Book Review: THE BONE PEOPLE by Keri Hulme

The Bone People by Keri Hulme
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes we meet people who strike us as different, from the get-go. "Why is there a suggestion of the numinous in his shadow? Who else do I know who listens to the silence of God on lonely beaches?"

If this wondrous book were a person, reading it would be the equivalent of a hongi, the traditional Maori greeting where we reverently touch noses and foreheads. Keri Hulme writes of the hongi as an act that means to say: "I salute the breath of life in thee, the same life that is breathed by me... I salute that which gives us life."

The book is its author breathing, SHOUTING... "I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down." This book is ALIVE, vibrantly, emphatically so. It brought to life three main characters who were representatives of the clash of two civilizations in New Zealand: a fiercely independent Pākehā woman-artist of white European descent, a young autistic boy, "half-devil, half-child," and the alcoholic Maori man who sought to adopt him. All of them, to a man, are bitter and disappointed with Life. But (AND THIS MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE). "And still he tries, and he still cares."

Open any page and soak in the beauty of the sentences. This was twelve years in the making, its structure well planned, its images vivid.

It's very hard to write something so compelling from the first page til the last, enough to suck one in even when one is reading it while waiting for a seminar to start in a packed and noisy covered court! My powers of imagination aren't that strong, it's truly all because of Hulme's combination of poetry and prose. Why, oh why, didn't she write another book?! This is genius, pure and unadulterated. And the fact that I innocently chose this paperback just before I went to attend a seminar on children in conflict with the law is another of life's great mysterious coincidences. How heartbreakingly fitting, and finishing the book today seemed like a continuation in understanding the practicalities I learned of yesterday.

Hulme's vision of the world is realistic, as I am finding out. Woe to those who hide in their sheltered ivory towers full of books and art, as her female protagonist finds out. Because Life will find a way to batter down the door, and no matter how much we seek to protect ourselves, to live is to love and to love is to feel pain. That's just the way it is.

Hulme's characters are terribly flawed. Whether suffering from PTSD, or addiction to alcohol, or depression, she is a believer in redemption that comes from a combination of individual commitment to do better, and the Maori korero, the "tribal talk-it-out." There is strength in the community, and the scenes I loved best where the ones set in pubs where friends and family gather to drink and blabber, playing billiards or darts, with a few even bringing their kids along?!

Fair warning to those who would read this classic: it was written in a time before trigger warnings and political correctness. Like Real Life, there is much violence (so much of it that it became one of the most controversial Booker Prize winners as many judges felt strongly against rewarding that much visceral pain immortalized on paper), and much that may trigger, as it seeks to answer the question: "Why do we cause so much hurt to those we love best?" But the balance is fully in the positive as there is also so much to admire and love in this book that simply demands a re-read.

And the statistics of what I've learned about broken families added to the heart-tutoring of this incredible novel mix in me, so I can only tearfully nod in agreement when the author wrote: "A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart."

Yes, this book is now one of my most beloved reads, despite being one of the most painful.

I strongly urge this online family of book lovers to read this book, but only if you are in a good place internally, and preferably by the shore, surrounded by sunshine and wind and the breath of God.

 

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