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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
This was such a complicated novel, that I will think about for a long while. It was very cool that there's an asexual character. The child, Simon, while ornery, was a quite lovable character, but it was hard to read a book where so many adults are perpetrating and perpetuating child abuse. I felt like the final message was a bit too forgiving to adults who did atrocious things. I enjoyed this book for Simon, but it was also quite heartbreaking.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Kerewin Holmes lives an ascetic lifestyle in a stone tower on the coast of New Zealand, desiring little more than to enjoy her art and music (and booze) in solitude. She arrives home one day to discover an interloper, a young boy -- bedraggled and seemingly mute. She tends to a wound in his foot and finds him a place to sleep, and on the following day a family member eventually arrives to collect him. This is the story of the often tender and frequently troubling relationship between Kerewin, the boy Simon, and his father Joe.
I think I liked this book, though it was disturbing in a number of ways. It has an unusual story arc and a unique plot, and I often found myself wondering, "What am I reading? Where is this going?" It was helpful upon completion to return and reread the first few chapters for additional insight. I still have questions, though...
I think I liked this book, though it was disturbing in a number of ways. It has an unusual story arc and a unique plot, and I often found myself wondering, "What am I reading? Where is this going?" It was helpful upon completion to return and reread the first few chapters for additional insight. I still have questions, though...
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“If I was an honest uncompromising soul, if I wasn’t riddled by this disease called hope, I’d climb into the middle of my pyre and light a phoenixfire from there… On the other hand, my cardinal virtue is hope. Forlorn hope, hope in extremity. Not Christian hope, but an innate rebellion against the inevitable dooms of suffering, death, and despair. A senseless hope… If I hadn’t my hope, I might have lasted ten seconds there… the air is all gone from round it… splendid dragon… the glory of the salamander…”
TITLE—The Bone People
AUTHOR—Keri Hulme
PUBLISHED—1984
GENRE—literary fiction
SETTING—Aotearoa
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—spiritually, relationships, identity, abuse, love, modern Maori culture, identity, & society, aro/ace, justice, redemption
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—Kerewin is one of my alltime favorite characters. I resonated with her SO much.
PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—<SPOILER>I almost didn’t believe that this story could possibly have a happy ending but 😭. This book is quite literally perfect.</SPOILER>
BONUS ELEMENT/S—the New Zealand setting is its own force and character in this novel’s story and it’s just phenomenally executed; also all the philosophical and spiritual discussions in this book are just so profound and insightful. ❤️
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“To unearth anything, we begin by digging.”
I really loved this book but it was also very hard to read. I had this book on my tbr for three years, ever since my first trip to NZ in 2017, and on my shelf for a year, when I first started reading it last year, and even still, I struggled a lot with some of the content in the story—even had nightmares—and ended up needing to step away from the book after finishing part 3 and took another yearlong break before picking it up again this summer to finish reading. 😰
But in spite of all of that, I still loved this book SO much—I would even call it an alltime favorite because the suffering in the book really feels like something that is real and I don’t regret finding it in me to sit with it in order to experience everything the book and its author had to offer.
I think the only way to talk about this book is to acknowledge that every reader’s reading of and reaction to the themes and subject matter, their perception and opinion of the events, characters, and the characters’ actions, is going to be *very* personal and very visceral. The themes that stood out to my particular personal perspective were the themes of judgment, mental illness, community/family, personal identity, love, nature, natural & spiritual heritage, and justice/redemption.
Hulme’s writing style is incredibly beautiful, somehow elegant and irreverent, sacred and lighthearted all at once. She manages to represent just how fucking complicated people are / life is—how it’s exhausting and painful to the point of a kind of unhinged hilarity—in a way that you can’t help but relate to and respect. My list of favorite quotes from this book reads like a list of mantras and proverbs. I suppose it’s appropriate on some level that a book so beautiful, important, and impactful is also so difficult and painful to read—a true parallel to the actual experience of living in this world.
“I can’t see that,” nodding back towards the hidden well, “ever waking now. The whole order of the world would have to change, all of humanity, and I can’t see that happening, e pou, not ever.”
