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A review by morgandhu
The Blood of Angels by Johanna Sinisalo
4.0
In The Blood of Angels, Johanna Sinisalo has returned to the themes of her previous novel, Birdbrain - the thoughtless use and abuse of the ecosystem by humans intent on their own needs, disharmony among humans and between humans and nature, and the idea of a consciousness in nature that responds to the damage wrought on it.
In The Blood of Angels, Sinisalo focuses on bees, and the mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder, which in this near-future world has become Colony Collapse Catastrophe (CCC) - the sudden disappearance of the worker population of a major proportion of the industrialised world's hives, each abandoned hive leaving behind only a few immature bees and a dead or dying queen. The loss of so many bees, particularly in North America, has resulted in food crisis as plant crops dependent on bees for pollination are dying out, and meat, reliant on plant feeds for its continued production, is becoming a rare and expensive food. Parts of Europe - including Finland where the novel is set - and most of Africa and Asia are not yet as hard hit by CCC, but there are signs that more trouble is coming.
Against this background, the novel is structured around four generations of a family. Pupa the beekeeper, the protagonist's grandfather, is seen only in remembrance, and Ari, his son, the industrialist beef producer, only in a few scenes. The novel belongs to Orvo and his son Eero, both of whom are shaped by their relations to their fathers and grandfathers, and the relations of those men to the natural world.
Orvo is a funeral director by trade, but his heart is in the bee colonies he inherited from his grandfather. Eero is a student and ecological activist, one of the key members in the Animalist Revolutionary Army (ARA), whose main focus is animal rights. He blogs about animal rights, and selection from his blog - many of them dealing with, on the one hand, the role of bees in the ecology and the importance of CCC, and on the other, the corrupt and cruel practices of factory farming of animals.
When CCC strikes in one of Orvo's hives, and tragedy occurs during an ARA action at Ari's Hopevale Meats factory, Orvo discovers what may lie behind the disappearance of the bees, and a multitude of ancient myths linking bees, the gods, and the souls of men.
A stark tale of family tragedy, an ecological activist's primer, a narrative of a slow apocalypse of human making, an indictment of man's inability to think beyond his own needs and desires, an examination of death and and the potentials for rebirth, this novel functions on many levels, and exquisitely so.
In The Blood of Angels, Sinisalo focuses on bees, and the mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder, which in this near-future world has become Colony Collapse Catastrophe (CCC) - the sudden disappearance of the worker population of a major proportion of the industrialised world's hives, each abandoned hive leaving behind only a few immature bees and a dead or dying queen. The loss of so many bees, particularly in North America, has resulted in food crisis as plant crops dependent on bees for pollination are dying out, and meat, reliant on plant feeds for its continued production, is becoming a rare and expensive food. Parts of Europe - including Finland where the novel is set - and most of Africa and Asia are not yet as hard hit by CCC, but there are signs that more trouble is coming.
Against this background, the novel is structured around four generations of a family. Pupa the beekeeper, the protagonist's grandfather, is seen only in remembrance, and Ari, his son, the industrialist beef producer, only in a few scenes. The novel belongs to Orvo and his son Eero, both of whom are shaped by their relations to their fathers and grandfathers, and the relations of those men to the natural world.
Orvo is a funeral director by trade, but his heart is in the bee colonies he inherited from his grandfather. Eero is a student and ecological activist, one of the key members in the Animalist Revolutionary Army (ARA), whose main focus is animal rights. He blogs about animal rights, and selection from his blog - many of them dealing with, on the one hand, the role of bees in the ecology and the importance of CCC, and on the other, the corrupt and cruel practices of factory farming of animals.
When CCC strikes in one of Orvo's hives, and tragedy occurs during an ARA action at Ari's Hopevale Meats factory, Orvo discovers what may lie behind the disappearance of the bees, and a multitude of ancient myths linking bees, the gods, and the souls of men.
A stark tale of family tragedy, an ecological activist's primer, a narrative of a slow apocalypse of human making, an indictment of man's inability to think beyond his own needs and desires, an examination of death and and the potentials for rebirth, this novel functions on many levels, and exquisitely so.