The Bumblebee Flies Anyway is a gripping story that holds the reader's interest from beginning to end. The novel contains a richness of meaning partially realized through its use of symbols. One such symbol is the lilac bush. The "lilac bush heavy with clusters and fragrance" suggests Walt Whitman's famous poem on the death of Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloom'd" (1865). Contrasted to a stark and lifeless tree nearby, the lilac bush here celebrates "the continuity of life," "the never-ending process of life," a sense of nature, a hint of God, man's hope for immortality. Just as the lilac bush, when it loses its blooms, does not die, so, too, Barney reflects, may be human life: "death only a sleep from which they eventually awakened."

The central symbol in the novel is its title, an allusion to the bumblebee, which is not supposed to fly...