The Bee Sting - Paul Murray (2023)

 

Rating: Excellent 

Paul Murray is an Irish writer and fittingly in the long tradition of Irish literature The Bee Sting is an epic literary work filled with weighty themes and experimentation with form. Essentially a novel about family dysfunction, it also deals with wider themes, such as climate change. The Bee Sting weaves a tapestry of alternating perspectives into a whole that is, at times, overwhelming and demanding to an almost maddening extent. The Barnes are a wealthy family living in a town just outside of Dublin, with the patriarch, Dickie, running a car dealership that has run into financial trouble. This appears to upend the family dynamic, with his wife, Imelda, and their two teenagers, Cass and PJ at odds with each other and themselves. However, there is far more going on under the surface due to a dysfunctional past that has led the Barnes family to an inflection point of crisis. Murray reveals the inner perspective of each character in turn, piecing together a narrative jigsaw puzzle that eventually leads to an understanding of both past and current events. The reader is granted direct access into the mind of Imelda via Murray’s use of stream of consciousness for all her sections. An old Modernist technique, it causes the reader the tumble over her thoughts and actions, as if you are inside her traumatised and harried mind. As a technique it is a risky move, as the lack of punctuation makes it difficult to read, but you do get used to it and ultimately it is totally appropriate for Imelda, as her experiences form the backbone of the narrative. In the latter stages of the novel Murray utilises second person intermittently, which, once again, takes a bit of getting used to, but it effectively places the reader right in the shoes of the characters.

The Bee Sting has been critically successful and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for 2023, however once I finished it, I realised that, for me at least, it is a novel to admire, rather than one to enjoy, at least in a conventional way. Strangely, however, despite my misgivings, that The Bee Sting is far too long, has too many unsympathetic characters and forces you to relent to the overwhelming urge to speed-read large sections, I did enjoy it in a weird, almost perverse kind of way. The novel is a challenge to read, which brings its own level of enjoyment, depending on what you want from a novel. The plot presents a host of surprises, most that were already lingering in the background, but not visible enough for the reader to guess (except for the actual bee sting, that was obvious). As the plot twists and turns, it propels the reader on through a sea of words that often present a real drowning threat. It doesn’t help that all the main protagonists are dysfunctional, which makes for bleak reading, even the humour is darkly ironic. Despite these challenges The Bee Sting is a fine novel, and I can’t help admiring Murray’s literary bravery with his liberal use of narrative techniques that challenge the reader. There’s also the shear bulk of the book to consider, coming in at over 650 pages, which places unrelenting pressure on the modern reader’s attention span. Read The Bee Sting, give it a chance, but be prepared to be pushed beyond the boundaries of literary endurance. Many of the book club members hated the novel with a passion, but the few that did admire it, also hinted at some enjoyment, or at least satisfaction that they finished reading it.