“Eternity is a long time,” says the kaumatua comfortably. “Everything changes, even that which supposes itself to be unalterable. All we can do is look after the precious matters which are our heritage, and wait, and hope.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“It’s past, but we live with it forever.”
[Alice Walker blurbed the copy I have and said: “This book is just amazingly, wondrously great.” And I 100% agree.]
TW // This is SO important. Like I said, I put off reading this book for a few years after I discovered it because of the content warnings I’d read about it, and even so I still had to step away from it for another year! after finishing part 3 because of how hard it was to read. I was literally having nightmares because of it. 😞 If you’re at an emotionally unstable place in your life right now I strongly recommend thinking carefully about reading this book and maybe putting it off until you feel more prepared to handle the content. Because whew. This is the roughest book I’ve ever read. Ok the TWs are: extremely graphic and violent depictions of child abuse, child autism, alcoholism, trauma, poverty, isolationism, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, cancer
Further Reading—
- White Magic, by Elissa Washuta
- The Night Between the Days, by Ailo Gaup
- Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Freshwater, by Akwaeke Emezi
- The Whale Rider, by Witi Ihimaera—TBR
- Ace, by Angela Chen—TBR
Favorite Quotes...
“In the beginning, it was darkness, and more fear, and a howling wind across the sea.”
“She had debated, in the frivolity of the beginning, whether to build a hole or a tower; a hole, because she was fond of hobbits, or a tower—well, a tower for many reasons, but chiefly because she liked spiral stairways.”
“No need of people, because she was self-fulfilling, delighted with the pre-eminence of her art, and the future or her knowing hands.”
“This ship that sets its sails forever
rigid on my coin
is named Endeavour.
She buys a drink to bar the dreams
of the long nights lying.
The world is never what it seems
and the sun is dying…”
“Goodbye soulwringing night. Good morning sinshine, and a fat happy day.”
“I am in limbo, and in limbo there are no races, no prizes, no changes, no chances. There are merely degrees of endurance, and endurance never was my strong point.”
“It’s becoming too precious. Too important. To care for anything deeply is to invite disaster.”
“Frae ghosties an ghoulies
an longlegged beasties
an things that gae bump!
in the night,
guid God deliver us…”
“Between waking and being awake there is a moment full of doubt and dream, when you struggle to remember what the place and when the time and whether you really are. A peevish moment of wonderment as to where the real world lies.”
“To unearth anything, we begin by digging,” but she isn’t very keen on the idea.
“She is a slow and methodical eater, not from convictions regarding health but because she enjoys food of all kinds immensely.”
“I’m going to have wander round my garden. See how the weeds are doing.”
“It was reckoned that the old people found inspiration for the double spirals they carved so skilfully, in uncurling fernfronds: perhaps. But it was an old symbol of rebirth, and the outward-inward nature of things…”
“Spirals make more sense than crosses, joys more than sorrows…”
“…whereas by blood, flesh and inheritance, I am but an eighth Maori, by heart, spirit, and inclination, I feel all Maori.”
“Calm down, o soul. Be reasonable, a serene and rational being.”
“The horror was still at home in him.
It was almost always there.
The only defense he could raise against the dark and the horror and the laughing terrible voice were his golden singers, the sounds and patterns of words from the past that he had fitted to his own web of music. They often broke apart, but he could always make them new.”
“What sort of dreams does he have that are so terrible? Jetsam, she ponders. The old meaning was goods thrown overboard to lighten a ship… dreams of being left, bereaved, dreams of drowning while your people sink in the hungry waves?”
“O all the world is a little queer, except thee and me, and sometimes, I wonder about thee.”
“I know about me. I am the moon’s sister, a tidal child
stranded on land. The sea always in my ear, a surf of
eternal discontent in my blood.
You’re talking bullshit as usual.”
“She thought of the tools she had gathered together, and painstakingly learned to use. Futureprobes, Tarot and I Ching and the wide wispfingers from the stars… all these to scry and ferret and vex the smokethick future.”
“A broad general knowledge, encompassing bits of history, psychology, ethology, religious theory and practices of many kinds. Her charts of self-knowledge. Her library. The inner thirst for information about everything that had lived or lives on Earth that she’d kept alive long after childhood had ended. None of them helped make sense of living.”
