Te Kaihau/the Windeater

An impressive collection of short stories awaits discovery! This anthology truly deserves to be far more widely known and read. It's a treasure trove of literary gems. I must admit that I couldn't claim to have understood every single story immediately. In fact, like in any collection, there were some that I enjoyed more than others. This is quite inevitable. What makes this collection truly special is the wonderful variety it offers. The tone ranges from light-hearted to deeply poignant. The styles vary from simple and straightforward to complex and intricate. The themes are diverse, covering everything from love and loss to hope and redemption. Even the format is not uniform, adding an extra layer of interest. Among all the stories, my absolute favorites were 'One Whale, Singing' and 'A Drift in Dream'. These two stories captured my imagination and left a lasting impression on me.

I truly have a great appreciation for Keri Hulme's writing style.

Although I hold the view that it functions more effectively in the form of a novel.

Her style, which is mysterious, visceral, and spiritual in nature, demands a bit more time for one to truly fathom what is transpiring.

This is, at least, my personal opinion.

Nevertheless, there are some truly wonderful stories within her works.

The way she weaves words together creates an atmosphere that draws the reader in and makes them want to explore deeper.

Her use of language is both captivating and thought-provoking, making her writing a unique and engaging experience.

Even though it may take some effort to fully understand her stories, the reward is well worth it.

Overall, I find Keri Hulme's writing to be a fascinating and enriching exploration of the human experience.

This is a collection of experimental short stories penned by the New Zealand author of The Bone People. The stories are replete with Hulme's profound sense of the beauty of New Zealand, intertwined with her acute awareness of human alienation from the environment.

From an environmental perspective, the story that truly stood out for me was:

"One Whale Singing" - a pregnant woman is aboard a boat, while a pregnant whale is in the water. The woman engages in a heated argument with her pompous partner about whether humans are truly superior to other creatures. She contends that our ability to create artifacts, rather than signifying superior intellectual capabilities, in fact reveals our inferiority, our lack of a genuine ecological niche, and our complete alienation from nature. Meanwhile, the whale is having a splendid time, in perfect harmony with the waters surrounding her.

All these stories are exquisitely written, brimming with genuine insight and awareness. They are also highly thought-provoking and deliberately refrain from providing the reader with the satisfaction of a definitive conclusion, thereby mirroring the complexity and ambiguity of life.

Te Kaihau is a compilation of short stories, prose, and poems penned by the renowned author Keri Hulme, who achieved great acclaim for The Bone People. It's important to note that this collection is entirely different from The Bone People. Picking it up with the expectation of a similar experience would be a mistake. The writing in Te Kaihau is predominantly experimental. There are often underdeveloped ideas, sentence fragments, and moments of ambiguity. As a result, it can be quite challenging to fully engage with or establish a connection to the characters. Despite being a medium-sized collection, consisting of approximately 234 pages, I suspect that most readers will only find three or four stories to their liking. However, this isn't necessarily a drawback. In fact, I believe the text encourages readers to think critically and form their own opinions, which may include disliking certain aspects of what is written.

I was particularly drawn to \"One Whale, Singing\" because of its exploration of the relationship between science and art, as well as its profound commentary and reflections on humanity. Additionally, it seemed to align with the Maori themes that I've encountered in other works, given the whale's significance in Maori cosmology. Although it is a relatively short piece, it stands out from the rest of the collection.

\"While My Guitar Gently Sings\" wasn't among my favorite selections, but it did offer a wealth of cultural insights. It delved into various aspects such as health issues, taboos, the essence of Maori tradition, a strong sense of place and identity, and provided some interesting perspectives on how an individual may or may not feel a sense of belonging within a community.

The titular story, \"The Windeater,\" was also quite engaging. I'll leave you with one of the final lines:

It all depends

on what story

you hear

4.5/5

I've encountered my fair share of individuals who claim an interest in, and in some cases, border on a devotion to, experimental writing. However, it's difficult to take them seriously when I'm the only one in my Goodreads circle to have added, read, and reviewed this work in that order. For the sake of thoroughness, the reviewers who typically top the lists of the standard definition of experimental (a paradox if there ever was one, but that hasn't stopped the worshippers of the demographically conforming) are considered. So, unless some are hidden among a relatively small number of overtly interested readers, the only conclusion is that this book by a Man Booker winner has somehow passed everyone by. It's the same old story, but Rome wasn't built in a single iteration of such.

Good luck trying to precisely determine what any of these are about. Here, you have a combination of poetry, a screenplay, nearly ubiquitous stream of consciousness, fantasy, sci-fi (which could be classified as magical realism, but I prefer to view them as a decentering of the Euro consciousness), bildungsroman, horror, mystery, and horror mystery in the vein of Hitchcock, all blended together in some of the most densely written yet incisively deft prose I've read in a long time. The stories are more ghastly than anything else, with recurring themes of violence, disability, abject poverty, the disintegration of the psyche when cut off from the natural world, the disintegration of the body when subjected to the natural world, animals being led to the slaughter, domestic abuse, the suppression of the people's right to protest, settler state abuse, and various ways in which human beings are isolated through amputation. There is very little closure, even less social connection, and any motivation for the plot usually stems entirely from the single (?) first-person narrator's slow descent into rambling obsession and/or rapid succumbing to an overwhelming force outside themselves: rarely human, never nice.

