4.5 stars

This novel, which took twelve years to write and was rejected by numerous publishers, defies simple description. It is firmly set at the intersection of Maori and western culture. The structure is complex, and there is a touch of magic realism at the end. The character of Kerewin Holmes is a remarkable creation who seems to leap off the page.

The story revolves around three main characters. Kerewin Holmes is a solitary woman living in a tower. She is a painter who doesn't paint and is estranged from her family. Joe is the adoptive father of Simon, a boy who washed up on the beach. Simon is unable to speak, has significant behavioural problems, and no sense of personal property. Joe, who relatively recently lost his wife and child, is now raising Simon alone. He is struggling and is physically abusive and violent towards the boy.

Hulme is a great storyteller, and her descriptions are vivid. For example, "watching the blood sky swell and grow, dyeing the rainclouds ominously, making the far edge of the sea blistered and scarlet." There is a musicality and rhythm to her writing. She switches perspectives between her characters and mixes poetry with prose, as well as English with the indigenous Maori language.

There are many themes in the novel. All of the main characters are isolated. A sense of home and family life is often seen as something to strive for, as Simon thinks, "He had endured it all. Whatever they did to him, and however long it was going to take, he could endure it. Provided that at the end he could go home. ……if he can’t go home, he might as well not be. They might as well not be, because they only make sense together. We have to be together. If we are not, we are nothing. We are broken.” Hulme has said that interwoven threads is one of her favourite images in the novel. She has taken two elements of postcolonial literature, language and magic realism, and used them effectively.

One issue that cannot be ignored is the violence by Joe towards Simon. When Hulme writes about the violence, she strips back the language and makes it very stark. She herself is clear about why she did this; to address an issue in New Zealand. She has stated that violence towards children was a “pervasive social problem in New Zealand, among Maoris and Pakeha . . . and she had written The Bone People in part to draw attention to it.” Hulme gives the reader nowhere to hide from this; Joe, by being violent, loses his Maori language and sides with the Pakeha, the western colonizers. His attempt to destroy Simon seems linked to the destruction of Maori culture. His redemption is linked to his rediscovery of his roots and culture. However, I only found this partially convincing; male violence is male violence, wherever it is found.

I must admit that I did struggle with some aspects of the ending, but the writing and language are captivating.

For all the raving there is about this book, it did not work for me, at all.

The most shocking thing is that most of the great reviews mainly talk about the wonderful prose Hulme uses. Seriously? You usually rate a book based on more than just the prose. The story is also important. They go hand in hand for me.

Yes, the prose is actually quite stunning. But it is also problematic at times. It forces you to pay attention. Sometimes it is in the first person, and sometimes in the third. There is the point of view of three different characters mingling in one chapter, thoughts are in different paragraphs, and there is even poetry thrown into the mix. I am impressed that she pulled that off, as it is no easy writing. I'll give her that.

However, the story is appalling and boring. Some chapters are just filler chapters, with details about the beach, or the food, or other useless descriptions.

I couldn't like her characters. I couldn't even relate to them. And the fact that Kerewin Holmes screams 'Mary Sue' seriously didn't help. I mean, this woman is more powerful and impressive than Wonder Woman. She is rich, perfect, an artist, knows a hundred languages, and can take a man down with her thumb. Agh. She made me angry half the time. And on top of that, not even disease can take her down because there are always deities helping people out to give them a happy ending. I couldn't stand it! You've got cancer, woman!!! She should've died. Not have a God come over, brush her with godly fingers and have her up and running, a new woman, able to enjoy life and make peace with her family, whom she hasn't talked to in years because she doesn't like people. Come on!

And then there's Joe. A drunken man who constantly beats his child senseless. The amount of violence is horrible and uncomfortable. Even more so because neither Kerewin nor anyone in that town does anything until the child ends up in a coma. And yet, Hulme makes Joe take a spiritual trip so that he can be forgiven for all the bad he's done and redeemed to the readers. No way! I'm not redeeming the man. Not in a million years. I actually think the violence he shows towards Simon is supposed to work as an allegory of the cultural differences between European settlers and Maoris and all the violence they endured. Still, this is not the way to portray it. And even if you do, at least don't make it sound as if this is the most normal thing in the world. I mean, this is vicious violence we're talking about.

