My New Year’s resolution to read a book was swiftly amended to reading a book a fortnight!
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
I have watched and loved the movie of this book many times. Honestly I found that where there were changes made by the movie, I preferred them. But what I did like about the book was the references to Our Blessed Mary. The faith of the sisters was explored in the film, but not in as much detail. In the book they celebrated “Mary Day” (The Feast of the Assumption) with honey cakes and festivities. They broke and shared honey cakes together like communion. Lily learnt that Mary was inside her, that she didn’t have to touch the statue of Mary to feel connected to her. She only had to look inside herself and feel her Spirit with her.
I feel her in unexpected moments, her Assumption into heaven happening in places inside me. She will suddenly rise, and when she does, she does not go up, up into the sky, but further and further inside me.
A nice story about the power and importance of mothers and their presence in our lives.
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. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina–a town that holds the secret to her mother’s past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
– Penguin Books Blurb