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 “Angie had breast cancer, and she wasn’t going to make it. I
was awed at her graciousness in the face of her terror and when
she died, in order to keep that feeling of how wonderful she
was, I started reading about bees. She was gone but the bees
were not gone.”
The more Paull read the more inspired she was.
“Everything I read made me think 'Wow, they do that? They fly
how far? It takes how many bees their whole lives to make a
teaspoon of honey?'”
The result is her debut novel, "The Bees", a story of intense
drama within a hive, framed by a biological integrity that
intrigues and informs.
Through the protagonist Flora we learn of the hive mind, the
blissful scent of mother love, nectar gathering, and encroaching
sickness. The pampered drones (male bees) are sketched with
expert humor as the females ‘worship to his maleness’, before
disaster strikes.
Paull studied English at Oxford, screenwriting in Los Angeles
and theater in London. She is a member of BAFTA and the Writer’s
Guild of America. She spoke to Reuters about "The Bees":
Q: Do you keep bees yourself?
A: No. I would like to one day.
Q: How much authenticity is there in the social
organization of the beehive?
A: The all-female society was fascinating: The queen is
the mother of all. The mother-love scent is real. If the queen
is ailing, the bees will make new queen cells around the edge as
if they are hiding them. Then the first princess out will pipe
out a war cry, she will seek the others and kill them in a fight
to the death. It's brutal nature, 'red in tooth and claw'.
The drones (male bees) are so comic in an affectionate way.
Well, a lot of women feel that about a lot of men. I thought
that would be poignant. That is what the human animal is like:
You don't realize that it's all going to come to an end.
Q: Were your intended readers adults?
A: I just wanted to write a good story, I was fascinated
by the drama of bee life, the violence, the beauty and the
poetry that I saw there.
Q: Is there a deeper message – about preserving bees?
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A: As I went more deeply into the research I was confronted
by the plight of bees as pollinators and the use of pesticides. It's
a strong drama underpinned by the truth, and every time I was
wondering which way to go in the narrative I went back to the real
biology of the hive. Colony collapse disorder is endemic now, in
parts of China people are pollinating by hand.
Q: Have you been surprised by the success of your book?
A: Yes. So thrilled it seems to have struck a chord. I'm
getting tweets from 10-year-olds and people in their 80s, and even
beekeepers saying how much they enjoyed it. That's really high
praise.
Q: You have a background in screenwriting, and theater – why
fiction for this story?
A: Fiction is always where I was headed. The bar is so high,
but a good book is such a wonderful thing, so pure between you and
the reader.
Q: Can you see it being made into a film?
A: I don't know. It would have to be somebody pretty
visionary to avoid the trap of making it cutesy: Please God no love
story between Flora and the drones. I almost don’t dare to think of
it.
Q: If you had to liken "The Bees" to another book, what would
it be?
A: That's a dangerous question. I love Aldous Huxley, I love
George Orwell - that sense of alienation and somebody struggling to
make sense of the world.
Q: Will you continue with this nature theme in your next
book?
A: Yes. I've always been interested in the natural world and
it gave me huge pleasure as a child. I could be absorbed for hours
by sticklebacks in a jar; that sounds like such a bucolic pleasure
now. Being able to immerse myself in research about the natural
world is such a joy. Nature is amazing.
(Editing by Michael Roddy and Hugh Lawson)
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