JUNE - The Bone People

June review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2017: The Bone People by Keri Hulme, 1984. [set >5000 mi from your location category]


I think The Bone People was recommended to me in college by an intellectual boy on whom I had a quiet (and unrequited) crush, and I transferred it from my mother's bookshelf to my own, but never opened it. I chose it for the "taking place more than 5,000 miles from your location" category, which was surprisingly difficult to decide on! The Bone People takes place in New Zealand, in a tower built by an oddball hermit of a woman,and follows her encounter and subsequent relationship with a decidedly mute child and his Maori foster father. Their relationship becomes incredibly close, with Kerewin slotting in as sort of a confidante/extraparental figure in their twosome, and it becomes increasingly problematic as Joe's volcanic and violent rage becomes more apparent. It was very hard to read this book, once you know what you know about Joe's brutal and violent love for Simon. It is hard to parse the ending, which seems sort of like a dreamy afterthought--I was unsure how the story was going to continue when Kerewin burned down her tower with 100 pages left. I think overall, this book made me engage with the ugliness and I appreciate that. 


The Bone People has an incredibly interesting writing style, and Hulme's way with language is unlike anything I've experienced before. Her story jumps around, not from any single voice or point of view, with no discernible or marked shifts in between. We get to hear from introspective Kerewin, mute Simon, and wounded Joe, all characters who cannot or will not voice their inner workings to the world, so we must be privy to them through the narration. I found myself going back, a lot, especially to the amorphous, intentionally vague introductory segments that gathered more meaning as the trio's story progresses, and I like that about a book. One that builds upon itself even in its first reading. In addition, books that have glossaries are my favorite! I feel like I know the teensiest bit of Maori now (although purely in-my-head pronounciation must be atrocious, but still!) and I really appreciated the extra layer of their interactions, seeing how the Maori was used as a sort of code shift between Joe and Kerewin. 

For the most part, I think I liked Kerewin. I saw a lot of me in her, particularly in the way she stated that you could learn about a person by the books in their home: "You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read...." (p348). I love this phrase, especially because it focuses not only on the presence of the books in a person's universe, but goes further and examines the level of engagement in that presence. I think it is a beautiful addition to a sentiment I have often expounded upon, one that I will now take for my own. It is one of the things I really loved about Kerewin. I do not understand Kerewin, in many of her actions, but some of the bare bones artistic struggle I can internalize and nod along to.