The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

I've been somewhat hesitant to pick up Paul Murray's new novel – not because of its 600+ page length – but because his previous novel “The Mark and the Void” was a disappointment to me. It had an interesting concept but I felt it didn't have much heart. Conversely, “The Bee Sting” is filled with so much emotional tension I was riveted. It also has an increasingly suspenseful story and explores a number of meaningful issues. And Murray makes a very bold choice with the ending which has got a lot of readers talking! My online book club spent the past month discussing it and it's so interesting reading everyone's point of view.

This novel is a big contemporary family saga set in a small Irish town. We follow the perspectives of the Barnes family from their different points of view during a specific period of time. They are going through a crisis as a family as well as having their own serious individual issues which might take them over the edge. It deals with economic instability, environmental decline, the sometimes repressive nature of community, infidelity, internal and external homophobia, and the silences which exist within the home when family members aren't honest with each other or themselves. This is all couched within a very dramatic plot with many mysteries and misdirects which make it increasingly thrilling to read.

It's so clever how Murray focuses on the perspectives of all the family members in turn to sympathetically portray their different points of view. I was convinced by each version of this family's story which moves from teenager Cassandra to adolescent PJ to the mother Imelda to the father Dickie. Even when I had something like a complete portrait there were still lots of gaps and misunderstandings which are dealt with in the final section of the novel. As well as creating suspense, this gives such a strong sense for how so many conflicts and contradictions occur within one family. Though this appears to be a normal family from the outside and they broadly support each other, there's a lack of emotional openness and there are an increasing number of lies which fill their household. Even the title of this novel is a lie. It begins to feel absurd that they can live within such close physical proximity but have so much psychological distance that they don't really see each other anymore. There's also a tragedy to this because knowing what we do about each family member's inner life we know if they were honest with each other they could help each other in meaningful ways. The novel shows how this is such a common state of affairs for families to fall into and how it can lead to great heartache and potential tragedy.

There are so many details within this novel which could be discussed at length, but one of the most striking things about it which any reader who completes the book will want to talk about is the ending. I'll get into spoilers here because it's impossible not to if I'm going to explain my own theory about it. The noteworthy thing about the ending is that it gives no conclusion. Dickie and his friend Victor are hidden in the forest preparing to shoot the man who has been blackmailing Dickie. Meanwhile, his children and wife Imelda are separately trying to find him though it's night and there's a torrential rain storm. Just as there's a click where Dickie might shoot one or all of them the novel ends. Though this later section has switched to a second person narrative with lines attributed to different characters the final line of the book simply states “You are doing this for love.” Which “you” and what “this” is remains unknown. The ambiguity of this ending is in many ways the point of this book. It prompts reflections about our own family life and why honest communication is difficult but necessary.

I can't help speculating on what happens in the moment after this book ends. Having grown to intensely care about these characters and intimately know their lives, I can't help wondering about what happens next in their story. Here are the two likely scenarios I envision: Dickie and/or Victor unintentionally or intentionally shoot one or all members of the family prompting Dickie to shoot himself and/or Victor OR that a shot is fired and misses the family creating a moment of nearly averted crisis and the beginning of an open communication/reconciliation that Imelda, PJ and Cass were hoping to start by finding Dickie. There are an infinite number of variations and mixture of these events which could also occur. However, we can speculate about likely outcomes given details and foreshadowing which have come before.

To start with, there's the very first line of this novel: “In the next town over, a man had killed his family.” This local tragedy casts a shadow over the story as this unknown family and their now empty house have become the subject of gossip and morbid intrigue. It's poignant thinking that if things also end in tragedy for the Barnes' family they'd also likely become just another subject of gossip for the community. In fact, they already are with their failing business and the corruption surrounding it. However, this local legend also conveys the sense that Dickie might shoot his family as well as himself. This is reinforced by Dickie's later conversation with Victor where Victor says the only way to be sure to keep Dickie's secret from his family is to kill them.

Eilish, a member of my online book club, pointed out that at the beginning of the novel Cass feels very anxious about climate change and when the entire family becomes lost in the forest during a storm it's like the environment itself is threatening their lives. There's also the character of Imelda's Aunt Rose or her adopted Aunt who apparently has psychic abilities and in her delirious state seems to express warnings of a forthcoming tragedy. She stresses to Imelda that Cass shouldn't return and makes reference to a squirrel which could be PJ. Additionally, when Cass and PJ were younger they'd play a game in the forest where they were squirrels being hunted by their father. Cass makes reference to this in the very last line from any of the characters.

So, every sign seems to be pointing to a tragic conclusion which is about to occur. However, I have a theory that things might actually continue in a more positive direction for this family. Murray has structured this novel in a way that many sections end with a cliffhanger. Chapters that focus on a particular character end with the sense that something really bad might be about to occur. This is partly what makes this book such a compulsive read despite its considerable length. But when we finally find out the result of these suspenseful moments it often turns out to be okay. The threat Murray has created dissipates and the story continues. In doing so, I think the author is saying our lives can veer towards tragedy but we don't often go over the edge of the cliff. I think Murray has been steadily preparing us for this final moment of crisis and if we continue with this line of logic, no one would be fatally shot. There might be panic; someone might be wounded, but I'm guessing that being pushed to the brink of destruction would cause these family members to finally start being honest with each other and hopefully move towards positive changes in their life together because, after all, they are connected by love.