“I am worn, down to the raw nub of my soul.
Now is the time, o bitter beer, soothe my spirit;
smooth mouth of whisky, tell me lies of truth;
but better still, sweet wine, be harbinger of deep and dreamless sleep…”
“For what does five years of accumulating snippets of wisdom add up to? Knowledge that I’m a changeable sort of person…”
“Because all these were other people’s ideas… nothing wrong with them, but they didn’t really fit me.”
“She knew too much. The smarter you are, the more you know, the less reason you have to trust or love or confide.”
“The childhood years are the best years of your life…” Whoever coined that was an unmitigated fuckwit, a bullshit artist supreme. Life gets better the older you grow, until you grow too old of course.”
“Winning means winning over the mind of discord in yourself.”
“Love is the guardian deity of everything. Nothing can exist without it.”
“Heaven and hell, you never knew what people had in their past.”
“You just get someone neatly arranged in a slot that appears to fit them, and they wriggle on their pins and spoil it all.”
“The waves march in. Three herring gulls lift with each breaker, settle back on the sand again as the sea streams out. An old blackback carks and skrees, fossicking along the tideline. The shags sit by their hollow mud nests on Maukiekie. Nothing else is moving. Sometimes, the waves grow hushed, but the sea is always there, touching, caressing, eating the earth…”
“The clouds are long and black and ragged, like the wings of stormbattered dragons.”
“Betelgeuse, Achenar. Orion. Aquila. Centre the Cross
and you have a steady compass.
But there’s no compass for my disoriented soul, only
ever-beckoning ghostlights.
In the one sure direction, to the one sure end.”
“Maybe there are such things as second chances, even if dreams go unanswered…”
“I salute the breath of life in thee, the same life that is breathed by me, warm flesh to warm flesh, oily press of nose to nose, the hardness of foreheads meeting. I salute that which gives us life.”
“Normally, she dislikes killing mice. There is something about their beady-eyed furtivity, their wholesale preying on humans, that appeals to her outlaw instincts.”
“If only was the tapu phrase.
If only I had
If only I hadn’t”
“If I was an honest uncompromising soul, if I wasn’t riddled by this disease called hope, I’d climb into the middle of my pyre and light a phoenixfire from there… On the other hand, my cardinal virtue is hope. Forlorn hope, hope in extremity. Not Christian hope, but an innate rebellion against the inevitable dooms of suffering, death, and despair. A senseless hope… If I hadn’t my hope, I might have lasted ten seconds there… the air is all gone from round it… splendid dragon… the glory of the salamander…”
“Aue, the roots of the tree are long and descend into darkness. The show is wavebeaten, and there is nothing beyond but the unceasing immeasurable sea.”
“You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they’ve been read…”
“O man, he thinks, you are still very young, and while your life has broken you, you can still heal yourself.”
“Remember, it was a time of flux and chaos when she sought her knowledge. No-one can be blamed for giving her information that she maybe should never have known. And she can be praised for having that staunch courage and intelligence to preserve something she believed, as I believe, to be of unusual value. Incalculable value. How do you weigh the value of this country’s soul?”
“I can’t see that,” nodding back towards the hidden well, “ever waking now. The whole order of the world would have to change, all of humanity, and I can’t see that happening, e pou, not ever.”
“Eternity is a long time,” says the kaumatua comfortably. “Everything changes, even that which supposes itself to be unalterable. All we can do is look after the precious matters which are our heritage, and wait, and hope.”
“She was very upset when she learned how you were hurt, but more upset that they’ve separated you. She kept saying, “But Joe loves his boy, this was just an accident.” It don’t look that way to other people though. Not to the police or the doctors… but they only get to hear the bad parts. I’ve been hearing all about the good parts. There were a lot of good parts, right?”
“One must name cats, people, whoever whatever comes close, even though they carry their real names hidden inside them.”
“It’s past, but we live with it forever.”
“TE MUTUNG—RANEI TE TAKE” (The end—or the beginning.)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Suicide attempt
A deeply impressionistic novel about three outcasts in New Zealand who find each other & slowly grow into a family.
