Goldberg, Myla. Bee Season. Doubleday, 2000.
Reason read: I have a category called “Special Child Month” and this book falls in it.
Poor eleven year old Eliza Naumann just wants to be noticed by her family. Every member of her family has their own preoccupation. Older brother Aaron, once destined to becomes a rabbi, is on a quest to discover the right religion for him. Slowly he becomes absorbed into the Harre Krishna culture and dreams of becoming a pujari speaking Sanskrit. Mother Miriam has a fixation on stealing things. She stole a random shoe from a mall department store sale rack. She didn’t even want the shoe, useless without its mate, after all. She ended up throwing it away. Each theft begs the question why Each family member slips further into the background while Eliza becomes obsessed with words. When she discovers she is good at spelling her father becomes her champion and urges her to “remove herself entirely from daily life, to brush against the limitless” (p 98). There is an open-ended conclusion to this fractured family.
Lines I liked, “Besides, he can always masturbate to his memories” (p 48) and “It is late enough that the grass is filled with tomorrow’s dew” (p 196).
Author fact: Bee Season was Goldberg’s first book and the only one I am reading for the Challenge.
Book trivia: the front and back covers of Bee Season mimic a dictionary. The novel was made into a movie in 2005.
Music: Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Flock of Seagulls, Pachelbel canon, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman,” the Eagles, and “Oh Susanna.”
BookLust Twist: first, in Book Lust in the chapter called “Jewish American Experience” (p 132), and then again in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Child Prodigies” (p 43).
~*LunaSea*~ 