Those who have read The Bone People may be pleased to learn that these pages contain a portion of the past of the mysterious child character. Others who haven't read the Booker-winning work yet but plan to may think they should avoid this in case of spoilers. However, I don't consider Hulme a writer who concentrates most, if any, of her authorial worth in the form of a few somewhat convoluted plot points. A third group that has had no contact with the more decorated novel will be free to decide without bibliographical bias whether this admittedly monstrous yet equally powerful collection is worth pursuing. As I mentioned earlier, give up hope of narrowing anything down. A better understanding than mine of New Zealand and Māori in yet another iteration of the colonialist tradition would无疑 help, especially regarding the indigenous vocabulary that appears as much as it did in TBP. Still, that doesn't resolve the ever-present confusion of what time, place, gender, age, and even species the first-person narrator is operating from. You may make your assumptions, but beware: any determination necessarily limits your experience of the experimental, and we wouldn't want that, now would we?

For those obsessed with finding books to meet eclectic requirements for various reading challenges, Keri Hulme is Māori, asexual, and aromantic. I could pretend to use one or all of these characteristics as paradigms for analysis, but eh. I'm more concerned about those who have a hard time seeing themselves in writing and even more so in literature. This is timely because Hulme, like Roy, has been promising second/third (apparently twinned works) novels for some time now. The fact that the latter has recently committed to a publication next year gives hope for the sooner rather than later output of this other unorthodox Man Booker winner.

I'm a well-trained reader, yet these stories presented a significant struggle for me, one that I mostly failed to overcome. I truly desired to love them, as I had adored The Bone People. Instead, I frequently found myself perplexed about whose voice I was hearing. It was sort of like eavesdropping on a windy beach, where the words were constantly snatched away by the wind.

Another aspect that confounded me was the prominent focus on amputation in many of the stories. I won't enumerate the titles because it would require rereading them, or even just their introductory paragraphs. There is a profound sense of colonized hopelessness here, something I've also encountered in Silko and Erdrich. The language seems to get trapped behind clenched teeth until it is released in spurts.

Then there is the intrusion of cinematography, the modern concept that there is a machine somewhere watching and recording all the nuances of lives. The distressing part of this in the stories is the use of television jargon like close-ups and pans. It's distressing because it poses yet another linguistic barrier for this reader who is not familiar with grips, best boys, or such. NZ English, Maori words, unfamiliar fauna and flora all make the mind begin to balk, straining my mental capacity in the uphill battle of comprehension.

I read "A Tally of the Souls of Lost Sheep," which is definitely a horror film written as a cinematic script, and I was truly horrified. I also read "One Whale Singing" where a woman is relieved to have been thrown into the ocean rather than have her overly solicitous husband silence her one more time. "Planetesimal" reminded me of Peter S. Beagle, and the drugscapes of a former era. "Hooks and Feelers" was the most notable story about amputation, with an obvious sacrifice of a hand. I'm not sure how the mother being a potter fit in as the story leaves one with a sense that something was cut off. It was effective yet unpleasant, sort of like the hook.

The next story, with a title in Maori that I dare not transcribe, is one of the few that offer hope, where singing from the heart's desire is sometimes more important than technical performance. "A Nightsong for the Shining Cuckoo" also involves amputation, and I can't claim to have understood it. "The Cicadas of Summer" is another kind of horror story, with a sense of dread like the song of insects throughout. A sense of exhaustion set in by the final stories, and I'm not sure if I can push myself through the title piece, feeling like a swimmer exhausted by a rip tide of confusing currents.

A collection of short stories by Keri Hulme offers a captivating literary experience. Having been thoroughly impressed by "The Bone People," I was eager to explore this collection, and it did not disappoint. The stories are experimental, often incorporating elements of magic realism. The diverse range of styles makes it feel as if it were the work of several writers. Hulme, being part Maori, infuses the collection with her culture and influence.

This collection has faced criticism for being negative, violent, and even horrific. However, it is important to note that it does not present a sanitized version of Maori culture. Instead, it delves into the harsh realities of oppression and injustice faced by many Maoris on the fringes of New Zealand society. Hulme's strong voice and feminism are evident throughout, as seen in her powerful words: "I remember the words and I remember the sting, and I still hate all that shit, men being tapu, and women being noa."
Themes of death, dying, and maiming may seem bleak, but there is a profound and physical connection to the natural world that serves as a prominent character in many of the stories. Additionally, the writing is rich in poetic content, a testament to Hulme's skills as a poet. Phrases like "What can I say to you? That is clean, new, untrammeled, Free from smears and fresh from mother tongue?" and "solitary tall hills, Sometimes walk, sometimes meet" add a lyrical quality to the collection.
Isolation and alienation are also significant themes that run throughout the stories. While these aspects may not initially seem appealing, they contribute to the overall depth and complexity of the collection. These remarkable and haunting stories hold their own among the works of some of the greatest short story writers.

After reading "The Bone People", with its themes of drunkenness and violence, I was disappointed to find the same themes in all of these short stories.

I really like the writing style, but there is just too much sadness. It seems that the author is fixated on these dark aspects of human nature and fails to explore other, more positive emotions.

While I understand that these themes can be powerful and thought-provoking, they also have the potential to be overwhelming and depressing.

I would have liked to see more variety in the stories, perhaps some that focused on love, hope, or redemption.

Overall, I found the collection to be a bit one-sided, and I hope that the author will consider branching out and exploring different themes in future works.