The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia

Amy  

historical fiction, magical realism

Set in a small Mexican village in the early 1900s, the villagers deal with fallout from the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Flu, and WWI. There are several unique and charming characters around which the story is centered, particularly Simonopio who was abandoned as a baby with a cleft palate and discovered by an old village woman while he was seemingly being protected by a swarm of bees.

Told mostly chronologically, with stops/rewinds/restarts from different points of view, it was well-crafted and beautifully told. Normally, with this many perspective changes, an author would announce the time period and/or the character’s name at the start of each chapter. However, Sofia Segovia did not do this. Thankfully, her excellent writing made things clear pretty quickly.  Interestingly, the story was mostly told in third person by an omniscient narrator. But there were chapters of The Murmur of Bees told in the first person, from a more current time period.  This more recent point of view, looking back on other events in the book, gave a clue about things that were to come for the Morales family.

This novel’s pacing was generally slow but not to the point that I was bored. Segovia masterfully made the characters so loveable that the reader wanted to spend time with them and find out what would happen to them. She communicated the texture of this story so beautifully. Simonopio’s special talents were a wonderful surprise for this lover of magical realism. (Also, I love his name!)

At this time in my life, reading about the political and social disagreements during the Mexican Revolution as well as the traumas of the Spanish Flu made me sad. Americans have learned nothing, it seems, from history. I mean, I already knew this but reading in detail about aspects of life which we are still facing today was depressing. Yet, despite the upsetting reminder of how ugly and ignorant our civilization has become these days, this story wasn’t really about those things. It was about love, family, and survival.

The narrators were Xe Sands and Angelo Di Loreto (he read the first-person chapters). They were great voice actors! But the distraction of the poor audio quality of Sands’ narration pulled me out of the story at times, especially at the beginning before I was able to get used to it. Her voice sounded muffled as if she was too close to the microphone. And she sometimes didn’t pronounce things clearly.  There were times I had to rewind the audiobook to better understand what she had just said. And that was VERY annoying. This happened less as the book went on. But that’s a Big Problem for an audiobook.  Because of this, I cannot give Sands any more than a B- rating despite her effective acting. I give Di Loreto an A-. Sadly, I just read that he died at a young age just over a year ago.