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Title: The Bone People by Keri Hulme ISBN: 0-14-008922-5 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.39 (124 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: new beginnings
Comment: To me, The Bone People is about new beginnings. It is not about resolution as much as it is about revolution. Some may consider unrealistic the fact that the trio gets back together. I do not. The author has created a completely different type of relationship, much different from the traditional family. I think the characters achieve this elevated level of relationship/communication through both internal and external exploration as the novel progresses. While the past cannot be forgotten, neither can the future. Their relationships emphasis on progressiveness characterizes their ability to adapt. This not only has profound implications for the charters, but also for the Maori culture. Although it's people have been exploited and disowned, as the kaumatua says, there is still a chance for new beginnings. I think in many society's people forget change, only focusing on the depressing situation they are in. The ability to accept a new beginning is a healthy attribute for any person or culture.
Rating: 4
Summary: Beautiful and Harrowing
Comment: Three is the magic number of Keri Hulme's book The Bone People. Three people, Kerewin Holmes an artist who lives by the sea in an enchanted tower which she built, Joe a Maori man who lives in a house of pain of his own creation and Simon the lost child who searching for a home, band together to form a strange family.
These three become involved with each other in a dance of death and destruction and a battle for redemption of the human spirit. They make up the family of man or the bone people, brittle ungiving beings who are attempting to fight the isolation of their souls and find fulfillment in involving themselves with each other. These three are represented by a woman Keri the artist, a man Joe the lost warrior and the child, Simon the hope for the future. Can they join together and heal each other or will they work to cause each other's destruction. That is the question of the Bone People.
Keri Hulme's has a gift with words. Her stream of consciousness writing is beautiful and compelling. Despite the beauty of her words, the story is harrowing and heart breaking. We so often hurt those who we love most. The assault on young Simon is a violence both verbal and brutally physical. Are the young resilient in nature or are they brittle and easily broken? Is the child truly the savior of the man? These are questions which Hulme's seems to ask.
Throughout the book the theme of family is recurrent. What comprises a family and what obligations do family members have to each other. The family is a bright promise kept , a joining of human lives and spirits. The members of the bone people are drawn to their own isolation. They have found diverse methods of self destruction and use them skillfully. The reader journeys through the book simultaneously loving and hating the members of this strange family.
I cannot help but recommend this book, but with the precaution that it is quite difficult reading, both in plot and style.
Rating: 2
Summary: An editor's nightmare
Comment: The Bone People, unfortunately, is not very well written. The "poetry" seems to consist of run-on sentences and a somewhat pretentious neo-primtivism. For example, the main character (Kerewin Holmes) calls a solar engine (a nice phrase in itself) a "sun-eater". It should also be obvious that Kerewin Holmes is a pretty thin disguise for Keri Hulme--adding another level to the pretentiousness of the book. Indeed, when it comes to the solar engine, Kerewin pretends not to have heard of its invention, pretends, oh, it's just a little something I concocted to amuse myself. There are lots of eye-rollers and similar moments of faux modesty --almost enough in themselves to make you want to put the book down. Add to this the utter lack of structure, the self-absorbed style, the lack of character development, the absence of a discernible plot and the only mystery left is how this book won a prize. Well, no, I have to take that back; in an age of political corectness, this book explores child abuse among a native people (the Maori) and there you have your basis for a prize. Nonetheless, it is the work of an amateur--albeit one with potential--but why an editor didn't insist on some structuring, development and and a lot of well-placed cuts is beyond me. ...
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