In 1908, The United States was at war with itself. The standardization of American English was torn between the language you’re reading now, and the Roosevelt/Carnegie-backed Simplified Spelling Board. The Spelling Board fought hard to “simplify” the written word, while the rest of the country scratched their heads at this new “fonetic” spelling. Then, from the depths of battle came the first ever National Spelling Bee Competition, and its use of standard English spelling began the death knell of simplified English. Burgeoning out of our cultural emphasis on a unified language, spelling, education system, and its opportunity as a class equalizer, spelling bees provide a unique look into Americana. Myla Goldberg’s 2000 debut novel Bee Season, uses this seemingly-squeaky clean All-American pastime to look at a modern family whose obsession to rise above banality ends up tearing them apart
Eleven years old and unimpressive by all accounts, Eliza feels dull compared to her gifted and successful family. Until she hits a stroke of luck and surprisingly wins her school’s spelling bee, and then the district spelling bee after that. What follows is the portrait of a Pennsylvanian family at the turn of the century as they encourage Eliza in her spelling pursuits while facing internal inadequacies and jealousies through religiosity, obsessiveness, and the pressures they put on themselves and each other. Eliza finds herself stuck in a dizzying world of ritualism, reaching out for her family who are lost in the realm of greater ascendancy.
“Eliza begins to look at life in alphabetical terms. School is consonantal in its unchanging status. God, full of possibility, is a vowel. Death: the ultimate consonant.”
Myla Goldberg
Perfection! Perfectimundo! Enlightenment! The “True Self”! Tikkun Olam. Each member of Eliza’s family is seeking some sort of divine wholeness through ritualistic obsession. They forgo their familial connections in search of this supernatural belonging, ostracizing and distancing themselves from each other in the process. While reading this book for Jewish Heritage Month, I was surprised at the depths of religious mysticism discussed in Bee Season. Eliza’s father, Saul, studies Kabbalah, and believes that through Eliza’s new gift for spelling, she can heal the world, placing the broken shards back together to make everything whole and Divine. Eliza’s brother and mother in turn, are also caught up in their own searching for this Divine. Aaron, chasing after the strong otherworldly presence he felt during his Bar Mitzvah, finds it in the intense Hare Krishna Movement. And Miriam obsessively surrounds herself with (stolen) perfect objects to reach a sense of wholeness, while risking herself. Each family member quietly leading to their own destruction. For Adult Book Club Groups, Bee Season will surprise readers with the lengths the Naumann family goes to achieve satisfaction and maintain family order. Discussions around literary foils, perfectionism, self-doubt, and our own search for that completed wholeness can be paired with a viewing of the 2005 movie adaptation starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.
Further Resources:
- “Song for Myla Goldberg” by The Decemberists
- “You’re Wrong About” Podcast: The Great American Spelling Bee with Gabe Henry
If you’re interested in requesting Bee Season for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 11 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Goldberg, Myla. Bee Season. Knopf Doubleday. 2001.
