THE HISTORY OF BEES By Maja Lunde, Simon & Schuster, Rs 550

In the 1980s, farmers in some districts of Sichuan province of China started hand-pollinating flowers. The natural pollinators, honeybees, were disappearing. A market-driven need to overproduce and the consequent use of pesticides, coupled with climate changes, had disrupted their natural cycles, or worse, killed them. Around the time, a similar story could be heard among apple farmers in Himachal Pradesh. An expert in the field, Uma Partap, pointed to the overproduction of the self-sterile Royal Delicious variety, dictated by consumer greed, leading to a fall in the honeybee population. Farmers resorted either to bouquet-pollination or hand-pollination.

Maja Lunde, Norwegian writer of screenplays and fiction for children and 'young adults', begins her novel, The History of Bees, with the story of Tao, a hand-pollinator from Sichuan province of China in the year 2098. In Tao's village, honeybees had disappeared earlier than anywhere else and, as a result, after "The Collapse" (2045 CE) when everyone resorted to hand-pollination, they were at an advantage. From her first-person narrative it becomes clear that a very large number of people are employed alongside her as hand-pollinators. Their lack of personal agency, and the cacophony of voices that break out during lunch, which have a lulling effect on Tao, give the impression of her being little different from a worker bee in any anonymous hive.

The second chapter takes us to Hertfordshire, England, in 1851. A defeated man, with help from his daughter, Charlotte, works up his strength to revive an old interest in bees. His experiments with hive designing meet uneven success but, through his story, Lunde gives her readers an understated but astute glimpse into gender politics within the Victorian family at a time when, in scientific research, the distinction between professional and amateur engagement was crystallizing. The third story is set in 2007, Ohio, where George struggles against odds to stick to older principles of bee-keeping. His son, Tom, is a gifted writer on the verge of embarking on a PhD, much against his father's wishes.

The narratives run parallel, each chapter no more than five or six pages long, until the connecting thread between them is revealed at the end. Lunde's ability to develop characters and relationships is balanced finely with her sense of rhythm. I found it easy to immerse myself in each chapter, while waiting in suspense for a turn the other narratives might take at the next opportunity.

The three stories mark out significant moments in the history of human-bee relationships: first, when beehive designs are being standardized, second, synchronous with the 'Colony Collapses' that took place across North America (which is when the global phenomenon was recognized as a threat), and third, a critical moment in the practice of hand-pollination. On the one hand, the novel traces the radically altering circumstances in which the lives are led, owing to anthropogenic climate change. On the other, it explores questions about the human condition that continue to haunt generations: the relationship between parents and offspring; the conflict between individuality and social living.

If the book is about bee-keepers, the question naturally arises: why call it The History of Bees? For one, the title is a reference to an eponymous book within the novel written in 2037 by Thomas Savage, which holds significance for Tao's story. But in asking this question, perhaps we are also prompted to re-examine the seemingly inevitable anthropocentrism of literature. Is it possible to talk of nature and changes in our environment without reference to the human? What about other species of bees which are regarded as less useful to human beings? (There are around 20,000 known species of bees; only seven are recognized as honeybees.)

The History of Bees has been described as a new entrant into the genre called 'cli-fi' or climate fiction. To be marked by genre today is not necessarily regarded as "banishment" from the "mansion" of serious literature, as Amitav Ghosh fears. The novel, then, gestures towards the kind of books that can and should be written - incorporating scientific research about the environment within a relatable framework - as Savage did successfully.

Lunde's own research around bee-keeping blends seamlessly with the narrative, except in one late chapter where Tao indulges in an apparently untimely exegesis. Lunde infuses William's narrative with a subtle critique of patriarchy. His theft of Charlotte's design of a revolutionary beehive goes unremarked by the narrator, but not unrecorded. (How many such Rosalind Franklins are there?) Another standout passage for me is the fable of a bee-keeping boy who chases away a monstrous snake (186-188), which George remembers telling Tom.

The Simon & Schuster edition comes with a helpful appendix containing questions for reading group discussions and an author interview. One hopes the publishing house will reconsider its policy of omitting open quotes at chapter beginnings even if there are dropped capitals.