The Bone People in Around the World

Nov 22, 2015 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read2015, worldlit2015, booker-winners-and-listed, location-new-zealand

I read this as part of my self-declared New Zealand November in 2015. It checks of a few boxes for me - Oceania 2015, a Man Booker Prize winner (I'd like to read them all eventually) from 1985, female author, etc. Keri Hulme is also part Maori, which made this a deeper cultural read about the country.

From the publisher's description, I was expecting a pretty straight-forward novel:

"In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Homes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her

I read this as part of my self-declared New Zealand November in 2015. It checks of a few boxes for me - Oceania 2015, a Man Booker Prize winner (I'd like to read them all eventually) from 1985, female author, etc. Keri Hulme is also part Maori, which made this a deeper cultural read about the country.

From the publisher's description, I was expecting a pretty straight-forward novel:

"In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Homes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her art, woman in exile from her family. One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor – a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession. As Kerewin succumbs to Simon’s feral charms, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality."

Instead I discovered a book mixing poetry inside of prose, stream of consciousness inside of third-person narrative, rotating points of view inside three unusual minds, and a setting with fantastical elements, sometimes from Maori mythology, sometimes Keriwen's or Simon's own ideas. It was simultaneously easy and complex to read and is unlike anything else I can think of that I've read.

It's funny because the only books I can think of that are similar are recent New Zealand reads. I don't think it is a unique experience to New Zealanders where the outsides don't match the insides, but so far that has been a far more prominent theme in New Zealand literature than in any other place of origin. The insides that are unexpected 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 mind. Why in New Zealand, I wonder? Is the mystical connection to the land just that more recent here of all places?

Don't listen to the people who poo-poo this book. It doesn't feel like an Oxford or MFA educated writer musing about their contemporary experience because that isn't who the author is. ...more

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Aug 27, 2017 Merrilyn rated it it was amazing

Book hangover time. This book took me by surprise as I'd only heard one review and it wasn't positive. I decided to give it a try and was gradually drawn into the world of the characters and the beautiful, unusual writing style. The three main characters are complex and flawed and there is plenty of darkness, but enough time is spent getting inside their heads that I found them all compelling. The book includes elements of Maori language and culture that was new to me and added a hint of the mys ...more

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Aug 30, 2008 Mary rated it liked it

Shelves: 2008

Hard to dig into due to the fact it took me a bit to get used to the writing style. But once I accomplished that, the character development is exquisite - really unlike any typical run of the mill fiction novels. It would've been helpful to find the Maori translation in the back of the book earlier which probably would've enhanced my comprehension level. Not a very good bedtime read, but a great read for a diversion from the norm. ...more

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