The Music of Bees

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-26

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Music

Music is a recurring motif in Jake’s life. He’d always had a gift for it. Before his accident, he played trumpet in the high school band, performed a solo at the state jazz band competition, and hoped to attend music school in Seattle. However, the accident changed everything: His mood dropped, and he no longer wants to play his instrument. Music returns to his life in a most unexpected way when he hears the music of bees, a phrase that gives the novel its title.

As he listens to the sound of the buzzing mass of bees, “[h]e [can] feel the resonance in his chest, like when he had played the trumpet” (111). The sound travels up to his heart as a “vibration of happiness and contentment. It ma[kes] him want to sing” (111). Later, he describes the hum of the bees as a “musical droning” (145), which calms him. In addition, he’s able to determine that the sound emanating from the queen bee is a G-sharp. Listening to the music of the bees helps lift Jake’s spirits, and toward the end of the novel, he’s happily playing his trumpet again. He jokes with Harry that he plans to start a marching band. In the final chapter, Jake plays his trumpet in the yard at sunset; it’s a piece he wrote himself that in its phrasing “mirror[s] the quick, graceful motion of the bees and their contented, busy flight patterns up and over the field” (308).

Bees and Humans

Parallels between bee life and human life is a frequent motif. Each chapter has an epigraph taken from a book by L.L. Langstroth, a 19th-century American beekeeper, that describes some aspect of bee life. Some of the epigraphs hint at events that take place in the chapter that follows. The epigraph for Chapter 15, for example, states,

There is one trait in the character of bees which is worthy of profound respect. Such is their indomitable energy and perseverance, that under circumstances apparently hopeless, they labor to the utmost to retrieve their losses, and sustain the sinking State (167).

In the chapter, Alice rises to meet the challenge posed by SupraGro, showing that she’s acting like one of those “indomitable” bees.

Similarly, Chapter 7, titled “Bumbling,” has an epigraph that includes the following: “[B]ees often recognize strangers by their actions, even when they have the same scent; for a frightened bee curls himself up with a cowed look, which unmistakably proclaims that he is conscious of being an intruder” (76). This suggests that Harry, the focus of the chapter, who is not comfortable in social situations and feels out of place at Moira’s party, feels rather like an intruder. Also, “bumbling” is a word that can describe both the buzzing of bees and the kind of awkward blundering around that sometimes characterizes Harry.

Jake observes that order is a guiding principle of the hive, which “is a perfect system of interdependence, a high-functioning, interconnected household” (180), and he realizes that this is “not unlike humans.” He’s thinking of the cooperative spirit that prevails in Alice’s household, in which everyone makes a valuable contribution.

Kiteboarding

A recurring motif in the novel, kiteboarding shows how Harry gains more confidence in himself. In addition, it symbolizes his growing sense of freedom. At the beginning of the novel, Harry is at the mercy of circumstances, unable to create a fulfilling life for himself. Kiteboarding captures his attention the very first time he observes kiteboarders at the waterfront. He has never before seen these “large paraglider-like things flying high over the water” (81). He finds it “mesmerizing. People zoom[] across the river and back. They launch[] high in the air, suspended for long, impossible seconds. They [do] flips and complicated tricks” (81). This hints at the freedom—not to mention the joy and self-confidence—Harry acquires as he masters the sport, instructed by his new friend, Yogi. Yogi is a happy-go-lucky, living-in-the moment kind of guy—exactly what Harry is not. Yogi gives an almost mystical explanation of kiteboarding and the freedom it offers. The secret of successful practice, he says, is to feel the wind:

What is the wind doing and how can I capture it? How can I move within that? What is my place within this beautiful atmospheric moment? Just this one. Right here. Right now. You have to listen to the universe and hear what it is telling you (156-57).

Harry absorbs this lesson and experiences the freedom that kiteboarding offers him, which also symbolizes how he’s gradually freeing himself from the inhibitions that have limited his life up to this point.