From now on, if anyone asks me for stuff similar to Jane Campion's Top of the Lake, Bone People will be my first recommendation. There are some basic plot similarities, such as the intersections between European & Maori, urban & rural/Aboriginal lifestyles. There is also a child in danger & a community around it that knows about the trouble but has convinced itself to look the other way. But where Lake gestures to the metaphysical, People fully incorporates mystical influence into its story, making the story seem more like another iteration of a folk tale or mythological story. Echoes abound in Bone People, especially around the character Simon, & creates plenty of tension & wariness simply by hinting at or distorting what is or isn't said. (I spent a good portion of the book suspecting Joseph of even worse actions than what is portrayed.)
To sum up, a language-heavy book that excels more at atmosphere than plot. Kerewin never totally overcomes her perfect persona tendencies & Joseph's redemption is a little too pat, but the author's artistry is still compelling.
From now on, if anyone asks me for stuff similar to Jane Campion's Top of the Lake, Bone People will be my first recommendation. There are some basic plot similarities, such as the intersections between European & Maori, urban & rural/Aboriginal lifestyles. There is also a child in danger & a community around it that knows about the trouble but has convinced itself to look the other way. But where Lake gestures to the metaphysical, People fully incorporates mystical influence into its story, making the story seem more like another iteration of a folk tale or mythological story. Echoes abound in Bone People, especially around the character Simon, & creates plenty of tension & wariness simply by hinting at or distorting what is or isn't said. (I spent a good portion of the book suspecting Joseph of even worse actions than what is portrayed.)
To sum up, a language-heavy book that excels more at atmosphere than plot. Kerewin never totally overcomes her perfect persona tendencies & Joseph's redemption is a little too pat, but the author's artistry is still compelling.
Webs of events that grew together to become a net in life. Life was a thing that grew wild. She supposed there was an overall pattern, a design to it.
She'd never found one.
Keri Hulme's The Bone People was suggested to me after I reviewed [b:The Bluest Eye|11337|The Bluest Eye|Toni Morrison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388208495l/11337._SX50_.jpg|1987778]. I had noted Morrison had arranged her characters and events in such a way that identifying "culprits" for the terrible things done was futile. A friend said, "That so? Read The Bone People, Chief."
He was correct: Hulme examines child abuse in a most unusual manner. There are no angels or devils in this novel, only characters making terrible, unbelievable decisions. Part III and IV are excruciating excursions into how a child can be beaten physically and overwhelmed spiritually and still yearn for the comfort of the perpetrators. Hulme explores confusing, uncomfortable territory. Hulme's characters, especially Kerewin, her female protagonist, do not conform to our expectations of who we believe they should be. The abused orphan, Simon, does not want to be "rescued" from his tormentors--he needs them. Within the context of this novel, this scenario makes more sense than they do written out in this review.
The novel struggles with pacing, though. The beginning is drawn out: Kerewin's initial interactions with Simon's visits are like a rejected Hallmark special script. Granted, this opening--where I had expectations where this novel was going--made the emotion of its core story, introduced later, more visceral. After a hundred pages of inane dialogue and pointless descriptions, I was ready to quit. I'm glad I remained, though.
Then Hulme does something even more amazing: For 200 pages I could not put the book down. The events and the way these characters never conform to our expectations are original. Then, at the height of events, the final 100 pages are mind-numbingly dull. The insertion of Maori phrases increases without a ready way to translate (there's a list in the back, but it's incomplete and poorly organized) coupled with the sudden appearance of wise people rolling through the New Zealand countryside healing and speaking cryptically, left me starved for a more relevant plot. At this point in the story, I was concerned about the boy Simon, but the novel had lit out for other territory. The final section detracts from the main story, and again I came close to just shutting the covers and calling it a day. Reading the final chapter, I wish that I had.
So a really poor opening and a really poor ending--and the middle part of the book merits all the praise accorded this novel. The middle section made this one of the best novels I have experienced in a long time. There's a chance I missed the important story element--perhaps the domestic dynamic was never the crux of this work and my expectations to have these threads addressed instead of woven into a very different sweater are the result of a faulty reading.
