24 Monarch Street

[Rachel-K]

The houses we settle into and move out of through the course of Bees and Mist have extraordinary "personalities" of their own. How would you describe 24 Monarch Street, and what is it like for Meridia to grow up here? Is this house a home?

What is behind the house's magical qualities?

How does this house fit into the town around it, with the strange market?

we get a glimpse of 27 Orchard. What does Meridia see in that house that isn't in her own house?

[Sunltcloud]

Again, the dissonance. 24 Monarch Street is made of steel and glass and lifeless. The market is colorful like a medieval market or maybe a souk in Marrakesh. The touches of magic - the woman who grows herbs on her body, the tattooed man who converts radishes into chopped and pickled snacks - show interaction and abundance. Children who grow up in this kind of surrounding navigate quite well, but Meridia who is not used to this kind of life, becomes fearful when she gets separated from her mother. The isolation she feels at 24 Monarch Street has followed her into the crowded market place.  

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rkubie wrote:

How does this house fit into the town around it, with the strange market?

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[kren250]

I think the house on 24 Monarch Street has a lot of secrets. It seems to have picked up on it's occupants personalites, and the house reflects that.

The house fits in quite well with the surroundings. In particular the market, where everything is magical there as well.

One thing Meridia sees in the Orchard house is a family that interacts with each other. That is a completely new thing for her, since her parents completely ignore her. It's like she doesn't even exist for them.

[Shadowwolf36]

I agree that the house absolutely has magical qualities and is picking up on the personalities and "feelings" of the occupants. As strange as the house is (and I do not believe it is a home because a home should be warm, loving and inviting) it does seem to fit into the general landscape. People may whisper about the occupants but they don't seem to be out of place when you look at all the other characters that have been described.

[scarpettajunkie]

I think the house on 24 Monarch street is cursed and needs true love to break the curse.  It seems to fit in its environment because so often the exterior does not reveal the interior.  I am sure that Meridia sees love and comfort and warmth that are absent in her own home at 27 Orchard street.

[Fuzzyape]

What I find most interesting about the house is the mists that are involved with it, or is it just the father who generates the mists?  The houses seems to "protect" it's inhabitant(s)?

I agree with others, 24 Monarch seems cold, utilitarian.  Orchard seems warm and loving...just like the streets they are on.  Monarch (after a monarchy I guess) leaves no room for questions.  While Orchards leave lots of room for growth and love.

[AIRKNITTER]

The house on Monarch street resonates with the harshness of the personalities of Meridia's parents. It does seem that the house on Orchard Road has a wee bit o' bee issue. That's very interesting.

[dhaupt]

The houses here in this story very much have their own personalities, which are a reflection of the people who reside there.

At 24 Monarch Street, the house is cold and forbidding and very often hassles and abuses visitors like the matchmaker and the postman. It is very reminiscent of the adult inhabitants who are also cold and forbidding.

I don't yet know what is behind the magical qualities of the house, but if I had to take a guess right now I would say it's just a reflection of Gabriel and Ravenna, not unlike in reality where every home has it's own feel and smell. I remember as a child going on vacation and coming home and feeling enveloped in it's own special feel and smell and being so glad to be back home.

In 24 Orchard street Meridia sees clutter, and noise and comradery of the residents unlike her own quiet and cold home. 

[Paul_Hochman]

I wonder if the address is symbolic of the Monarch Butterfly. The colors match the cover at least

Does the house represent a sort of cocoon?

[booksJT]

The house on 24 Monarch St  is holding the secrets of the occupants.  It is magical but mysterious at the same time because you never know  what to expect from one minute to the next. I agree with the other posts I have read that the house is  a reflection of the occupants personalities. For Meridia it is like growing up in a prison. There is no love and warmth in the house. She is treated like a fragile object instead of someone with a brain. She is sheltered from the outside world.  The house and the market both have magical secrets in them.

At 27 Orchard st everyone interacts with one another. There are no secrets between family members. At home it was as if she didn't exist there. Meridia was invisble to her parents.

[hookedonbooks09]

Once again, I'm struck by the names Erick has chosen and their apparent symbolism.  Monarch Street would indicate to me the changing or metamorphosis of it's namesake, the butterfly.  Mists coming and going, stairs lengthening and shortening, Meridia invisible and then not, etc.  Also, when a Monarch goes through its changes, it is silent, dark and withdrawn.

And then there is Orchard Street.  Where one bad apple (Malin!) lives.  Things here are growing---even tangling, they are are so overgrown.  Bright and airy.  Just what you need for fruitfulness!

Barb

[kiakar]

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hookedonbooks09 wrote:

Once again, I'm struck by the names Erick has chosen and their apparent symbolism.  Monarch Street would indicate to me the changing or metamorphosis of it's namesake, the butterfly.  Mists coming and going, stairs lengthening and shortening, Meridia invisible and then not, etc.  Also, when a Monarch goes through its changes, it is silent, dark and withdrawn.

And then there is Orchard Street.  Where one bad apple (Malin!) lives.  Things here are growing---even tangling, they are are so overgrown.  Bright and airy.  Just what you need for fruitfulness!

