The novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd could also be named The Secret Search for Love (although the search was not secret, it is to rhyme with the original). The young teenager Lily Owens is looking for love, which she is not getting at home. Her father treats her like a drill master and punishes her at his every whim. She is a growing girl, and the absence of her mother in her life creats a void that is hard to fill.
It is not only the absence of her mother, but how she became absent that weighs on Lily. It was possible that her mother died because of Lily, when she picked up a gun which went off accidentally and killed the mother.
And all her life until she spent months with the Boatwright sisters, Lily kept on thinking that she was never loved - neither by her father, nor her mother. She was without love in this entire world. Except Rosaleen, the maid, no one loved her.
To save Rosaleen from a hard life in jail, therefore Lily takes a drastic step. She sneaks Rosaleden out of jail, and then runs away from home with her. She had always wanted to find more about her mother, as her father had nothing to do with her. He would not even hear Lily mention her, so Lily had no other way but to find about her mother on her own.
Running away from home with Rosaleen was a drastic step, fraught with danger of being caught by police or found out by her father and then put back in the house. But the need to know more about her mother was so overwhelming, Lily went ahead and started the search.
Where she was offered a roof to stay, the pink house where the Boatwright sisters lived tending to bees and selling honey, Lily found love. She discovered love in the youthfulness of Zach, and in the sisters August, June and May. In this same house she found out the truth about her mother. That her mother loved her. That she was not an unloved child.
And Lily continued to stay on here, even after her father found her out.
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Pearl Glistened in the Darkness
Last night I turned the last page of the 90-page short novel by John Steinbeck. And here is the feedback. I've been a fan od Steinbeck ever since I read his Grapes of Wrath a few years ago. And now, after The Pearl, my commitment to remaining Steinbeck's fan has become deeper. From here, there is nowhere to go but be his fan forever.
The Pearl is a very short story about Kino, his wife Juana and their son Coyotito. But it is not the length that matters. The power with which their story has been narrated will leave a permanent mark.
It is a simple story about love and greed, poverty and hunger, hardship and social segregation, power and economics. Due to poverty, lack of education and the spectre of hunger, a pearl diver, Kino, when he hunts the largest pearl in the world, wants to sell it in the local market. But he is not offered a good price for it. Meanwhile, the news of the pearl spreads, and people want to steal it or forcibly take it away from him that night. Someone even burns his brush house in greed.
Kino decides to leave his village and go to the city to sell it. He's also haunted by the fear of being stalked for the pearl, which he hibes in his person carefully. His wife throughtout gives him company and accepts whatever decision he takes.
In the long journey to the city, the family faces immense hardship. The baby boy, who has been previously stung by a scorpion and has been treated by the doctor, also faces this arduous day. Then Kino and Juana sees three people on thebeach hunting for them. They hide with the baby, try to walk away into a secret cave.
The only way now for Kino to save themselves from the three men catching them and forcing the pearl out of them was to kill them, which he planned to do with the rifle the men were carrying. So, when the sun set, before the moon rose, he waited to jump on the men and wrestle their rifle out of them.
He was able to kill two of them in a mental state that was possessed, and the third ran away. But then, in the scuffle, he also ends up killing his own son.
Later, Kino and Juana returns to the village, but they were the saddest couple, carrying the dead body of their baby boy. Juana had always said that the unnatural pearl was evil and had asked Kino to throw it into the sea, but he never listened to her. Now that the baby was dead, he listened to her. But it was too late.
The Pearl is a very short story about Kino, his wife Juana and their son Coyotito. But it is not the length that matters. The power with which their story has been narrated will leave a permanent mark.
It is a simple story about love and greed, poverty and hunger, hardship and social segregation, power and economics. Due to poverty, lack of education and the spectre of hunger, a pearl diver, Kino, when he hunts the largest pearl in the world, wants to sell it in the local market. But he is not offered a good price for it. Meanwhile, the news of the pearl spreads, and people want to steal it or forcibly take it away from him that night. Someone even burns his brush house in greed.
Kino decides to leave his village and go to the city to sell it. He's also haunted by the fear of being stalked for the pearl, which he hibes in his person carefully. His wife throughtout gives him company and accepts whatever decision he takes.
In the long journey to the city, the family faces immense hardship. The baby boy, who has been previously stung by a scorpion and has been treated by the doctor, also faces this arduous day. Then Kino and Juana sees three people on thebeach hunting for them. They hide with the baby, try to walk away into a secret cave.
The only way now for Kino to save themselves from the three men catching them and forcing the pearl out of them was to kill them, which he planned to do with the rifle the men were carrying. So, when the sun set, before the moon rose, he waited to jump on the men and wrestle their rifle out of them.