In the end, Simon is the most decent character. He's weird, he refuses to talk due to all his trauma, and seriously, who can blame him? He really is forced to grow a lot by himself. But I can't understand why he'd still love Joe or why he would be so willing to forgive him.

This is a really hard story, and there might be a lot of hidden meaning behind her plot, but I found it hard to follow and completely alien. Her characters are too much, and the fact that the day can be saved by Gods pardoning them doesn't help.

I really wanted to like this book. I love weird books about relationships between people, and I usually love finding NZ authors around because they aren't exactly common in Mexico. But Hulme just wasn't for me. I can't justify her characters, let alone forgive them for all they do. And all the Maori words thrown in the novel make it harder too. She does provide a glossary at the end, but it really bothered me that she explains the word once and then assumes I'll remember it for the rest of the book. Before I got halfway through, I had stopped looking up the words. It was exhausting and it kept interrupting the flow. It was hard enough to keep pace with the story without having to stop every few pages to look up words. I actually believe this might have worked better as a short story, as it was originally written.

This is a book that elicits polarizing emotions from people. It delves into issues that are typically seen in a straightforward manner, but instead, it presents them in a more nuanced way, with shades of gray.

The protagonist, Kerewin Holmes, who is of mixed white and Maori heritage, resides alone in a lighthouse in New Zealand. She is set in her ways and is perfectly content to spend her days in solitude. One fateful day, a mysterious, silent, blonde boy appears on her beach. Uncertain about how to handle this unexpected situation, she does the best she can by taking him in and gradually tries to figure out who his caretaker is. Soon enough, she meets his adoptive father, Joe, a Maori. Kerewin quickly develops a close bond with both Joe and his son. However, as she discovers, the relationship between Joe and his adopted son is extremely complicated, marked by abuse and heartbreak. Nevertheless, despite the despair and abuse, the reader finds it difficult to view Joe as a villain, and becomes deeply involved in the tumultuous and passionate relationship between Kerewin, Simon, and Joe.

This book tackles important issues such as ethnic identity, child abuse, and alcoholism. After reading the final chapter, it is almost impossible to simply close the book and walk away from the lives of the three main characters. Moreover, one cannot read this book without being captivated by the beautiful writing of Keri Hulme.

I read Bone People as part of our reading group's commitment to working through the Booker prize list. Additionally, it was inevitable being a famous Kiwi publication.

The book began rather smoothly for me. There was a challenging protagonist, a compelling and vulnerable child, and an unknown quantity in the child's father.

It's no secret that the story delves into abuse, but the direction of Bone People is confronting, to say the least. Nevertheless, the original and, in my opinion, close-to-real take is something that won't be seen elsewhere.

In terms of other aspects of the book, I found the narrative difficult to follow much of the time. I did enjoy the sporadic leaps into clarity, especially during harrowing scenes. However, I often found myself questioning whose head I was in. (This, of course, may be a criticism of my own attentional abilities, but I'm just putting it out there.) Overall, this left me feeling a little unsatisfied by the end of the book. However, I was still glad to have jumped into Hulme's world.

I first read this book in the early 90's. At that time, although I didn't remember much of the specific story details, I vividly remember the experience of living through it.

This time around, as I was reading, it was on track to be a 5-star read. The story had pulled me in, and I was thoroughly enjoying it. However, everything changed when I got to the last part. It was as if the book suddenly went off the rails for me. The plot took unexpected turns that I didn't quite understand or appreciate.

Sometimes, I really enjoy rereading books. It gives me a chance to revisit old favorites and discover new things I might have missed before. But other times, like in this case, I think rereads can be a terrible idea. They can shatter the美好的 memories I had of a book and leave me feeling disappointed.

