Atticus Books
2011, 224 pages, paperback, $14.95
From the opening pages of the inventive debut novel, “The Bee-Loud Glade,” Steve Himmer explores the complicated relationship between nature and technology. The novel’s protagonist, Finch, lives a quiet life working at a fake plant company; he fills his empty work days by creating and authoring dozens of blogs. But his mundane life suddenly ends when he loses his job…only to be quickly offered a new position by an eccentric billionaire—Mr. Crane. Unsurprisingly, Finch accepts Mr. Crane’s offer of a six-million-dollar annual salary. The catch? Asked to abandon a world of social networking, television and convenient frozen dinners, Finch must become a modern-day hermit, living on the impressive and expansive grounds Mr. Crane has carefully cultivated.
Although Finch is forbidden to speak once he begins his hermitage, he serves as the novel’s narrator, and the reader moves between past and present as Finch describes his transition from consumer/blogger to hermit. Vivid images of nature abound as Finch leaves his designated cave to explore a world populated with bees, birds, wild mushrooms, and blackberries. As I read, I found myself wishing I had a garden of my own, a place where I could explore and contemplate the living forces that surround me.
I quickly learned, though, that Finch’s natural landscape is not untouched by human hands; in fact, his new world, the world of Mr. Crane, is as orchestrated as any modern city. For Mr. Crane’s version of nature is far from natural. When he decides his backyard garden is in need of a river, his desire becomes reality. Finch explains how “…no sooner had the sun risen than a rumble came through the trees, thunderous sounds from just out of sight past the brambling berries…I heard engines and axes and the voices of men.” In Mr. Crane’s world (and subsequently, Finch’s), rivers aren’t discovered on an afternoon hike, but instead created with all the technological advances of modern living.
As we progress through the novel, an uncomfortable tension between technology and nature develops. We are drawn into a garden that abounds in fecundity, only to then be reminded what unnatural forces made this “natural” world a reality. But our narrator, Finch, reconciles these tensions simply—by living and surrendering to a world composed of what have long been viewed as dichotomous parts. As Finch enjoys the river Crane created, he eloquently expounds on what humans have found so appealing about nature since the beginning of civilization: “There were sounds and I heard them, and my nose noticed smells and my skin felt cold and warmth and wind passing, of course, all of that, but it has nothing to do with me, any of it. I was just there, in the water, floating, submerged, and the world could do as it liked because I was right where I needed to be.”
If you are looking for a novel that explores both the natural and the philosophical with deftness and complexity, then look no further than “The Bee-Loud Glade.”
Monet Moutrie, Guest Blogger
