Although the old man’s love for beekeeping and passion for inspecting
murders initially seem completely different in The Final Solution, I think that they are actually quite similar. His
love for beekeeping is one that provokes both darkness and satisfaction. While
the old man is beekeeping, his thoughts often meander to death, and he begins
to lose sense of himself, like when he said “Morning, ladies”, and then didn’t
know if he had actually thought it instead. This idea of losing himself,
however, shows just how much passion he has for the activity. He’s able to help
the bees, and even help Linus learn how to bee-keep, even though it sparks both
physical and emotional pain sometimes. Similarly, his passion for murder
investigation brings on hard emotions, but also a sense of accomplishment. Just
like he would think about death in murder cases, he thinks about the value of
life while beekeeping, as he “feared dying in some undignified way” (77). His goal, in specific circumstance presented
in The Final Solution, is not only to
solve the murder, but to simply help Linus find his comfort (Bruno) again. Even
while retired, the old man finds the energy he used in cases when he was young,
all in an effort to help someone. Although there are hard moments and conversation
throughout the process, he has a goal: to better the world.
I thought about this as I was reading too. The beekeeping is not an easy task, especially for the old man. It's hard for him to get outside to tend to the bees and he thinks about how one wrong move and he could break a bone. Even though he sometimes gets hurt while tending the bees, he keeps doing it. He admits to the man from London that the bees sting him 'constantly. He also says that he doesn't even like honey. So then why does he still tend to the bees if it's hard, painful, potentially dangerous, and he doesn't actually get anything from it? I think part of it is a need to keep busy and feel like he still has a purpose in life even though he doesn't solve cases often anymore.
ReplyDeleteLast night I attended Chabon's lecture in the chapel and he read a piece he had prepared for the Washington Post. In this short story, Chabon wrote again about death--the death of the protagonist's sister and of the young boy's freedom when he goes to live with his grandmother. In both The Final Solution and his short story, Chabon's characters acknowledge death's constant presence.
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