A review by sashabaker177
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The book begins as a wonderfully tragicomic picture of a dysfunctional Irish family, with an economic crisis exposing simmering tensions. Murray's ability to inhabit each of the family members' perspectives is admirable, and adds to the wit of the text.

Another strength of the text is its ability to situate the characters in a political context they are largely ignoring, and highlight that tension throughout.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

However, in the end, it felt like everything was simultaneously a little too neat, and a little too unresolved. Bringing everything to a satisfying clinax requires some degree of contrivance, which I tend to have less patience for in novels than in films, but which I understand to be necessary at time. However, the story ends on an ambiguous note, making the contrivance feel less earned.

Perhaps the degree of meladrama was a bigger issue than the ambiguity. The sheer quantity of events that happen right at the end of the book makes it all feel a bit rushed, and make threads that don't feel necessary really stand out. I think the whole Ethan plotline could go and little would have been lost. 

Pretty much everything involving Ryszard and Augustina bothered me. There are a couple of truly irredeemable characters – Imelda's dad and the man who raped and beat up Dickie – but Murray's ability to create moments of empathy for unlikeable people like Elaine and Big Mike is admirable.

However, this only serves to highlight how thinly drawn our only two immigrant characters are. They exist to be sexualised to the extent that they have no other discernable character traits.

There are also some issues with pacing. The changes of perspective were often accompanied by a slowing of narrative momentum. Imelda's section in particular felt like a lot of filling in the blanks of the past, brining the present-day element of the story to a standstill. Dickie's backstory felt better integrated with the present.

I feel very torn about Dickie's character. On one hand, the ripple effect of one man's shame is a compelling narrative device. On the other hand, that shame being internalised homophobia gives the story a homophobic tinge itself: wherein a gay man's inability to accept himself is seen as the destructive force, rather than the homphobia that breeds that shame (which generally goes underexplored).

It's definitely an interesting read, and one that has left me with a lot to chew on, but I'm not sure it is the masterpiece I have seen it lauded as being.
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