- Paperback: 464 pages
- Publisher: Picador (14 Mar 1986)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330296108
- ISBN-13: 978-0330296106
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11.1 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 186,998 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"This is not just a novel: it's a boggle-the-mind experience."
Product Description
Integrating both Maori myth and New Zealand reality, The Bone People became the most successful novel in New Zealand publishing history when it appeared in 1984. Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that "to care for anything is to invite disaster." Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon has been adopted by a widower Maori factory worker, Joe Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character's thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment. Compared to the works of James Joyce in its use of indigenous language and portrayal of consciousness, The Bone People captures the soul of New Zealand. After twenty years, it continues to astonish and enrich readers around the world.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is no mere book. Rather, it is an experience. An experience which covers virtually the whole gamut of human emotion. It resonates with beautiful poetry and is steeped in the deep spirituality of the Maori people. Their beautiful language (translated in a glossary at the back) peppers the narrative of this achingly poignant story of the (originally) hermit like Kerewin, Joe and his adopted son, Simon. They are drawn to each other, and indeed they have many similarities. All are nursing some deep private hurt from the past and as such each has their own barriers and each can be their own worst enemy. Yet each of them, too is possessed of a deep, fierce love for the others and a strong sense of community.
So much drama is contained in these 450 pages that you may think the plot line would be jumbled and incoherent. This is emphatically not so – the plot line never falters. Through this novel, too, we are made to confront our own judgements and prejudgements about subjects such as child abuse and behavioural difficulties. There is so much humanity in this book – we are forced to see each character as a rounded person with good and bad attributes. Nothing is black and white, Keri Hulme seems to be telling us. No one is wholly a monster nor wholly a saint. This point is really hammered home in the final few chapters, which are some of the most harrowing and yet joyful passages of literature I have ever read.
Never before have I read such a powerful, majestic, spiritual and thoroughly human book. I had to read it in bits, and come back to it again and again; it was such a potent and heady brew. I invite you, no, implore you, to dip into this multifaceted and precious treasure. It will be an experience you will never forget, I guarantee.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a densely woven, idiosyncratic book written from three separate viewpoints. It deals with the nature of relationships, the nature of selfhood and the meaning of family and cultural values. Drawing upon the Maori culture and history it blends narrative and philosophy, twisting and turning, and carrying the reader on a voyage of discovery. Each reading reveals additional levels and complexities of narrative, touching on the meaning of identity and the fusion of past present and future, and provides confirmation that this one of the outstanding works of literature of the decade if not the century.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A rich reading experience, with characters so real it is sometimes painful to read, and always totally engrossing. I re-read the Bone People every few years and am always discover more in it. I recommend this book to all my friends - especially at difficult times in their life. Somehow reading it is a balancing, re-rooting experience - can't explain how, you'll just have to read it! Persevere through the opening chapter which is quite obscure....
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Powerful, profound, infuriating and well worth reading
This is an emotionally powerful novel which, fundamentally, is an extended illustration of the W. H. Auden line that we must love one another or die.. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Stephen Carr
Extraordinary!
Wow, tough!! I would strongly recommend this, it is wonderfully written, but it is only for those with a strong constitution!! Read more
Published 10 months ago by RM
sensitive subject
Set alongside Maori people in New Zealand and predominantly featuring an artist and a man and "his" child. The book depicts the Maori culture in an evocative way. Read more
Published on 4 May 2009 by karen bennett
Wow
This is the story of three unforgettable characters, Kerewin, a hemit and artist, Joe a hard drinking widower and his adopted mute son Simon. Read more
Published on 10 April 2009 by A. Hope
The Bone People
I also love this book and have read it many times and also bought so many copies for friends, over the years. Read more
Published on 16 Jan 2004 by Mick
I still love this book- after nearly 20 years!
I asked for this book for a Birthday, after reading a short review in a Sunday paper, nearly 20 years ago. Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2002 by helganog
More of the same please!
What can I say? This has to be one of the best, books I have read in a long time and that speaks volumes considering I'm a literature student. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2002
In New Zealand, an artist, a lost kid and a maori meet
A very rich and intriguing book written by a half maori female writer. A woman tries to find peace, inspiration and loneliness in a tower until someday a mute boy appears. Read more
Published on 20 July 2000 by Dee
A poignant, beautiful read
It is many years since I last read this book, but I know that one day I will again. It is penetrating in it's emotion without losing it's edge. Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2000 by andrea@floody.fsnet.co.uk
One of the most involving and moving books I have ever read.
I read letters in my newspaper which said that reading this book was a test of stamina, so I took up the challenge. They were wrong: how could anyone possibly put it down? Read more
Published on 4 Jan 2000 by martin.cooper6@virgin.net
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