He was able to kill two of them in a mental state that was possessed, and the third ran away. But then, in the scuffle, he also ends up killing his own son.
Later, Kino and Juana returns to the village, but they were the saddest couple, carrying the dead body of their baby boy. Juana had always said that the unnatural pearl was evil and had asked Kino to throw it into the sea, but he never listened to her. Now that the baby was dead, he listened to her. But it was too late.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Paulo Coelho is Enlightening!!
So many times earlier have I picked up The Alchemist, and, fearing that my taste would not match its contents, turned away from it. People talked about the book, and I wondered how it would be. What wisdoms it contained. Still, years after it had been published, I've not read the book.
But could one run away from Paulo Coelho? When his books are everywhere, some time, some day, I had to pick up one. And I did. At the Central library in downtown Santa Barbara. I found Brida in the New Fiction section. It was a hardbound, 212 page book, with a woman's enigmatic back on the cover. The weight of the book was a deterrent, as I would have to carry it on the bus from the library along with some other books, to our house on Upper State Street.
I'm glad I decided to bear its weight anyway. Now that I have read its last page, and closed the cover, my mind is illuminated on many things. These were things normally people did not talk about. The mystical experiences of wizards and witches, the whole process of initiation of pupils into witchcraft, and the relationships that people in that world had to reckon with.
It is a straightforward story, about Brida who wants to know about magic. She meets the Magus in the forest, but he does not teach her straightaway what magic is. Brida meets her teacher Wicca, who is a good teacher, comfortable in her wordly physical beauty.
The spiritual aspects of the physical body is highlighted, that love is love, whether one is with the loved one or not. The quest of the Magus is his Soul Mate. The Soul Mate is differentiated from a worldly, physical lover. These differentiation in the end makes him distance himself physically from his oul Mate, whom he meets at the end of his journey and gains wisdom.
I would credit Coelho with the lucidity of his vision, and the love with which he wrote his novel.
But could one run away from Paulo Coelho? When his books are everywhere, some time, some day, I had to pick up one. And I did. At the Central library in downtown Santa Barbara. I found Brida in the New Fiction section. It was a hardbound, 212 page book, with a woman's enigmatic back on the cover. The weight of the book was a deterrent, as I would have to carry it on the bus from the library along with some other books, to our house on Upper State Street.
I'm glad I decided to bear its weight anyway. Now that I have read its last page, and closed the cover, my mind is illuminated on many things. These were things normally people did not talk about. The mystical experiences of wizards and witches, the whole process of initiation of pupils into witchcraft, and the relationships that people in that world had to reckon with.
It is a straightforward story, about Brida who wants to know about magic. She meets the Magus in the forest, but he does not teach her straightaway what magic is. Brida meets her teacher Wicca, who is a good teacher, comfortable in her wordly physical beauty.
The spiritual aspects of the physical body is highlighted, that love is love, whether one is with the loved one or not. The quest of the Magus is his Soul Mate. The Soul Mate is differentiated from a worldly, physical lover. These differentiation in the end makes him distance himself physically from his oul Mate, whom he meets at the end of his journey and gains wisdom.
I would credit Coelho with the lucidity of his vision, and the love with which he wrote his novel.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
On being a Secretive Non-vegetarian
Can anyone tell me what one can do when there are two people in the house, and one is vegetarian and the other isn't? Can love sustain when neither of them is willing to give in?
This is the true story of a non-vegetarian woman, recently married to a strict vegetarian (who eats eggs without the yolk). The woman cannot give up meat and fish, and the man cannot let her cook or eat any of it inside the house. Of course, he is not ready or willing to turn into a non-vegetarian.
Eating out every day is not economically viable. Neither is it practical, as the portions are too large, and taking away the leftover goes against the principles of the man.
They are married, many months pass. The woman is unhappy, the man feels guilty but cannot give in. How could he go against his religion, or, how would he be able to accept that things are being cooked in the house?
And then, at the end of many many requests made by the woman, the man agrees. To one thing. And they begin working towards it.
This is the true story of a non-vegetarian woman, recently married to a strict vegetarian (who eats eggs without the yolk). The woman cannot give up meat and fish, and the man cannot let her cook or eat any of it inside the house. Of course, he is not ready or willing to turn into a non-vegetarian.
Eating out every day is not economically viable. Neither is it practical, as the portions are too large, and taking away the leftover goes against the principles of the man.
They are married, many months pass. The woman is unhappy, the man feels guilty but cannot give in. How could he go against his religion, or, how would he be able to accept that things are being cooked in the house?
And then, at the end of many many requests made by the woman, the man agrees. To one thing. And they begin working towards it.
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