Overall, this reread was a bit of a mixed bag for me.

Wow.

This one truly had a profound impact on me, staying with me for months after.

It was an experience that was both brutally harsh and deeply sad.

The events and emotions depicted were so intense that they left a lasting impression.

However, within the darkness, there was a glimmer of hope.

That tiny spark of optimism managed to shine through the otherwise bleak narrative.

It gave me a sense that even in the most difficult of times, there is always a possibility for something better.

This story served as a reminder that life can be filled with both pain and hope, and that we must learn to navigate through it all.

It made me reflect on my own life and the challenges I have faced, and how I too have found moments of hope in the midst of adversity.

Overall, it was a powerful and moving piece that will continue to resonate with me for a long time to come.

3.5 stars
I had high hopes for this book, but unfortunately, it didn't quite meet my expectations.

It is filled with the mystery and charm that is characteristic of New Zealand. There are some truly beautiful and poetic passages, and most of the characters are well-developed and executed.

However, there were a few things that detracted from my enjoyment. I really disliked Kerewin Holmes. She seemed to be good at everything except human relationships, and after a while, she became a bit boring.

Joe and Simon have a believable relationship, but the ending felt a bit too neat and tidy.

The religious overtones were also a bit heavy-handed for my taste.

On the positive side, the portrayal of child abuse was honest and brutal, but it also highlighted the love that can exist within an abusive relationship.

It was refreshing to see this topic dealt with in a realistic and compassionate way.

Overall, I think this book had a lot of potential, but it was let down by a few flaws. If the author had toned down Kerewin's character and given the ending a bit more depth, it could have been a 5-star read.

I read this as part of my self-declared New Zealand November in 2015. It ticks several boxes for me - Oceania 2015, a Man Booker Prize winner from 1985 (I aim to read them all eventually), a female author, and more. Keri Hulme, being part Maori, makes this a deeper cultural exploration of the country.

From the publisher's description, I anticipated a rather straightforward novel. However, I found a book that combines poetry within prose, stream of consciousness within a third-person narrative, rotating points of view among three unusual minds, and a setting with fantastical elements, drawn sometimes from Maori mythology and sometimes from Kerewin's or Simon's own imaginations. It was both easy and complex to read, and unlike anything else I've encountered.

Interestingly, the only similar books I can think of are recent New Zealand reads. I don't believe this is a unique experience for New Zealanders, where the exterior doesn't match the interior, but it has been a more prominent theme in New Zealand literature compared to other places. The unexpected interiors range from artistry to mental illness, abuse to psychopathy. The world is seen both as it is and in an elevated sense, through the lens of myth or a different perspective. I wonder why this is so in New Zealand. Is the mystical connection to the land more recent here than elsewhere?

Don't listen to those who dismiss this book. It doesn't feel like an Oxford or MFA educated writer reflecting on their contemporary experience because that's not who the author is.

There are numerous remarkable aspects about this book.

The prose is lyrical, almost like a song. Hulme's proficiency, extensive vocabulary, and delight in sound and rhythm within the prose are palpable. The three central characters are among the most intricate I've encountered recently, and the allegory they construct regarding New Zealand and its history is captivating, extremely well-conceived, and as pertinent as ever.

In addition to this, the scenery and settings are incredibly vivid and contribute significantly. The writing is truly of high quality.

However, in a book that was rife with juxtapositions - love and hate, past and present, Māori and Pakeha perspectives and relationships - I felt that the transition to magic and mythology towards the end was jarring when compared to the unwaveringly serious realism up until that point. Some of the most beautiful passages emerge from this section with its inclusion of legend and spirituality, but the last 100 pages and the ending where things are neatly (and rather tritely) tied up really left me unimpressed.

I also have to concur with many other reviewers that Kerewin is interesting yet a bit unbearable. There is a section where she saves Simon from a beating with effortless martial art skills, revealing that apparently she spent years in Japan and is a freaking aikido sensei out of nowhere. It was like watching an amazing movie and suddenly having crappy 90s era CGI slapped on top without any warning.