I highly recommend this novel, though. If you believe there is nothing new under the sun, you need to visit The Bone People.
She'd never found one.
Keri Hulme's The Bone People was suggested to me after I reviewed [b:The Bluest Eye|11337|The Bluest Eye|Toni Morrison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388208495l/11337._SX50_.jpg|1987778]. I had noted Morrison had arranged her characters and events in such a way that identifying "culprits" for the terrible things done was futile. A friend said, "That so? Read The Bone People, Chief."
He was correct: Hulme examines child abuse in a most unusual manner. There are no angels or devils in this novel, only characters making terrible, unbelievable decisions.
The novel struggles with pacing, though. The beginning is drawn out: Kerewin's initial interactions with Simon's visits are like a rejected Hallmark special script. Granted, this opening--where I had expectations where this novel was going--made the emotion of its core story, introduced later, more visceral. After a hundred pages of inane dialogue and pointless descriptions, I was ready to quit. I'm glad I remained, though.
Then Hulme does something even more amazing: For 200 pages I could not put the book down. The events and the way these characters never conform to our expectations are original. Then, at the height of events, the final 100 pages are mind-numbingly dull. The insertion of Maori phrases increases without a ready way to translate (there's a list in the back, but it's incomplete and poorly organized) coupled with the sudden appearance of wise people rolling through the New Zealand countryside healing and speaking cryptically, left me starved for a more relevant plot. At this point in the story, I was concerned about the boy Simon, but the novel had lit out for other territory. The final section detracts from the main story, and again I came close to just shutting the covers and calling it a day. Reading the final chapter, I wish that I had.
So a really poor opening and a really poor ending--and the middle part of the book merits all the praise accorded this novel. The middle section made this one of the best novels I have experienced in a long time. There's a chance I missed the important story element--perhaps the domestic dynamic was never the crux of this work and my expectations to have these threads addressed instead of woven into a very different sweater are the result of a faulty reading.
I highly recommend this novel, though. If you believe there is nothing new under the sun, you need to visit The Bone People.
This is a hard book to talk about, it's a hard book to recommend and at times it's a really hard book to read but it is also a great book. If you're a New Zealander and especially if you have some Maori ancestry you should read this (although if you don't you should still read it). There are two things in this book you may not like. It's important you know what they are before you start because it will save you an enormous amount of time if you're going to abandon it halfway through.
1. The main character Kerewin Holmes. Note the similarity between her name and the author's name Keri Hulme. Keri is Kerewin and she's very literary and prone to some severe self-identified intellectual masturbation. She is razor sharp, as tough as nails and very likeable. However, if you don't enjoy stream of consciousness, punning, word play or flowery language then you will struggle with much of Kerewin's ramblings. If you can handle all that, then you are incredibly lucky because you'll get to experience an intelligent character written extremely well. It's a testament to a writer when they can write an intelligent character, even when they rely heavily on their own being and personality as the basis for the character.
2. The child abuse. You may be unable to stomach it, it's a cruel and bitter relationship between the father and son. It's violent and passionate and while it's at times almost unpalatable, it's true. That's the crucial point, you can't look away, you have to feel it and understand how terrible it is. This shouldn't put you off but I can understand why it might.
If neither of those things will stop you from reading this book then look forward to a great journey and an incredible story. There's nothing quite like it. It is so kiwi yet also manages to feel part of the larger literary world. It was extremely experimental for its time in the 80's and that means it still reads like a contemporary novel written now.
I loved the way Te Reo Maori was woven into the story, it added depth and gave some serious power to a language that is underappreciated and under-spoken. It also deals with Maori tradition, culture and spirituality and the ongoing struggle of Maori to keep their culture and values while taking on some white traditions. One of the ways it does that is by inverting expectations and having a Maori father raising an adopted white son.
