A strange little book about meditation and appreciating the quiet, small things in life.

Finch begins the story as an office drone who has a boring job and a boring, unsatisfying life. He eventually falls into the opportunity to become an estate hermit for an eccentric millionaire and over time he becomes a grizzled, skinny, nearly blind hermit who lives off the land in his bee-loud glade and finds that his spartan life is more valuable that money.

A book that highlights the beauty of meditation, nature, silence, and connections (however brief) with other people.

It's not a book for everybody, but if you've ever daydreamed about wandering around in the backcountry of our National Parks or retreating to Walden Pond, I think you'll enjoy it very much.

(I TOALLY want to be somebody's hermit now!)

( )

While I think this was a well written book, it's the subject matter of the story that's made me not rate it higher. I don't really like reading books or watching movies that try to teach me moral or political lessons, call me shallow, but that's just the way I am.
This is the story of Finch, a casper milquetoast of a man, who agrees to live his life at the whim of a very wealthy man, Mr. Crane for 5,000,000 bucks. Finch's new position?, Mute Hermit.
Reminiscent of the movie 'Cast Away', our story revolves around Finch's adjustment to his new environment, but because of the written word we are able to follow his thoughts as he goes through this experience and finds peace in the world of nature that surrounds him.
The problem with the narrative for me was the lack of conflict. Finch doesn't care about money, he doesn't even seek out the Hermit gig, he is pretty much just a drone who waits for someone, anyone, to steer him in the next direction and so Crane is just the next person to take him by the arm and lead him down the garden path, literally.
( )

Postmodern Crusoe

The Bee-Loud Glade
By Steve Himmer

Kensington, MD: Atticus Books, 2011

The conceit of this novel is an appealing one: a man who has grown so accustomed to a dull, trivial office job that when he’s let go he simply sits in his apartment, unwilling or unable to take an action of any kind – is hired by a fabulously wealthy man to enjoy a permanent life as the official hermit in his vast garden. The man, Finch, and the billionaire, Mr. Crane (along with his trophy wife) then enter into a long, slow dance of periodic pas-de-deux; for the most part, Mr. Crane – who looks in on Finch from his house with a telescope – is an employer of few demands, though inclined toward sudden whims: he asks his hermit to take up Tai-Chi, to meditate on top of the cave that is his shelter, to learn to play the flute. True, he can be generous – he pays Finch handsomely, even as he provides food and shelter to the point where his hermit has no real needs – but he remains a cryptic employer, and Finch his hired cipher. He even builds a river, upon which his personal recluse takes to floating on his back each afternoon, working on a self-proposed project of thinking about nothing.

It would seem to be a veritable paradise – Finch has only to dodge the less-successful of his employer’s notions (artificial winter, a resident lion) and keep one very specific vow: that of silence. And so, when the telegenic Mrs. Crane comes to call upon Finch in his solitary cave, there is every manner of temptation: personal, sexual, and (worst of all) conversational. Finch, though tested, clings to his vows as devoutly as an observant Benedictine monk, and though tried in the flesh conquers in the spirit. In addition to Mrs. Crane, Mr. Crane also – though more rarely – visits his man, spewing bits of random CEO-speak like a sort of corporate version of Chauncey Gardner in Being There: “We must delegate” – “Share the load” – “Landscapes, Finch, it’s all landscapes” – “The river’s the thing.” His workers maintain the gardens, adding rivers and weather on command, and leave food and the odd, quizzical gift – a flute, a box of paints, garden tools – at Finch’s cave. Every garden needs a hermit, Mr. Crane believes, and he regularly re-tools both man and garden.

The jacket blurbs would lead one to believe that Thoreau’s Walden is one of the sources with which this tale tinkers, but the real tutor text here is surely Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. It’s a meditation on solitude, though unlike Crusoe Finch is completely, almost monomaniacally non-productive. His task is not to turn his island into a miniature version of an English farm, to cultivate – but simply to ruminate. He’s almost disturbingly compliant, not only obeying every one of Mr. Crane’s commands, but daily searching his mind to discern what it is Mr. Crane *might* have wanted. He never violates his vow of silence, though sorely tempted to do so when joined for a swim by Mrs. Crane, or when his solitude is interrupted by two hikers who pitch their tent a stone’s throw from his cave. In his previous career, Finch had enjoyed a listless life in a corner cubicle at a company that sold plastic plants; in his new world, he similarly leads an existence which to call “retiring" falls short of the mark. If Crusoe was industry, Finch is lassitude, an office-worker-turned-hermit who makes herb tea and paddles about in his pond with all the passion of a postmodern Bartelby. Here, in a land where he can do nothing in the usual sense of the word, he doesn’t even have to prefer not to.