Nonetheless, it's still really decent and I would recommend it.

I thought I had read this novel when it was first published, but now I am unsure. Memory or false memory is a strange feeling.

Being a New Zealander, I can understand the context of punishment on children. When I was growing up, there was still corporal punishment at school. Parents did not spare the rod. In my mum's case, it was the rarely used wooden spoon, while my father used his hands. Now I think New Zealand has changed. Although there is still child abuse, it is not on the scale it was historically.

Simon, Joe, and Kerewin all have their demons. The adults are fueled by alcohol and lack of control. Simon, mute and traumatized by a shipwreck and a past of fear and abuse. The story is a fable. The stereotype of Maori being mystical and spiritual is for the majority a fantasy. Although there are some, and it's growing, where their history and heritage is part of their identity.

Kerewin is too good to be true. An artist, philosopher, martial arts expert, and of course estranged from her family without any explanation of why. Joe, a laborer in a factory, given custody of Simon after his wife died. Unlikely as it may seem, he struggles to understand Simon's violence, destructive behavior, and the only discipline he has is his fists.

Towards the end of the book, they all undertake a metamorphosis. Joe is healed mentally and spiritually after getting out of jail by meeting an old Maori who is the guardian of a relic and has been waiting for him. Joe becomes the new guardian. Simon recovers in hospital and becomes more stable but still independent. Kerewin goes to the brink of death and is in a way reborn a better person. She forgives and becomes more giving, accepting, and tolerant.

A strange book, and by its very strangeness, a worthy winner of the Booker Prize. Yes, it is a visceral story with child abuse, and the language is repetitive at times. I would still recommend it. During my reading of the book, the author Keri Hulme died. She never wrote another novel, but this one is a fine tribute.

A bookseller in New Zealand issued a solemn warning to me that this was an extremely difficult and painful book. And he couldn't have been more right. Keri Hulme presents the reader with her complex characters, laying them out like a surgical patient on the operating table. Then, with surgical precision, she cuts each one, and by extension, the reader, to the bone. She dismembers each of her main characters, severs their bonds, and sends them adrift into their separate allegorical deserts. Only after each has endured their own dark night of the soul do they find their way back to each other.

There are no tidy resolutions here. Instead, there is an indefatigable will to create something whole out of their brokenness, to take risks once more. The major themes she delves into are as diverse as they are profound: identity and authenticity, encompassing Maori, European, and hybrid cultures; the land, sea, and memory; colonialism; hard labor, barroom culture, and alcoholism; violence, power, and their uneasy proximity to love; Maori spirituality, Christian symbolism, and syncretism; genealogy, family, and friendship; abuse, trauma, and resilience; and finally, transformation and hard-won redemption.

This book is both earthy and poetic, a rare combination that makes it a literary masterpiece. It richly deserved to win the Booker Prize in 1985, a testament to its enduring power and significance.

Keri Hulme's sole novel, The Bone People, emerged victorious in the 1985 Booker McConnell Prize. For years, I have yearned to obtain a copy of this book, yet for various reasons, I have been unable to do so. I perhaps postponed it a little as I haven't had much success in enjoying many of the Booker Prize winners I have read thus far. However, I was still extremely excited to get to this one and be able to read it as part of an online book club that I manage.

Some of the reviews I selected to read before delving into the novel further piqued my interest. The New York Times Book Review remarks that the novel, set on the harsh South Island beaches of New Zealand, is bound in Maori myth and entwined with Christian symbols. Hulme casts her magic on three fiercely unique characters, but reminds us that we, like them, are "nothing more than people," and that, in a sense, we are all cannibals, compelled to consume the gift of love with demands for perfection. The Sunday Times concurs, writing: "Seizing on material that might seem outlandish, she transforms it into a fable that's as persuasive as it's haunting. In this novel, New Zealand's people, its heritage and landscape are conjured up with uncanny poetry and perceptiveness."