There's still a horrible feeling that the noble Maori ancestors of the past lived a far better life than the Maori of the present day and that white technology has both degraded the Maori and all of Aotearoa. The promised land has become a wasteland. There's no doubt that New Zealand still holds its beauty and an abundance of food but there is definitely a feeling that the country has changed dramatically and is worse off for it. Even with the rumours of cannibals and the way white doctors look down on Maori medicine, you get a sense that the old way was the right way and that there are more ways of living and learning than those prescribed by white universities, hospitals, religious institutions, law enforcement systems and schools.
This book will have you spellbound at times, frustrated at others and worn out by the end. It's a journey like no other.
1. The main character Kerewin Holmes. Note the similarity between her name and the author's name Keri Hulme. Keri is Kerewin and she's very literary and prone to some severe self-identified intellectual masturbation. She is razor sharp, as tough as nails and very likeable. However, if you don't enjoy stream of consciousness, punning, word play or flowery language then you will struggle with much of Kerewin's ramblings. If you can handle all that, then you are incredibly lucky because you'll get to experience an intelligent character written extremely well. It's a testament to a writer when they can write an intelligent character, even when they rely heavily on their own being and personality as the basis for the character.
2. The child abuse. You may be unable to stomach it, it's a cruel and bitter relationship between the father and son. It's violent and passionate and while it's at times almost unpalatable, it's true. That's the crucial point, you can't look away, you have to feel it and understand how terrible it is. This shouldn't put you off but I can understand why it might.
If neither of those things will stop you from reading this book then look forward to a great journey and an incredible story. There's nothing quite like it. It is so kiwi yet also manages to feel part of the larger literary world. It was extremely experimental for its time in the 80's and that means it still reads like a contemporary novel written now.
I loved the way Te Reo Maori was woven into the story, it added depth and gave some serious power to a language that is underappreciated and under-spoken. It also deals with Maori tradition, culture and spirituality and the ongoing struggle of Maori to keep their culture and values while taking on some white traditions. One of the ways it does that is by inverting expectations and having a Maori father raising an adopted white son.
There's still a horrible feeling that the noble Maori ancestors of the past lived a far better life than the Maori of the present day and that white technology has both degraded the Maori and all of Aotearoa. The promised land has become a wasteland. There's no doubt that New Zealand still holds its beauty and an abundance of food but there is definitely a feeling that the country has changed dramatically and is worse off for it. Even with the rumours of cannibals and the way white doctors look down on Maori medicine, you get a sense that the old way was the right way and that there are more ways of living and learning than those prescribed by white universities, hospitals, religious institutions, law enforcement systems and schools.
This book will have you spellbound at times, frustrated at others and worn out by the end. It's a journey like no other.
June review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2017: The Bone People by Keri Hulme, 1984. [set >5000 mi from your location category]
I think The Bone People was recommended to me in college by an intellectual boy on whom I had a quiet (and unrequited) crush, and I transferred it from my mother's bookshelf to my own, but never opened it. I chose it for the "taking place more than 5,000 miles from your location" category, which was surprisingly difficult to decide on! The Bone People takes place in New Zealand, in a tower built by an oddball hermit of a woman,and follows her encounter and subsequent relationship with a decidedly mute child and his Maori foster father. Their relationship becomes incredibly close, with Kerewin slotting in as sort of a confidante/extraparental figure in their twosome, and it becomes increasingly problematic as Joe's volcanic and violent rage becomes more apparent. It was very hard to read this book, once you know what you know about Joe's brutal and violent love for Simon. It is hard to parse the ending, which seems sort of like a dreamy afterthought--I was unsure how the story was going to continue when Kerewin burned down her tower with 100 pages left. I think overall, this book made me engage with the ugliness and I appreciate that.
The Bone People has an incredibly interesting writing style, and Hulme's way with language is unlike anything I've experienced before. Her story jumps around, not from any single voice or point of view, with no discernible or marked shifts in between. We get to hear from introspective Kerewin, mute Simon, and wounded Joe, all characters who cannot or will not voice their inner workings to the world, so we must be privy to them through the narration. I found myself going back, a lot, especially to the amorphous, intentionally vague introductory segments that gathered more meaning as the trio's story progresses, and I like that about a book. One that builds upon itself even in its first reading. In addition, books that have glossaries are my favorite! I feel like I know the teensiest bit of Maori now (although purely in-my-head pronounciation must be atrocious, but still!) and I really appreciated the extra layer of their interactions, seeing how the Maori was used as a sort of code shift between Joe and Kerewin.
