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nerdicwalker 's review for:
The Bone People
by Keri Hulme
Well I was warned about this book and it is true. It is a book that is different, at times weird, stunning and not always a nice easy.
Writing style:
Different, very unusual. It can come across as bits and bobs and it may do to some, but it also flows as life flows. It has a flow easiness that follows tidal currents. People and scenes takes the foreground as needed or wanted. The tides follow the story.
Initially three storylines that start to mix but are separate, then toward the climax of the book the three main story and character lines are completely intertwined and sometimes hard to separate. A whirlpool of story, emotions and main characters dazzling off the pages. The three become as one unit just like in the story.
The climax is painful mesmerising and stunning to read. The story breaks down into the different storylines again to the point where chapter headings are used. The whole one becomes three separate stories as the energy in the whirlpool flings them apart.
To some extend it mends itself but just as with a shattered porcelain the cracks remain visible. It does not become whole again despite the mystics scenes that glue it together.
Hulme has a style that makes it possible for the reader to have colliding emotions at the climax scene. Without giving too much away. It is incredibly uncomfortable reading, it is heart wrenching, but it is not written in a raw manner. The cruelty and pain is tangible, you want it to stop. You want to shout “stop now!” at the pages. Step in and make it stop or go away..
Yet....., it is written so beautifully and poetic that feelings of horror and beauty on the page collide. The prose describing this cruelty is of a beauty seldom seen. Emotions clash…….It brought tears to my eyes.
The story:
it is described as a love story and in a way it is. It never quite gets to the bottom of the mystery central to the story. It never quite finishes. It never is.... just a story. It tells the story of three people, three damaged people. Damaged in their own unique way. They come together and unlike most stories these days, they do not heal each other. Their path of self destruction, self abuse and mutual abuse continues and intensifies. They develop a kind of co-dependency that is destruction seeking.
The love story comes to an explosive ending it seems. Healing seems to start and with it a certain amount of Maori mystic things and legends and stories, that have been lurking on the side, enter. From then story then looses it’s lustre, the writing is still beautiful, but the story is no longer enthralling and does not sway. The story becomes a little puddle, away from the tides flows. The ending is in my opinion not good. As if a finish was needed and given, too reluctantly, to please the editor/publisher
My opinion
To be honest I am not a big fan of the ending. Just does not feel as real as the main part.
I know NZ and I know the hard drinking and (domestic) abuse that is written in the book does exist. It is something that is a known problem in NZ. I see the Maori legends, stories and thinking that I know and love seeing them shine through.
I am so glad I read this book as it had been on my to read list ever since I have known about it (20 years) I will have to re-read it as it has so much in itself that I think I missed parts.
I give it 4.5 stars rounded down and that is because of the ending, the not finishing some of the story (even not leaving it open) and the weird mystic ending that to me does to feel to be part of the main story.
Writing style:
Different, very unusual. It can come across as bits and bobs and it may do to some, but it also flows as life flows. It has a flow easiness that follows tidal currents. People and scenes takes the foreground as needed or wanted. The tides follow the story.
Initially three storylines that start to mix but are separate, then toward the climax of the book the three main story and character lines are completely intertwined and sometimes hard to separate. A whirlpool of story, emotions and main characters dazzling off the pages. The three become as one unit just like in the story.
The climax is painful mesmerising and stunning to read. The story breaks down into the different storylines again to the point where chapter headings are used. The whole one becomes three separate stories as the energy in the whirlpool flings them apart.
To some extend it mends itself but just as with a shattered porcelain the cracks remain visible. It does not become whole again despite the mystics scenes that glue it together.
Hulme has a style that makes it possible for the reader to have colliding emotions at the climax scene. Without giving too much away. It is incredibly uncomfortable reading, it is heart wrenching, but it is not written in a raw manner. The cruelty and pain is tangible, you want it to stop. You want to shout “stop now!” at the pages. Step in and make it stop or go away..
Yet....., it is written so beautifully and poetic that feelings of horror and beauty on the page collide. The prose describing this cruelty is of a beauty seldom seen. Emotions clash…….It brought tears to my eyes.
The story:
it is described as a love story and in a way it is. It never quite gets to the bottom of the mystery central to the story. It never quite finishes. It never is.... just a story. It tells the story of three people, three damaged people. Damaged in their own unique way. They come together and unlike most stories these days, they do not heal each other. Their path of self destruction, self abuse and mutual abuse continues and intensifies. They develop a kind of co-dependency that is destruction seeking.
The love story comes to an explosive ending it seems. Healing seems to start and with it a certain amount of Maori mystic things and legends and stories, that have been lurking on the side, enter. From then story then looses it’s lustre, the writing is still beautiful, but the story is no longer enthralling and does not sway. The story becomes a little puddle, away from the tides flows. The ending is in my opinion not good. As if a finish was needed and given, too reluctantly, to please the editor/publisher
My opinion
To be honest I am not a big fan of the ending. Just does not feel as real as the main part.
I know NZ and I know the hard drinking and (domestic) abuse that is written in the book does exist. It is something that is a known problem in NZ. I see the Maori legends, stories and thinking that I know and love seeing them shine through.
I am so glad I read this book as it had been on my to read list ever since I have known about it (20 years) I will have to re-read it as it has so much in itself that I think I missed parts.
I give it 4.5 stars rounded down and that is because of the ending, the not finishing some of the story (even not leaving it open) and the weird mystic ending that to me does to feel to be part of the main story.