The Secret Life of Bees
by SUE MONK KIDD
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Book Summary Information
Author: SUE MONK KIDDEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Published: 2001
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 302
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS
Book Reviews of The Secret Life of Bees
Book Review: Great book! PS: Black Madonnas
Summary: 5 Stars
The book is wonderful; very well written! It is the tale of a young white girl coming of age in a tumultuous era in the South, while struggling to understand her relationships with her father, her deceased mother, the strong black women in her life, and a young black man. The characters are unforgettable. The prose is witty and the story is fascinating. You won't be able to put this one down. My husband enjoyed it too; his observation is that this is a 1960s female Huck Finn story of coming of age, where a young white girl has insight about the prejudices of her society through an adventure running away from home. Madonnas: A facet of the story has to do with images and deities. The women in Secret Life find strength and hope in their own invented variety of religion, and in the Black Madonna and masthead lady who to them represent the mother deity who loves and protects all her children (as the queen bee is the center of the hive, the cult figure and mother who is loved and worshipped by her children). If you are curious about the power of images and religion, and the origins of the Black Madonnas (who play a role in the story), Monique Scheer, in American Historical Review, available online [...]l provides a discussion easily accessible online. The Byzantine and Mediaeval Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic icons and altarpieces of the Hodegetria-type Virgin Mary from Europe, such as the Madonna of Czestochowa (upon which the fictional Bohemian Madonna in the book is based), did not originally have black skin. However, icons of the Madonna in the Ethopian Orthodox churches and Our Lady of Guadalupe in South America were in fact originally created with darker skin, resembling the local people. Some of the European images have darkened due to chemical reactions of the pigment (oxidation) and/or the accumulation of soot from candles and oil lamps on the tempera or encaustic (wax) paint surface over the centuries, as was common for all of the most venerated (i.e., most well-lighted with candles) images of Jesus and saints in churches, not only the Madonnas. Many have since been cleaned and placed in museums; soot may often be removed, but oxidation produces a permanent darkening.
Summary of The Secret Life of Bees
Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free.Subjects Books
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