7/7/2023 0 Comments The bees laline paull reviewShe nurses the larvae in the Nursery, waits on the bawdy males in the Drones’ Hall and flies as a forager, gathering pollen and nectar. Those unique abilities allow 717 an unprecedented freedom within the hive’s rigid class system. Though the elite bees, the Sages, call her big and ugly, she can speak, she produces royal jelly, and she’s very brave. 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.
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