For the most part, I think I liked Kerewin. I saw a lot of me in her, particularly in the way she stated that you could learn about a person by the books in their home: "You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read...." (p348). I love this phrase, especially because it focuses not only on the presence of the books in a person's universe, but goes further and examines the level of engagement in that presence. I think it is a beautiful addition to a sentiment I have often expounded upon, one that I will now take for my own. It is one of the things I really loved about Kerewin. I do not understand Kerewin, in many of her actions, but some of the bare bones artistic struggle I can internalize and nod along to.
I think The Bone People was recommended to me in college by an intellectual boy on whom I had a quiet (and unrequited) crush, and I transferred it from my mother's bookshelf to my own, but never opened it. I chose it for the "taking place more than 5,000 miles from your location" category, which was surprisingly difficult to decide on! The Bone People takes place in New Zealand, in a tower built by an oddball hermit of a woman,and follows her encounter and subsequent relationship with a decidedly mute child and his Maori foster father. Their relationship becomes incredibly close, with Kerewin slotting in as sort of a confidante/extraparental figure in their twosome, and it becomes increasingly problematic as Joe's volcanic and violent rage becomes more apparent. It was very hard to read this book, once you know what you know about Joe's brutal and violent love for Simon. It is hard to parse the ending, which seems sort of like a dreamy afterthought--I was unsure how the story was going to continue when Kerewin burned down her tower with 100 pages left. I think overall, this book made me engage with the ugliness and I appreciate that.
The Bone People has an incredibly interesting writing style, and Hulme's way with language is unlike anything I've experienced before. Her story jumps around, not from any single voice or point of view, with no discernible or marked shifts in between. We get to hear from introspective Kerewin, mute Simon, and wounded Joe, all characters who cannot or will not voice their inner workings to the world, so we must be privy to them through the narration. I found myself going back, a lot, especially to the amorphous, intentionally vague introductory segments that gathered more meaning as the trio's story progresses, and I like that about a book. One that builds upon itself even in its first reading. In addition, books that have glossaries are my favorite! I feel like I know the teensiest bit of Maori now (although purely in-my-head pronounciation must be atrocious, but still!) and I really appreciated the extra layer of their interactions, seeing how the Maori was used as a sort of code shift between Joe and Kerewin.
For the most part, I think I liked Kerewin. I saw a lot of me in her, particularly in the way she stated that you could learn about a person by the books in their home: "You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read...." (p348). I love this phrase, especially because it focuses not only on the presence of the books in a person's universe, but goes further and examines the level of engagement in that presence. I think it is a beautiful addition to a sentiment I have often expounded upon, one that I will now take for my own. It is one of the things I really loved about Kerewin. I do not understand Kerewin, in many of her actions, but some of the bare bones artistic struggle I can internalize and nod along to.
One of the most difficult books I've ever read. A very complex narrative - mixed with poetry, different stories and timelines - that kept changing in a very unnatural order. No wonder this NZ author won the Booker Prize. In addition to that, the fact that the story unfolds surrounded by the Maori culture, which is something completely unknown to me. It took the author 12 years to finish the book, which began life as a short story; this may explain some of the loose ends, things that looked like being very important and simply faded away as the story unfolded. There were some great moments where one felt the climax was near, but then... nothing. The last quarter of the book was very confusing, a mix of Maori mysticism and moral dilemmas, and the conclusion was very abrupt and succinct, as if the author wanted/needed to finish the story. Overall a good book, but I took me almost two months to finish it. I still have an aftertaste that something was missing...
