August 25, 2004

The Beekeeper's Pupil, Sara George

M. Huber was a founder of the scientific observation of bees; he was blind; his was lucky in his servant Francis Burnens, who, wrote Huber, was comprehending them as well as I, and [...] was born with the talents of an observer.

George's book adds no scandal or class war, in writing what might have been Burnen's diary. It's very orderly. The observations of the bees inspire mild reflections on human society, no more. It's a little like an Andrea Barrett or A. S. Byatt novel about Enlightement science, but their characters usually come to more painful ends. Neither the subject nor the reader gets "cruel delight" in this.

This isn't the only recent fiction on Huber; there's at least one poem cycle, Blind Huber.

ISBN: 074270414

So wrote clew in Fiction (21st c.). | TrackBack
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