Barb

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Barb, I like your response. Yes the Orchard with fruit going bad.

[LISA-BRYAN]

1) The houses we settle into and move out of through the course of Bees and Mist have extraordinary "personalities" of their own. How would you describe 24 Monarch Street, and what is it like for Meridia to grow up here? Is this house a home?

24 Monarch Street is a cold and dreary place to live... there is no love ... therefore it is not a home.

2) What is behind the house's magical qualities?

The lack of love, the disappointments, the saddness that envelopes this house and family.

3) How does this house fit into the town around it, with the strange market?

The house and the market demonstrate a world without love and the things that are subsituted in place of love.

4) we get a glimpse of 27 Orchard. What does Meridia see in that house that isn't in her own house?

No mists, no cold -- in fact the house is warm, flowers

[LoBugs]

How would you describe 24 Monarch Street, and what is it like for Meridia to grow up here? Is this house a home?

A home is warm and inviting. This is definately a house, cold, steel and glass. Isolated up on a hill, away from the town and other people. This house is much like the people that are exisisting inside of it. I say exisisting because I don't feel that they are living, breathing, feeling people. I get the sense of a cross between the Adams family and the stepford wives. These people go through the motions but have no attachment or investment in what they do or the out come. I felt the same way reading this book, I have found no attchments or investment in what happens to the charecters. They seem one demensional and unable to help themselves or each other. 

Meridia does understand that something is missing in her house. I think that it is very hard growing up with parents that don't notice you or only ridicule you. I think it is sad that escape seems her only choice of removing herself from further abuse. 

What is behind the house's magical qualities?

 My feeling is that it is a spell cast on the house by those who took offense of what Gabriel boasted about by saying "My daughter, who has defied death, is th eloveliest creature in all the lands".

 How does this house fit into the town around it, with the strange market?

I don't feel that I got a good sense of the surroundings. I don't have a sense of what period in time we are in, past? or future? I have not been given any idea of what would be normal for this era. You haven't given me anything to compare it to.

we get a glimpse of 27 Orchard. What does Meridia see in that house that isn't in her own house?

She sees interaction amoung the its residents. She sees that they spend time together, caring, sharing and they are concered with the actions of one an other. All though there are still some strange things going on. This may just be a way of showing that all families have their idiosyncrosies. 

[maude40]

The magical qualities stand out . "the ivory mist hovered regardless of weather." "the wood floors echoed no sound of footsteps." "the spiral staircase shortened and lengthened at random." Also it was always cold in the house. This sounds like a house of horrors, surely there is no love in a house like this. As others have said the house has the same personalities as the occupants. Yvonne

[Rachel-K]

Comments by Sunltcloud and lobugs make an interesting point:

Where are we in time and place? What country, what age? 

If it is impossible to answer that question, what effect does that disorientation have on you while you're reading?

[vivico1]

I too thought of Monarch as the butterfly and if the names are symbolic of the houses, then yes, Meridia's house would be the Monarch, or actually to me, the house itself would be the cocoon that the butterfly comes from, closed to the world, changes going on inside it in a most magical but tumultuous way. Think about the butterfly, it starts as this caterpillar, just something we very often don't see in real life either. How often do you see a caterpillar unless you really look for one? Isn't that Meridia inside that house with those parents? And cocooned off from the rest of the world to notice her? When she finally can leave that house, on her own, take flight into the world of discovery, maybe she becomes the colorful butterfly we do see then just as others are seeing her now.

The Orchard House then, yes Orchard, where things grow, like a family, and a new family. But not all fruit in the Orchard is good and Malin is a bad seed! Or has she come from bad seed? Parmony is like the flowerbud in an orchard before it can become a fully developed fruit and she is so sweet and needs such nurturing and care. I feel for her, maybe even more than Meridia when she was at home. Maybe because Parmony doesn't seem to have the skills Meridia had to cope with such abuse and maybe because it comes from all sides at her it seems.

Should be interesting to see what becomes of the butterfly in the orchard.

[emmagrace]

24 Monarch Street is a cold and frightening place. This was a horrible home for any child to grow up in. There was clearly not a lot of love going around inside of this house.

Upon first glimpse of the house on Orchard Street the impression is that a happy and loving family live there. The inside is comfortable and lived in.

[fordmg]

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scarpettajunkie wrote:
I think the house on 24 Monarch street is cursed and needs true love to break the curse.  It seems to fit in its environment because so often the exterior does not reveal the interior.  I am sure that Meridia sees love and comfort and warmth that are absent in her own home at 27 Orchard street.

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"It needs true love to break the curse"  I like that.  I hadn't thought of that. 

MG

[CathyB]

24 Monarch Street does not feel like a home. It is cold.The house seems to stifle one's own sense of being.

I think there magical qualities of the house have always existed in this town. I think that it is the events that have transpired and the occupants that shape what these qaulities will be.

The house fits in with everything else that we have seen of the town. It itself is weird. The market has the herb lad, etc... -- strange things that you wouldn't find outside of a circus side show or a place touched by magic. The marketplace seems to be a happy more lively place thatn the house.

Meridia sees a family. She sees warmth and love - something she wants desperately.

CathyB