Please see Styx thread on the Registered Shipmates consultation for the main discussion forums - your views are important, continues until April 4th.
Heaven: July Book Group: The Bone People, by Keri Hulme
Our July book is The Bone People, by the New Zealand writer Keri Hulme. It is a novel that explores the themes of isolation and identity, and it won the Booker Prize in 1985.
It's a book I first came across in the early 1990s, and started reading it, really enjoyed it, but didn't finish (I think it was a library book that needed to be returned!), and have wanted to return to it ever since. So I'm looking forward to reading the whole book this time. I'll post discussion questions on 20th July.
It's a book I first came across in the early 1990s, and started reading it, really enjoyed it, but didn't finish (I think it was a library book that needed to be returned!), and have wanted to return to it ever since. So I'm looking forward to reading the whole book this time. I'll post discussion questions on 20th July.
Comments
It was considered very controversial on a subject I had a particular interested in during the previous 20 years, and I will be very interested to read the comments posted here in due course.
@Celtic Knotweed , threads stay open for a while so you can always add your thoughts when you do get round to a re-read.
Her parents wanted a NZ name for their daughter and one of the family suggested Ngaio. (This is according to a paper written by a relative which has been passed down through the family. ) She was a second cousin of my mother and was from Christchurch A portrait of her mother is displayed in the City Art gallery.
1. What were your overall impressions of the novel, and did these change as you progressed through the book? If you had read the book in the past, was your reaction to it different this time, and how?
2. How did you react to each of the three main characters: Simon, Kerewin and Joe? And how did your reactions change throughout the novel? Did you like them or dislike them, did you find them interesting, did you find them believable? Did you find yourself taking sides? Did you want them all to be together?
And more specifically:
Simon - What did you feel was the significance of Simon's muteness? And his name, Simon Peter, as well as the fact it's not even his original name?
Kerewin - What did you feel was the significance of Kerewin's being an artist? What about her tower? Did you feel, as some people on Goodreads have expressed, that she was in any way a 'Mary Sue' ('a type of fictional character, usually a young woman, who is portrayed as unrealistically free of weaknesses. Originating in fan fiction, a Mary Sue is often an author's idealized self-insertion.' Wikipedia).
Joe - When the novel is portraying Joe in a sympathetic light, after his violence towards Simon, did you find yourself sharing this sympathy, or alienated from him?
All three - Reviewers have described the three characters as a symbolic Trinity, with Simon being a Christ-figure. Did you see this when you read the novel, and if so, how did you feel about it?
3. Were there other characters that stuck in your mind?
4. The style of the novel is quite experimental, with a lot of wordplay, and the author talks in her preface of the difficulties getting such a 'non-standard' book published. A Guardian article from 2009 says her writing can be 'startlingly awful,' that it sometimes makes no sense, and brings with it 'a load of old spiritual bollocks.' How did you find the style? Were there many parts that didn't make sense for you, and did that matter?
5. The novel uses quite a few Maori phrases. What was your reaction to this? If, like me, you are not familiar with Maori, were you looking up the meaning each time, or just letting it flow, being okay with not understanding it all?
6. How did you interpret the ending - both in terms of what happened, and what significance it had? How did you feel about it?
7. Any other things you want to discuss. For more discussion points, here is an interesting review I found, with some strong views that people may or may not agree with: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n21/letters.
I was intrigued by the characters and the story, though at the beginning there seemed something a little naive and pretentious about Kerewin that I hadn't seen when I started reading it as a teenager. Back then, she had seemed like a fascinating, complex figure, full of knowledge and wisdom, and this time, I guess because I'm older, I was thinking more it seemed a bit contrived and romanticised, that she rows with her family and cuts herself off, as many people do, then wins the lottery, builds a tower, and sees this family row as the most awful tragedy in the world, at the same time as supposedly being quite hardened and tough in general. It didn't quite add up, seemed kind of artificial. Though I still found her interesting and generally liked her. And once the plot got going with her interactions with Joe, and the serious stuff, I was intrigued, and also I liked that the author was tackling domestic violence, child abuse, in a very head-on way, not pulling any punches.
But then towards the end, I found myself 'WTF'ing quite a bit. Joe almost kills his kid, disables him for life, after years of abusing him, and suddenly it's all about Joe's spiritual journey and healing, and Kerewin being all scornful of the ignorant authorities for wanting to keep Simon away from Joe. And the aspect of Simon being all happy to sacrifice himself to keep the peace, which is of course a disturbing reaction kids can have to being abused, but here it is somehow romanticised into him being a deeply compassionate, loving, heroic little boy. It seemed really odd and unhealthy.
