Kurkov quietly lures us into the gray zone ... Sketching the life of only one family, Kurkov hints at the stories of so many Crimean Tatars who have found themselves forced out of their homes once again ... Kurkov’s knowledge of the peninsula, its peoples and traditions, on the other hand, is indisputable. Bejewelled by expressions in Crimean Tatar, which neither Sergeyich nor most readers are able to understand, the passages of Grey Bees set in Crimea are filled with a sense of the loss of a culture we failed to comprehend and to protect from destruction.
Andrey Kurkov has built a gripping story and universe ... Grey Bees shows him to be a master storyteller at the top of his game ... Kurkov handles the book’s solemn argument—how war destroys everyone’s lives—with a light touch and gently ironic humor that comes through beautifully in Boris Dralyuk’s translation, which alternates lush lyricism with wry humor ... Kurkov’s prose throughout the novel is characterized by a compelling, meandering quality that shows us the shape of Sergeyich’s thought patterns ... Again and again, the most ostensibly simple exchanges in the book telescope to reveal moments of unexpected historical depth.
Kurkov’s translator, Boris Dralyuk, renders the warmth of Sergey’s inner voice from the original Russian without letting the earnestness creep into the saccharine ... In a novel about neutrality and so-called gray zones, the Russian characters in Grey Bees come off to me as eerily cold, almost monstrous...as if the actions of the Russian government were in some ways reflective of a deeper national character. It recalls Kurkov’s professed view of Russian and Ukrainian people as fundamentally different, each with a unique 'mentality' ... Any suggestion of syncretism or co-influence feels tantamount to treason.
It’s rare to encounter a narrative like Andrey Kurkov’s Grey Bees, set in the middle of an ongoing — and intensifying — military assault ... I am struggling to acquire the distance from the news to read the book on its own terms, instead of looking in it for solace and a reason to hope that Ukraine will triumph over the aggressor. In many ways, this is a hopeful book, and it does provide some solace ... Grey Bees may inspire a variety of reactions. We could consider Sergeyich’s complex morality as a participant of war, and the palette of ethical decisions that he has to make in the course of this book.
Grey Bees is a melancholy tale of a simple life ... The bees are a nice touch too—not too front and center, but the low-level care and attention they need the kind of obligation that helps keeps Sergeyich focused. And, of course, the communal activity of the bees contrasts nicely with the much more discordant interactions among humans all around him ... Sergeyich's experiences over the course of the novel are mostly of the fairly simple sort, and Kurkov wisely stays mostly away from the overtly political ... Grey Bees is a typical Kurkov novel, grey and melancholy and wistful but not maudlin, and even charming, despite the harsh environment it is set in. With its focus on Sergeyich, it captures the conditions in this small corner of the world during this time exceptionally well.
Kurkov transforms the abstractions of geopolitics into an intensely human account of compassion and persistence ... Kurkov’s prose is as unassuming as his characters ... A subtly inspirational tale ... A gentle story of survival in a war-scarred land.
Heartwarming and bittersweet ... The old-fashioned, ambulatory story slows to a crawl by the end, but Kurkov’s well-crafted characters make it all worthwhile. It adds up to a wistful elegy for a nation being slowly torn apart.