There’s an enchantment in this book – an engagement – but also a sort of stasis. The end of the novel alludes to a significant change in Finch’s circumstances, but we’re left to guess what it was. Still, in this strikingly original début, Steve Himmer, at his best, reminds ones of another Steve – Millhauser – with the wry dryness of his prose. ( )

This book was like a cross between Castaway and Big Brother. Finch has lost his job and falls into a depression after a long time of not showering or leaving the house he answers a spam email for an unknown job and the next day a limo shows up and whisks him away to a big mansion compound where a billionaire wants him to be his garden hermit, for 7 years and $5 million and Finch accepts. This is the odd premise of this fascinating book.

This was such a unique book it is hard to review… What started as a “job” for $5 million dollars turns into a life Finch loves and he never wants to leave his garden. He spends his day in reflective meditation, floating naked in the river that was built just for him, working in his vegetable field and he is very happy way happier than he was in his old life. Even though he knows his whole life is being filmed and recorded he finds ways to ignore the cameras. His new boss sets tasks for him along the way but eventually things change and Finch is all alone and quite happy. Oh I don’t want to give too much away but will say Finch does have a choice to make and it made me wonder which choice I would make.

The narration of this audiobook is done by Mark F. Smith and he does a very nice job and I would listen to him again. This is straight up storytelling with only a couple different voices but it was a story well told by Mark F. Smith. As always the production value from iambik audio is top notch.

The serene peaceful life Finch leads made me wonder if I could do it give up all my creature comforts and electronics to live as a hermit. Honestly I don’t think I could, at least not for the amount of time Finch does. I enjoyed this book and was never bored with Finch’s life even though he pretty much does nothing. I highly recommend this book so you can start your own reflective meditations on how rushed and busy our lives are.

4 Stars

Received from Audiobookjukebox Solid Gold Reviewer Program ( )

I had some serious misconceptions about this book. The start of the blurb mentioned that the main character of the book worked for a corporation as some kind of marketing blogger that maintained a dozen or more online identities, all aimed at promoting a certain brand of artificial plant. I didn't read the rest of the blurb, I got myself a copy because I thought that sounded amazing.

The Bee-Loud Glade is really about a guy named Finch that loses his corporate job and gives up on life. When he's offered a job by the super-rich Mr. Crane to become an ornamental hermit in Crane's garden, he jumps at the offer.

"Hermits, Mr. Finch. Any respectable estate had a hermit in residence on the grounds. Visible from the windows, in the background as estate holders and their guests strolled the lawn, that sort of thing. Usually for a term of seven years, subject to evaluation, of course. How does seven years sound to you, Mr. Finch?"
How did it sound? I didn't know - it sounded perfect, and it sounded absurd, and it sounded like an elaborate practical joke in which I'd been ensnared. So I just asked, "As a hermit?"

The rest of the book is concerned with Finch's life in Mr. Crane's garden. Finch is given an uncomfortable tunic, a cave in which he can sleep and seek shelter, and three meals a day. He must take a vow of silence, stop cutting his hair and shaving his beard, and cease bathing. Mr. Crane occasionally gives him instructions or inserts objects in his life. Finch is instructed to paint, to sit in trees, to meditate, to keep a small garden. He is given a wooden flute until it is taken away and then given back. A river is installed.

Yes, a river. Installed.

There's a certain amount of absurdity in The Bee-Loud Glade, but it fits so cleanly into the world that Steve Himmer has built that it's easy to be like Finch and just go with the flow. There's very little spoken dialog and most of the novel is made up of Finch's internal dialog.

When I had gotten through about a quarter of the novel I started to become concerned about how this hermit story was going to hold my attention for another 150 pages. I had nothing to be worried about because Himmer is up to something here. The Bee-Loud Glade isn't just a silly story about a hermit, but it's about being alone, religion, the absurdity of money and power, the nature of work, the distortion of fame, and the impossibility of true independence. With all of those big ideas, Himmer never gets preachy. He allows Finch naturally grow from a sad, gray little man to a man at peace with life and his surroundings.

The Bee-Loud Glade is Steve Himmer's first novel and I hope there will be many more to come. The writing is light and fun and while full of ideas, it never feels like he's beating you over the head. The ideas are not unique, but the way in which they are presented is fresh and with a dash of humor. I really enjoyed The Bee-Loud Glade and I'm looking forward to seeing what Steve Himmer does next. ( )