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Dec 17, 2009

Jude rated it:

I have read this book 11 times. It's not because of my faulty memory (although I do have one), it is because this is my favorite fiction book of all time. The shape is unusual for a novel - it is not told in one voice or from one point of view. At times there is an omniscient narrator and at others it is told in the first person. It is the story of the journeys of three people back to the landscape of family. Sometimes free verse, sometimes standard prose, always poetic. Keri Hulme plays w More...

2 comments like (17 people liked it)

Jul 16, 2011

Lucy rated it:

i loved this book so much! i don't know why it's taken me so long to write this post, since i've been wanting to rave about the book since i finished it. i was a bit dubious when i read the introductory note about it having non-standard grammar etc, but it was so good! i think i even liked it enough to kick cryptonomicon off my literary speed dating list, except that i don't think it would create the right impression... the language is beautiful and the characters are wonderfully real and comple More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2007

Meredith rated it:

I cannot put my finger on why I love this book. I didn't really think it all that special when I read it, but it has stayed in my mind so vividly when many a lesser book has dissipated from my memory. I think the authors descriptions are understated while being vivid. I read the book years ago and I can still remember clearly descriptions of meals cooked, of the matter-of-fact efficiency the main character displayed in her solitude. All of the characters are overtly flawed, and the author doesn' More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jul 25, 2007

Lee rated it:

When I recommended this book to my book club several years ago, the only other woman who had read it glared at me and said "if we pick this book, I am going to be REALLY mad at you" and so I withdrew the suggestion. This winner of the Man Booker prize is painful to read. It forces the reader to consider the complexity of human nature and behavior -- how thin the line can be between love and abuse. It is set in New Zealand and is about three wounded and likeable characters - a man, a wo More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Charmayne rated it:

Read this for Intro English my freshman year and recently re-read it.
The book centers around three main characters, but their relationship with one another is best left up to the reader to determine as the story unfolds.
Hulme is a self-identified bicultural writer, which makes The Bone People a bicultural text, incorporating both Maori and Pakeha influences within the New Zealand setting. According to my professor: "One of Hulme's high school teachers, responding to her writi More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 17, 2010

L rated it:

What a strange style Hulme has used to present her story. It took me probably 15 or 20 pages to figure out how to read this book. But once it opened for me--wow! By page 34, I love both Kerewin (artist (estranged from her art), exile (from her family), dislikes people, especially children) and Simon (the child, naturally, speechless, which is less expected).

By the half-way point Hulme has moved away from the sunny view of "cranky loner woman falls in love with strange child and More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 20, 2008

Thomas rated it:

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1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Courtney rated it:

Set in New Zealand, 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, who is both tender and brutal toward the bo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Heather rated it:

My all time favorite book. Part poetry, part allegory, part narrative... the writing enticed me to attempt the book just one more time all through college, until I finally found my affinity for it. My life has consistently spiralled back to poor Kerewin, and I still haven't found what brings me back time after time. Is it the language? The landscape? The story of Simon, finally able to speak and integrate his trauma? I am now finding that Simon gave me unbelievable empathy for my own child, who' More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jenny Schmenny rated it:

I considered giving this four stars because it's convoluted and ponderous, with implausible characters. But I like that, and I love the lyrical wordiness, and the great, wrenching emotionalism.

Another thing: I tend to not notice that books have glossaries until after I've plowed all the way through. I did that with A Clockwork Orange when I was 12, and I've done it twice with The Bone People. I found it pretty hard to glean Maori from context.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2009

Isis rated it:

I out myself as a philistine, I guess, with my dislike of this painfully literary book, which I read only because I was in New Zealand and thought I ought to read a famous NZ author. Once I got past the aggressively defensive introduction (Idiosyncratic Author is idiosyncratic! I can dizzily swap first-person POV and use my own grammar and make up my own words because I am Artistic!) and the Mary-Sueish tinge of the central character being named after the author (*headdesk*), I found this book More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2011

Caitlin rated it:

Kerewin Holmes is a reclusive artist secluded in her stony tower in a small town in New Zealand. Joseph Gillayley is a Maori factory worker and a widow. Simon is his foster son, a mute and feral child washed ashore in a shipwreck. The three find one another when Simon breaks in to Kerewin’s house and the emotionally detached Kerewin soon finds herself drawn into the mystery of Simon’s past and his struggle to be understood and accepted. Joe seems to be a caring foster father, but his rearing of More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 07, 2008

Shandy rated it:

This is a book that people either love or hate. It deals with issues that are normally in black and white, and paints them in shades of gray.

The protagonist, Kerewin Holmes, part white, part Maori, lives alone in a lighthouse in New Zealand. Set in her ways, she is content to live out her days in solitude. One day a mysterious, silent, blonde boy winds up on her beach. Unsure how to handle this situation, she deals with it the best she can by taking him in and slowly figures out More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 13, 2008

sab rated it:

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2008

Michael rated it:

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1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jul 06, 2007

Maria rated it:

I read this 7 years ago and really liked it, but couldn't remember much of it, so I wanted to read it again. Honestly, I'm not too sure what I think of it now. It's a fascinating story, but at the same time rather depressing, and the ending is... well, is not an ending. A lot of threads are left dangling and I'm left wondering what happens next. I'm not altogether sure that's a bad thing, but then I'm not sure it's a good thing either... It's a very, very different book from what I usually read, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 09, 2007

Sarah rated it:

Just finished it. I have to say, it is a difficult read, I think mostly because of the whiskey induced, puzzling prose. However, since I love puzzles, I parsed this one out in this way... This main character, she is alcoholic, but totally in control of herself. She reserves all her energy for herself, is mostly androgenous, and is wound up in this hybrid European/Maori mix... She is all of both. She is fascinated by spirals, and in a way, the book is written in a spiral, switching viewpoint More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 06, 2008

Marnie rated it:

Quick Synposis: Novel - A Moari recluse finds a "family" with a orphaned boy of unknown origins and his adoptive Maori father. Being part of a family means being privy to its secrets and pain.