We'll never know for certain how their story ends and I think the lack of resolution is poignant. I believe Murray made the right decision in not giving us a definite conclusion. But I know some readers have found this too frustrating. There is a whole other level of discussion to be had about this ending. Does it rely too much on coincidence? Is it believable that Imelda, Cass and PJ would all suddenly have a change of heart and care about Dickie when previously they'd mostly ignored or dismissed him? I think like a lot of dramatic plots it relies on some contrivances. But personally I can forgive that because it made the story so engaging and ultimately it produces a powerful message. Like all the best epics it was both a pleasure to read and increasingly engrossing so that I didn't want it to end.

The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray

I’ve been really looking forward to reading “The Mark and the Void.” There’s been what I think of as “rumblings” about it for some time including mentions on Twitter and in the press (both very positive and very negative reviews). Now that Booker predictions are already being made it’s tipped by some as a strong contender. References to it have made blips on my radar and, after receiving enough blips, I was sufficiently intrigued to put it at the top of my TBR pile. At one point I was chatting with two authors I really respect and both enthusiastically praised Murray and this new novel so I became determined to read it. Now I wonder if it’s one of those tragic cases of a book receiving too much hype because my overall response to this novel is something of a shrug.

It’s a fun idea which Murray self-consciously outlines at the start. A banker with hidden depths of spirit meets a writer who turns out to be a shallow charlatan. This combo yields thoughtful passages about the banking crisis in Ireland and observations about the interplay of art and life. French banker Claude uses his background in philosophy to assess the meaning of value for things and people in the modern world. It’s observed that “Life and the living of it have, for the first time in history, become separate. In recording our own reality – that is, in simultaneously experiencing and deferring experience – we pass from the actual into the virtual.” At the same time, the writer Paul makes a foil to Claude’s search for meaning in the modern malaise by seeking to exploit these foibles with his schemes to get rich. So he seeks to use our desire for intimate personal connections in real life filtered through the safety of virtual arenas to create a website Hotwaitress.com where you can be served by actual waitresses while knowing a profuse amount of personal details about their lives.

This is ridiculous and funny – the dark humour being that such sleazy disgusting websites do exist. Unfortunately, much of the humour in this novel feels quite broad and not all that haha. So periphery characters like Paul’s immigrant stripper wife who is also a well-educated literary theorist, protestors that dress like zombies and an artistic gay couple who slyly confess to adoring the musical Mamma Mia came across as a bit clunky to me because they’ve been inserted into scenes that read like situational comedy. It was difficult to feel much for them. There were some exceptions that show more of the shady reality of the world. For instance, Claude’s female co-worker Ish is put in the extremely uncomfortable situation where potential investors demand she get a lap dance at a gentlemen’s club (a situation she thankfully escapes). Her gradual disillusionment with her profession is effective, but she has a lovesickness for Claude which felt cloying. Probably the character I found most endearing was Paul’s young son Remington whose absurdist interjections provide a light relief.

All this might be okay if protagonists Claude and Paul succeeded as characters. Their relationship reminded me strongly of Stefan Zweig and his biography of Balzac. Like Claude, Zweig was devoted to the way art can elevate us out of the mire and pettiness of daily life. Yet he’s continuously frustrated because, like the character Paul, Balzac’s primary motivation was to get rich through ridiculous ploys which fail miserably and he only goes back to writing out of necessity to pay off debts. This tension makes for amusing interactions in “The Mark and the Void” but it’s a relationship so strained it comes across as unbelievable. If it weren’t for the author’s controlling hand Claude would certainly block Paul out of his life. Because their connection is the impetus for the story, they can’t be separated so the charade continues. Maybe that’s the point and, as the novel progresses, we’re made more and more self consciously aware of the limitations of novels. It’s stated that “The stories we read in books, what’s presented to us as being interesting – they have very little to do with real life as it’s lived today… People looking back over their lives, people having revelations, people discovering meaning. Meaning, that’s the big thing.” This condemnation of literature would seem to make the pursuit of reading fiction pointless because all the little insights we find within don’t offer any succour in reality. But if you take away the story there is little left to appreciate but clever artifice and I would have preferred to read a non-fiction book about the banking crisis in Ireland.

The trouble is that highlighting the characters and situation as a sort of post-modern construct means they never get much beyond that. It’s difficult to feel any heart. To be honest, there were long passages of this novel I found boring. This too is self consciously pointed out in the novel: “He’s boring, his life is boring, isn’t that the point? Isn’t that what makes his story true? He’s the modern man, he lives in his cocoon of numbers, he has everything anyone could want – or rather, he has enough money to buy anything anyone could want – yet his life is empty.” So the novel moves along giving details of the inner-workings of banking while the protagonists engage in a game of cat and mouse. I wanted more than that because I could feel real anger and frustration from the author about the financial crisis in Ireland. In one passage, seemingly out of nowhere, there is an extended searing critique of “the Irish, with their demon priests, their cellulite, their bus queues and beer bellies…” and later it’s remarked “the fact is that the Irish are at root a slave race.” This chastisement a man has for his own countrymen in relation to the economic disaster of his time is what I would be thrilled to read about – not a novel as an intellectual postmodern game-play. Anne Enright’s recent novel “The Green Road” did much more to capture the Irish in all their complexity and say something meaningful in the lead up to the housing bubble.

I don’t mean to condemn this novel because there are a lot of interesting things in it. The title itself takes on multiple meanings throughout the book. People target each other to exploit and use one another for empty monetary pursuits in a way that drains life of meaning so we’re left “swimming around in this void together.” An accusatory finger points from character to character to author to reader. “The Mark and the Void” made me wonder about the way we’re lulled into absenting ourselves from taking responsibility for participating in all of this. It has force and something to say; for me it just didn’t find the right framework to express it in or give me the fully immersive experience I want from a novel.