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Heaven: July Book Group: The Bone People, by Keri Hulme

finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
edited January 2023 in Limbo
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.

Comments

  • I read the Bone People in the mid - late eighties, and found it very thought provoking.
    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.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I also read it in the 80s and will try for a reread this month, as I found it interesting and challenging but remember very little about it.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I've never read it, so looking forward to reading it this month. I do like the diversity of books we read.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I have a hold on it at our public library.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Ms. C. picked up my copy this afternoon.
  • I think there's still a copy at the parental abode - Dad and I both read it back in the 80s. Will try to remember to have a look when I'm over there tomorrow. I make no promises on finding it! (Or on time to read it this month...)
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Just discovered it isn't on Kindle. I'll pop into the library and reserve a copy in the next day or two.
    @Celtic Knotweed , threads stay open for a while so you can always add your thoughts when you do get round to a re-read.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I unearthed my old paperback copy this morning.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    I'm having trouble getting hold of this one. My library doesn't have physical or digital copies. I tried buying a second hand copy online at the one Australian business that had a reasonably priced second hand copy, but the website wouldn't process my order! Plus the estimated delivery suggested the book may have been overseas anyway. I struggled to find time to join in last month's discussion so am going to take a break and hopefully join in next month. In tangential positive news things are imploding for Boris Johnson since my last comment. Maybe his opponents can oust him in less than 12 months after all!
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Just requested the book from my local library. I should be on track to join in, as the book should arrive sometime next week.
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    Mine has just arrived for collection at the local library.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Finished the first 60m pages and greatly enjoying it. My wife is a Ngaio Marsh fan. Until I read this book, neither of us new that an ngaio was a tree.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Halfway through and loving it. It was definitely worthy of the accolades it received.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I picked up my copy at the library yesterday. Not really got into it yet, so I might be a bit late with my comments.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    I finished the book this afternoon. How are others doing?
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    I'm enchanted with this book - it's so different from anything I have read.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Caissa wrote: »
    Finished the first 60m pages and greatly enjoying it. My wife is a Ngaio Marsh fan. Until I read this book, neither of us new that an ngaio was a tree.

    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.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I just started my re-read -- definitely getting drawn back into it again, but it won't be a quick read for me. Will join in when I get finished.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I'm really enjoying it, but I'm not going to have finished it by tomorrow, which is the day for posting questions. I could just write some generic questions, or I could wait a couple more days till I finish and then write more specific questions. What would people prefer? Would it be okay to post questions on Saturday, or would people rather have questions tomorrow?
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I won't be finished till next week so questions anytime are fine by me!
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Questions delayed is fine with me.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Okay, thanks - I will post questions on Saturday.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Sorry, it's now Sunday, but I've now finished the book and have questions to post. I have found my reactions to, and thoughts about, the novel, quite mixed, so I've been reading various reviews, and finding it does seem to elicit very mixed responses in general. So hopefully that makes for an interesting discussion.

    

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.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Here are some of my thoughts:

    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).
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I am only about halfway through my reread so will have more coherent thoughts when I have finished. But I will say now that I read this book soon after it came out, and the thing that struck me at the time and has lingered ever since (even after major plot/character details were long forgotten) was that it was a book about a man who physically abused a child, that made me actually want the man to get custody of the child back. Which I thought was an amazing feat for an author to be able to pull off -- to empathize with someone I would normally hate. I haven't gotten to that part yet where (I believe, if I remember correct) Simon is taken from Joe's care, but it will be interesting to re-read it and see if that's still my perception.

    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....
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Well I've sort of finished it. I must confess to skip reading whole chucks of it so there are loads of finer details that I must have missed. I thought The Guardian article linked to above pretty much sums up what I thought, though I think I would probably be less kind than they were.
    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.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Yes, I thought the strength of the novel was the in-depth exploration of the dynamics of child abuse, given that child abuse does often happen and goes unchallenged in small, marginalised communities. And that it wasn't a simple black and white 'Joe is the bad guy' thing, but looked at the multiple and complex factors involved. It seemed mostly analysed through Kerewin's thought process, as she analysed it with a lot more understanding than Joe seemed to have. I somehow found Joe a little unbelievable in some respects though - I never really got from him any genuine sense of guilt or responsibility. And the fact that he was clearly an intelligent, perceptive and sensitive person made this level of disconnect a bit odd. He was clearly terrified of Kerewin finding out, but that was a self-preservation thing, rather than a sense of responsibility- he seemed to see it that he literally couldn't help it and it wasn't his fault and that anyone else would have done the same. And once he'd gone too far and almost killed Simon, then it seemed all about himself and his spirital journey. To me, surely the reality would be far messier. I felt the sympathy elicited for him was more based on the fact that both Kerewin and Simon, who seemed more fully-developed characters, clearly loved him very much and wanted to be with him, rather than a coherent portrayal of his perspective.

    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.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Oh, another question occurs to me. Would people have had different reactions to the characters if Kerewin had been a man and Joe a woman? I don't know for myself - though I felt the community in the novel respected Joe because a single dad is often far more admired than a single mum.
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    I have very mixed feelings on this book. Whilst I was very much drawn in by the 3 main characters – Joe, Kerewin and Simon, I didn’t find them credible. I didn’t understand how Joe could so repeatedly thrash a child (a 6 year old with the buckle of their belt) and not be found out by schools, or other. And such a light sentence for nearly killing the boy (ok he had just tried to hurt / kill Joe, but even so …!) And for Kerewin to say nothing? But then, maybe that is something that happens in real life and we just don’t know about it? And the way Simon was drawn to him despite the thrashings – that didn’t tally!? And Kerewin as the martial arts expert – surely that would have been seen in the community before and there would have been a little bit more awe around her.

    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!
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    Overall, I enjoyed the book. The main characters were deeply flawed and did not act in their own best interests. It was hard to muster much sympathy for them especially Joe who was abusing a young child. That said, my favourite part of the book was the interactions between Joe and the dying man. Kerewin's miraculous recovery lacked credibility. I appreciated the glimpses into Maori culture and language. The trinity analogy did not seem to fit.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    I won't have finished the book before the end of July, but will still pop back here to post some thoughts on the last part of the book next week when I finish it.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host
    Just finished it again. My main perception is the same as it was when I originally read it 30+ years ago -- that it is quite a feat for a writer to create a relationship like Joe's and Simon's, where the man is horribly physically abusive and yet the reader believes that he loves the child and the child is miserable without him. Reading it now with a lot more life experience I think that even though it is quite a literary feat for the author to make me want Simon back in Joe's custody, that kind of bond is not uncommon in real life; there are a lot of parents who are physically abusive but also really love their kids and simply can't deal with their own trauma well enough, or can't parent well enough, to do better. It's always a sad situation and I think can only work out if the abusive parent is given a massive amount of professional and community support. I think as readers we're just supposed to feel that Joe and Kerewin agreeing to be together as some kind of a couple (even if an asexual one) is the support that's needed, but (like a lot of things about this book's ending, like K's miraculous recovery) it did not seem believable.

    On reflection I think Kerewin is my least favourite character by quite a large margin.
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