Probably my favorite book ever. I always tell people how I cried myself to sleep for a week while reading this book. It's so good it hurts. I think I have lived a pretty painless happy life. So to read about trauma and pain sometimes seems a bit like watching from the outside. I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Erin rated it:

I hate this book. I'm not sure that there is any book on the planet I dislike as much as this one. I read it for a book group several years ago, and I was the only member of the group who didn't adore it. I was shocked that my opinion of the book was diametrically opposed to that of every other member of the group. I remember going on a rant about how horrible this book was to the literacy coach at Ryder Academy (oh, 87th Street, how I miss you), and then chucking it several feet across the More...

6 comments like (10 people liked it)

Oct 23, 2007

Kate rated it:

I don't much care for the star metric of rating books along the like - dislike spectrum. it is at best an imperfect proxy for communicating both the quality and impact of a book. i can't, for example, honestly say that "i really liked" this book; hulme's narrative left me feeling manipulated and abused.

its a simple enough story of the relationship between a woman, a mute boy and his father. and i think many people might mistakenly assume that this is a story fundamental More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Glen rated it:

I enjoyed this book. It was very creative in the way that it gave a voice to a character that couldn't speak. It was also unique in that it was almost presented in a way that the main character wasn't the protagonist. It was a Booker Prize winner though, so the expectation is high. It might be hard to follow the dialogue if the reader isn't familiar with some Kiwi slang. There is a glossary in the back for many Maori words, but there are a variety of New Zealand English words that will mean More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 25, 2007

Ruby rated it:

The book is set in New Zealand and revolves around three broken people who lives become entangled. It is heart-wrenching and disturbing...yet very beautiful. When I originally read this book in the late '80s and it haunted me for a long time. I was very drawn to it even though I had found it emotionally draining. It's a difficult read, partly because of the content (child abuse, alcoholism, etc.) and partly because of the writing style. I couldn't get it out of my mind. Almost 10 years later I r More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2009

Jesse rated it:

This story centers on Kerewin, the author's doppelganger, an individualist who has built her dream house - The Tower - on the edge of a small New Zealand town. She's determined to go it alone, and lives in her tower in isolation, fishing for food in the local bay, and eschewing most contact with others. Kerewin is stalked and befriended by one of the local boys, a mysterious orphan named Simon. Simon doesn't talk, and gets into trouble; I imagine he'd be labeled autistic, if this was the kind More...

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Jan 03, 2009

Discoverylover marked it as to-read

"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 on More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 27, 2011

Thurston rated it:

Quite unique tale that felt like Cormac McCarthy dubbed into Maori tongue and myth. Actually the Maori myth I felt was not such a strong factor in the book, it sort of flourishes towards the end, like a Deus Ex Magical Canoe. The grist of the story to me centered on the simply stated, but not so facilely delivered sympathetic portrait of a child abuser.

If that sounds a bit harsh, then you could go with the idea of how families synthesize themselves in a world that often busts up the or More...

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Aug 19, 2011

Tania rated it:

The Bone People is, quite simply, the most powerful, moving, stunning book I have ever read. The characters are well drawn. I wanted to hate Joe, but he was in so much pain that I couldn't, really. I never excused what he did - and Hulme did not ask the reader to do that. She challenges the reader to look at our society as a whole; to see what we do to people and how we as communities play a role in creating some of the violent, terrible situations that result in children being abused.

More...

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May 01, 2011

Jodi rated it:

This book is written in a very different style than most contemporary novels. However, the author acknowledges this at the beginning and encourages the reader to give it a chance. The book is set in the South Island beaches of New Zealand, and as described in the book jacket "blends love and hate, violence and tenderness, myth and reality, and Maori {New Zealanders of Polynesian descent} and Pakeha {New Zealanders of European descent}".

Once I got used to the writing style, More...

1 comment like

Mar 25, 2011

Jonathan rated it:

Now to the novel. The Bone People takes place in the little-heard-of island of New Zealand, where, apparently, people can’t be satisfied with the fact that live in paradise. The book’s main protagonist, Kerewin Holmes, lives in an isolated, introverts dream-come-true, tower that she has built with the winnings from a state lottery. She enjoys being alone until a small boy named Simon trespasses on her property and into her heart (I couldn’t resist). Simon doesn’t speak for some unknown reason More...

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May 30, 2010

Karen rated it:

This is a very different book with a lot of details on Maori culture. The author does a good job of slowly creating suspense without giving away the climax. On another level, I found this to be a very disturbing book. It involves a significant level of child abuse, but, what was most disturbing to me was that the author spent a lot of time telling how wonderful the abuser was as a person and seemed to imply the abused child (age 7) deserved much of the abuse because of some significant behav More...

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Jan 27, 2010

Margot rated it:

This book will tear your heart out and stomp on it. Feel the destruction of indigenous culture through the story of family, both biological and social. Kerewin Holmes lives in liminal space, on the edge of town, on the outskirts of society, between cultures (European and Maori), estranged from her family, and enduring a very long creative block. The walls of her tower crumble as she makes connections with a mysterious adopted runaway and his father, but don't expect a happy ending. It's a beauti More...

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