In her short preface to the volume, Hulme reveals that the novel began life as a short story called "Simon Peter's Shell." She goes on to recount the "oddities" that resound in her novel, regarding both its editing process and her original choices of vocabulary. She believes that the shape of words elicits a response from the reader - a tiny, subconscious, unacknowledged but definite response. I adored it when authors employ wordplay, and particularly relished the way in which Hulme evoked the landscape around her characters. Her descriptions vividly captured the natural world; for example, "Intermittent wheeping flutes from oystercatchers," and "the gathering boil of the surf below."

The Bone People commences in a tower by the New Zealand sea, inhabited by a part-Maori, part-European woman named Kerewin Holmes. She is an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family. Hulme writes of Kerewin's quest to build the tower in which she lives: "All through the summer sun she laboured, alone with the paid, bemused, professional help. The dust obscured and flayed, thirst parched, and tempers frayed, but the Tower grew. A concrete skeleton, wooden ribs and girdle, skin of stone, grey and slateblue and heavy honey-coloured. Until late one February it stood, gaunt and strange and embattled, built on an almost island in the shallows of an inlet, tall in Taiaroa."

Kerewin is self-fulfilling and invites nobody to visit her, for what would they know of the secrets that crept and chilled and chuckled in the marrow of her bones? Although keeping to herself and living a relatively isolated life, at the beginning of the novel, she is disrupted by a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon who attempts to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession. Against her will, she succumbs to his feral charm, along with that of Joe, his Maori foster father. The novel that Hulme has crafted, with its "unorthodox trinity" of characters, is described as at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where Maori and European New Zealand meet.

When Kerewin first encounters Simon, who has broken into her tower, she thinks him "Nasty. Gnomish." She further describes him in the following, almost disparaging, manner: "There isn't much above a yard of it standing there, a foot out of range of her furthermost reach. Small and thin, with an extraordinary face, highboned and hollowcheeked, fleet and pointed chin, and a sharp sharp nose. Nothing else is visible under an obscuration of silverblond hair, except the mouth, and it's set in an uncommonly stubborn line." The interactions between the two are interesting as Simon is mute, and alternative methods of communication must be relied upon.

From the outset, I found Hulme's prose enchanting. In her deliberately ambiguous prologue, she writes: "They were nothing more than people, by themselves. Even paired, any pairing, they would have been nothing more than people by themselves. But all together, they have become the heart and muscles and mind of something perilous and new, something strange and growing and great." There is a mysterious quality to the book that weaves itself through the novel.

Hulme's writing, and the way she approaches it, is experimental, yet not in a way that makes it inaccessible. An omniscient narrative form runs parallel to Kerewin's thoughts, which come across in a stream-of-consciousness style. This generally works well, but it does tend to jump around somewhat and is a little challenging to get accustomed to initially. Style-wise, I don't actually believe I've read anything quite similar to The Bone People, and I'm a fan of experimental writing.

I didn't warm to any of the protagonists. However, I don't feel that this was the point of the novel at all. Hulme seems to set out to demonstrate how flawed the human race is and how easily we can be led by others. She shows, in a series of highly violent, traumatic, and difficult-to-read scenes, just how cruel we can be and how irredeemably we can hurt others.

The Bone People is a novel that feels very contemporary. I loved the way in which Hulme has incorporated Maori terms throughout; of course, this is fitting given the setting of the story and its characters. A glossary at the back of the novel provides English translations, although many are self-explanatory based on the context in which they are used. So much attention has been paid to each of the senses throughout the novel, and this added depth to Hulme's descriptions and depictions. There is a real shape and movement to Hulme's prose, and I found the approach she took in The Bone People fascinating and admirable.

While I admired Hulme's writing style and found her prose rich and textured, I'm sorry to say that this isn't a novel that I enjoyed reading. This is especially true when the unrelenting violence begins to saturate everything else. The Bone People feels like an important book, particularly from a cultural perspective, but I found it difficult to read overall. In conclusion, I found the novel unusual, harrowing, strange, and incredibly intense.