The Bone People, the 1985 Booker Prize winning novel by New Zealander Keri Hulme, is a mysterious and multifaceted work of art. In a nutshell, the story follows the complicated, interconnected relationships of three characters: Kerewin Holmes, Joe Gillayley, and Simon Gillayley. At the beginning of the novel, Kerewin, an artist living an isolated life in a stone tower in New Zealand, is startled to find Simon (eight years old, wild-of-hair, and mute) taking refuge from a storm in her home. Though Simon communicates only through a crude, improvised sort of sign language, Kerewin is able to make a connection with him in the hours it takes to track down his adoptive father, Joe. Over the next year or so, Kerewin develops a friendship with Joe and Simon that is at once intimate (but platonic), necessary, tumultuous, intense, and ever-tenuous. Their little ersatz family unit has its ups (notably a vacation to a craggy beachfront property owned by Kerewin’s estranged family) and its downs (the revelation that Joe drinks too much and hits Simon), and the reader is vertiginously dragged along for the ride.
Reflecting on the themes of The Bone People, words like “hybrid” and “mixture” come to mind most readily. Modern New Zealand culture has developed jointly from the traditions of New Zealanders of European ancestry and those of Maori ancestry. The resulting cultural tension is the thematic engine that drives the novel. The most immediate example of this is in the main characters themselves. Simon is European (he was found washed up on a beach after a storm several years before the novel begins), Joe—who found and adopted Simon with his now-deceased wife—is fully Maori, and Kerewin is half-European and half-Maori. As their relationships develop, it is easy to view Kerewin, Joe, and Simon as stand-ins for the contrasting cultures themselves. The cultural-hybrid theme is further illustrated by the use of language in the novel. Kerewin and Joe routinely slip back and forth between English and Maori phrases. (Fortunately, there is a useful Maori glossary in the back of the book for those of us not fluent in Maori.) The author also represents the cultural tension in New Zealand by utilizing different writing styles in different sections of the book. Most notable is the abrupt tonal shift towards the end of the book from a relatively straightforward style in the European tradition to an enigmatic and mystical style based on Maori mythology. Each of these representations of the cultural differences in New Zealand allegorically serve to evoke life in New Zealand itself.
The Bone People is a difficult book to read on several levels. The writing itself can be maddeningly idiosyncratic, the random bits of Maori can be jarring, and the visceral descriptions of Simon’s abuse at the hands of his adoptive father can be brutal and unforgiving. However, taken as a whole this is an ambitious and bold novel, lush with symbolism and thematically rich (far more than this short review can convey). It is also deeply rooted in the multifaceted culture of New Zealand. No single book can truly encapsulate a nation’s je ne sais quoi, but for U.S. readers hoping to peek onto the other side of the world, this would be an excellent place to start.
Reflecting on the themes of The Bone People, words like “hybrid” and “mixture” come to mind most readily. Modern New Zealand culture has developed jointly from the traditions of New Zealanders of European ancestry and those of Maori ancestry. The resulting cultural tension is the thematic engine that drives the novel. The most immediate example of this is in the main characters themselves. Simon is European (he was found washed up on a beach after a storm several years before the novel begins), Joe—who found and adopted Simon with his now-deceased wife—is fully Maori, and Kerewin is half-European and half-Maori. As their relationships develop, it is easy to view Kerewin, Joe, and Simon as stand-ins for the contrasting cultures themselves. The cultural-hybrid theme is further illustrated by the use of language in the novel. Kerewin and Joe routinely slip back and forth between English and Maori phrases. (Fortunately, there is a useful Maori glossary in the back of the book for those of us not fluent in Maori.) The author also represents the cultural tension in New Zealand by utilizing different writing styles in different sections of the book. Most notable is the abrupt tonal shift towards the end of the book from a relatively straightforward style in the European tradition to an enigmatic and mystical style based on Maori mythology. Each of these representations of the cultural differences in New Zealand allegorically serve to evoke life in New Zealand itself.
The Bone People is a difficult book to read on several levels. The writing itself can be maddeningly idiosyncratic, the random bits of Maori can be jarring, and the visceral descriptions of Simon’s abuse at the hands of his adoptive father can be brutal and unforgiving. However, taken as a whole this is an ambitious and bold novel, lush with symbolism and thematically rich (far more than this short review can convey). It is also deeply rooted in the multifaceted culture of New Zealand. No single book can truly encapsulate a nation’s je ne sais quoi, but for U.S. readers hoping to peek onto the other side of the world, this would be an excellent place to start.