Also, the parts when Kerewin shows herself able to easily beat anyone in a fight, how she uses her martial arts on Joe with ease, how she scares that aggressive chap at the pub by killing a fly with one deft movement and flicking it into his drink, how she dares the racist chaps to take her on - I found myself enjoying those scenes on a completely different level, like some superhero movie where the hero shows unexpected, extraordinary skills and beats the bad guys, and you suspend your disbelief and enjoy the triumph - it felt kind of surreal in the light of the rest of the story. I suppose there is perhaps an element of the fairy tale in it, along with the gritty realism, so the tower and sudden wealth fit that. Or maybe the author actually wanted the reader to enjoy the fights, to make us see an element of violence in ourselves. I mean, when Kerewin challenges those racist guys, there was a part of my brain going 'Yeah! Fight!' and a bit disappointed when it didn't happen!
I can see how publishers originally thought the book 'unwieldy', though I also see this as the author being very ambitious in what she is tackling and how. And the more ambitious a novel is, the more likely to miss the mark at times, but also be brilliant at other times.
I really liked the scenes in the pubs, as they seemed very real, and gave an impression of the communities. Also, the ordinary aspect of these scenes provided a welcome contrast and relief from all the odd and sometimes claustrophobic intensity of the 'trinity' of characters, all so full of emotional tension, potentially exploding at any point. In a pub setting, it's contained, diffused. I also liked the glimpse into Maori culture and the Maori phrases (though daftly didn't realise there was a glossary at the end, which translated them, so I was just using context to get the general idea).
Thanks for the review you linked @fineline -- it raises some of the questions I had about the book (the Keri Hulme/Kerewin Holmes parallels, and the author's "Maori-ness"). More on that when I've finished....
If stripped of the 'spiritual mumbo-jumbo', the story was rather slight and more suited for a lightweight romantic novel than a winner of the Booker. However there were bits in it that I thought were much more powerful and signs of a really good novel trying to emerge. The fact that Joe could be a sympathetic character despite his behaviour towards Simon was the main one.
My reaction to Joe, Simon and Kerewin being the father, son and the holy spirit is just no. It may be because I didn't read it closely but there seemed to be a lot of appropriation of religious symbols with not deeper meaning behind it. Simon's rosary for instance seemed as though it was going to be important and then it wasn't.
It wasn't till about half way through I realised there was a Maori glossary at the end. Up till then I was happy to go with the flow and not worry what the words meant.
I'm looking forward to what everyone else thought, my main take away from this book is that Keri Hulme should have agreed to it being edited as by the end it felt like it had gone on too long and I had lost interest.
Did anyone else find it odd that after that worst episode of abuse, Kerewin was wholly on Joe's side, with no apparent comprehension of the perspective of the authorities who wanted to keep Joe away from Simon? Particularly when she'd been so angry about the previous epidodes of abuse. I could see the reasoning that Joe would clearly be happiest with his dad, and I understood that she felt more sympathy for Joe after he talked about his childhood (though her surprise at that revelation seemed odd too - surely she could hardly have expected him to have had a nice childhood), and also that she felt somewhat to blame herself, but there seemed no subtlety of understanding of the complexity of the situation, the continued potential risk, and how of course the authorities see it this way.
But, I was drawn to them because I desperately wanted things to work out for them. I really wanted them to find a rhythm (not necessarily a relationship / marriage) but something that worked for them so they could bring out the best of each other, and perhaps Simon could find his voice (because he could sing!) I wanted more than a passing reference to where Simon had come from so that his ancestry could be traced and maybe family. When everything went tits-up and Simon was in hospital – there was the child worker who managed to reach Simon but that never took off – that was another missed opportunity for him.
Perhaps that is all naïve and simplistic of me as life doesn’t guarantee happy endings.
The Holy Trinity never occurred to me!
Like Sarasa, I skimmed a lot of the book but that is de rigueur for me - and possibly more than other books.
The greatest incongruity for me was the ending and the emergence of the miraculous Maoris. I have no idea of their intuition and relationship with the plants, the spirits as such – but I believe that perhaps they can be seers as such. But – all a bit too farfetched for me.
Interestingly tho, this book has played on my mind since finishing it. The characters and the plot got under my skin which I see as a good sign of a book that hit the spot, or it may simply be the book that is following isn’t hitting the spot.
In short, although somewhat unsatisfactory, I am glad I read it and grateful for the suggestion. And perversely I will probably re-read!
On reflection I think Kerewin is my least favourite character by quite a large margin.