Review by archytas - The Bone People

archytas 's review for:

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

3.75

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

So very many feels. I did not expect, going in, that the Bone People was going to hit as hard as it did. While it won't be everyone's cup of tea, it grabbed me pretty early and wouldn't let me go. The writing makes you work for it just enough - so that you have to focus, but not so much that you get frustrated. Hulme's insight into people, and her skill at showing them from their own perspective, is completely compelling. This is especially true in their flaws. Kerewin is agonisingly aware of her own failures - she stomps around expecting less of herself than we want her too. Frequently she delivers, but with agonising slowness, she comes to want more, and to try to rise towards it. Her interactions with Simon are a masterpiece of this growth, the push and pull of love and connection.

Joe is a broken man, and Hulme draws him with deep compassion. In almost the reverse of Kerewin, Jo tries to be more than he can currently sustain, and we watch him fall and recover and cling to Kerewin. Their relationship, with a mutual tolerance as much as affection, feels real and viable.

The problem, of course, is Simon. Because while the violence of Joe, and poor judgement of Kerewin, feel completely, devastatingly, realistic - especially as they are inevitably unleashed by alcohol - Simon's uncomplicated love for an abuser does not feel realistic at all. It feels as if Hulme has taken the outward behaviour of a child being abused, and read into it an interior state which we know now, is not so simple. This made the book increasingly hard to take for me, creating an at times unbearable tension between the immersion of the book and the absence of a compelling voice for the child at the heart.

So, yeah, I'm not sure I have much more to say on this one. The web of community - especially Maori community - is wonderfully drawn too, the complexity of how we relate to each other, and ultimately, the value of that. The impact on Kerewin of being asexual - not the way her sexuality makes her feel but the exclusion it creates from a society that has few other/accepting models - was really helpful to me in understanding. I learned a lot - but there is still a bitter tang I can't ignore.

Content Warnings