eliza Naumann's quest to become national spelling bee champion into a tapestry of hidden family secrets, repressed emotion, and discovered spirituality. The heartbreaking and somewhat dysfunctional relationships in the Naumann family will be familiar to all readers, regardless of religion. What begins as a simplistic story about a little girl struggling to please her father transforms into a complicated tale about morality, spiritual freedom, and acceptance. The surprising twist regarding Miriam Naumann's mental health (too great to mention here) is, suffice to say, shocking. The revelations about Miriam lead to some of Myla Goldberg's richest, most revealing descriptions. While Goldberg may introduce too many plots to feasibly tie together a conclusion, her use of multiple narrators and perspectives makes the story engaging and easy to follow for the reader. When you finish the final line, you may still be puzzled by what you just read but the confusion seems intentional. There are no easy answers to Eliza's questions and Goldberg invites the reader to think of their own.
Rating: 5
Summary: A dazzling novel of the modern family
Comment: BEE SEASON
If Bee Season were just about an average schoolgirl (Eliza) who blossoms by winning spelling bees, thereby winning the love and respect of her family, friends, and teachers it would have been a heartwarming novel and probably have been a fine complete story, but Myla Goldberg doesn't stop at easy with her plot or her characters.
The second half of the book treads into deeper darker waters. There are earlier hints of what is to come: the lawyer mother's excessive busyness, obsessive cleanliness and aloofness; the father's past hippy days, dabbling in mysticism contrasted with his present life as cantor of his synagogue and his zealousness toward his children, the teenage brother's difficult adolescence. The second half really becomes a story about four people, who can't seem to function as a family: Each lives in a separate but parallel universe, heading either toward spiritual transformation or possible destruction. I don't want to say more about the plot and give things away. This is one where it's better if you don't know too much before you read the book.
In a style at once accessible and complex, which is oddly reminiscent of Jane Hamilton's "Disobedience", Myla Goldberg deftly outlines her plot and carves out a collision course for her characters, while she deals with large universal and contemporary themes of family, religious and belief, mental illness, child rearing and parenting, educational choices, coming of age, and love.
There are a couple of obstacles, the largest of which is the ability of a 9-year-old to study Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). Although I don't agree with the old precept that said one must be forty, learned, and wise before starting to study Kabbalah, this did stretch plausibility, but I don't think it spoils the story. The other point - I sense that readers who are not Jewish may not appreciate the book to its fullest, although it is definitely not a deterrent or a reason not to read the book. For me, being able to identify with the "Silent Amidah" and that type of Friday night service, for example, or knowing the ambivalence that many Jewish American teenagers feel, did enrich the reading.
In any case, as most of us are raised in families, I still think it is a book that people of many backgrounds can relate to. It is an important book and definitely one you will want to discuss and argue with your friends and in your book clubs.
Rating: 5
Summary: Superfine in every way
Comment: Yummy on so many levels. This is the Jewish coming-of-age book with the quirkiest twist ever. There's the adored Jewish son who breaks with tradition and heads down a different path, and there's the overlooked Jewish daughter who suddenly finds something at which she can excel, something that will make her father pay attention to her.
And at the shadowy heart of the book is a mysterious mother who is quietly coming unglued.
Wonderful book with utterly heartbreaking but necessary ending.
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Title: Bel Canto: A Novel by Ann Patchett ISBN: 0060934417 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress : A Novel by Dai Sijie ISBN: 0385722206 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 29 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd ISBN: 0142001740 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Three Junes by Julia Glass, Julia Glass ISBN: 0385721420 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 22 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Atonement : A Novel by Ian McEwan ISBN: 038572179X Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 25 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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