The Bee-Loud Glade

( 1 )

All Available Formats + Editions

——

$8.99

NOOK Book

——

$8.99

The Bee-Loud Glade: A Novel (eBook) Pub. Date: 4/4/2011 Publisher: Atticus Books
$9.00

$14.48

Paperback

$9.00

$14.48

The Bee-Loud Glade Pub. Date: 4/28/2011 Publisher: Atticus Books
——

$13.27

Audiobook

——

$13.27

The Bee-Loud Glade (MP3 - Unabridged) Pub. Date: 11/29/2011 Publisher: Iambik Audio Inc.

Advertising

Overview

When Finch, a recently fired marketer of plastic plants, takes a vow of silence to live as a hermit on an eccentric billionaire's estate, he finds that his attempt to contemplate nature and deeper truths is foiled by his noisy inner thoughts and his new employer's booming demands.

What People Are Saying

Frederick Reiken

"With The Bee-Loud Glade, Steve Himmer has written a hypnotic and heartfelt debut novel, interweaving naturalistic beauty and postmodern complexity within this compulsively readable parable. Whether the story's hermit-for-hire is a man approaching some form of enlightenment or merely the whim of an eccentric billionaire remains up for debate, but the novel itself is unambiguously ingenious and very clearly announces a shining new talent." --(Frederick Reiken, author of Day for Night, The Lost Legends of New Jersey, and The Odd Sea)

Michael Kindness

"Featuring a faceless drone from the world of corporate America and an eccentric billionaire whose whims change by the week, Steve Himmer's The Bee-Loud Glade is a wonderful novel that's hard to describe, but that's a good thing. Just go where this stunning book takes you and enjoy the story, the characters, and the language." --(Michael Kindness, host of Books on the Nightstand)

Peter Grandbois

"Meet Finch: 10 years into his job as Assistant to the Director of Brand Awareness at Second Nature Modern Greenery, writer of dozens of blogs where he creates imaginary lives for himself — none as surreal as the life he'll soon lead as a hermit. Enter Himmer's humorous, carefully imagined world. Watch his skillful hand transform Finch into a postmodern Thoreau before your eyes. Sit still. Pay attention. Do all this, and you, too, will fall under this novel's wondrous spell. I promise." --(Peter Grandbois, author of The Gravedigger, The Arsenic Lobster, and Nahoonkara)

Tom McCarthy

An allegorical novel that seems eerily contemporary. Thoreau meets Ballard, meets Huysmans and many more. --(Tom McCarthy, author of Remainder and C)

William Walsh

"In The Bee-Loud Glade, Steve Himmer examines the charm of inertia. He professionalizes hermitry, making it a spectacle that is equal parts sitcom and documentary. The premise is wild but the execution is contemplative, making this novel funny two ways: funny ha-ha and funny strange." --(William Walsh, author of Questionstruck and Ampersand, Mass.)

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

As assistant to the director of Brand Awareness for a plastic plant company, Finch is a corporate drone, 10 years and counting. His job primarily consists of talking up company product on numerous weblogs and chat rooms via dozens of fake users he's created. When he's fired, he has no interest in other work, but has bills to pay, so he takes a billionaire named Crane up on his offer. The job: to sit in his garden, perform basic tasks, and above all, never speak; in short, to be a decorative hermit. For this service, Finch will be paid a staggering sum. Once on the job, Finch learns some valuable lessons about money, self-sufficiency, and even himself, but what he doesn't count on is how completely this job will change his attitude towards life, leading him down a path he never imagined. Himmer's debut novel evokes Chekhov, Thoreau, Fowles, and others but unfortunately without the resonance of those authors. His intentions are obvious: Finch is an everyman designed to be identified with by the modern cubicle-dweller; Crane represents the petulant prerogatives of the ultra-rich. The book doesn't ultimately attain what Himmer hopes it will, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. (Apr.)

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780984510580
Publisher: Atticus Books
Publication date: 4/28/2011
Pages: 222
Sales rank: 624,108
Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3

( 1 )

Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(1)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines

Tell the world what you think of this product.

Add Recommendations

Your Name: Create a Pen Name or Leave Anonymously

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

- HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
- Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
- Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
- Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
- Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
- Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
- Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

- By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
- Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
- See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.

TheReadingWriter

Posted May 8, 2011

more from this reviewer

Good reading group material...raises lots of great questions

Even the name Himmer reminds one of a sound one might hear in a bee-loud glen. Himmer the author leads us into a world we vaguely recognize (perhaps we are blind, too) as modern-day America: outside a large city sits a mansion on a hill. Just as in days of yore, when wealthy landowners changed the landscape to suit their tastes, a wealthy capitalist has modified his land holdings to create a lovely locale but bemoans the fact he has no time to enjoy it. So he hires a disaffected young man to live the life of a happy hermit in the environment he has created. Things go remarkably smoothly for a time.
**Reading Group questions Ahead**
Our hermit describes his daily life in a way that parallels in important ways the life of an author. When one chooses to join the writing life, the author seems to say, one signs off to major portions of the ordinary days lived by the majority. One spends lots of time alone, observing, trying to achieve some level of proficiency in arts (not just writing, but other expressive arts) one has never practiced before. One must become wholly focused and may even waste a lot of time in trying to find a way through the lonely existence of learning to see. But eventually, when our hermit is offered an opportunity to leave his cave and live the life of a wealthy man, he turns it down. By this time he is used to scrabbling in the dirt for his food, and finds the wondrous taste of his own production payment enough.
The fact that our hermit actually became sightless as time wore on made me curious. Could this be the selfishness of authors who abandon other familial or residential duties to focus on their one interest, leaving the heavy-lifting (wage-earning, cooking, cleaning, child-raising) to loved ones? But since our hermit decides to stay where he is despite his blindness, I begin to think that perhaps he has found his inner life more rewarding, in the end, than living in the world. And perhaps in his sightlessness, he can actually see motive and remember beauty more clearly. Though he strains to see, the outlines his vision allows gives him what he needs to go on. Is Old Man River an editor? Is Mr. Crane (the name can't be irrelevant) a large publisher? Is Mrs. Crane the distractions of the flesh? Who, then, are the hikers? Fellow artists that gather to perfect their craft, stealing occasionally, the fruits of another?

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble