9. Keri Hulme, the bone people
Big warning: Child abuse is a major plot element throughout this book and will be mentioned in my review.
I thought I'd read this book over ten years ago, when it was recommended to me by a teacher, and I'm sure I started to read it, but I have a feeling I didn't finish. That or I blocked it out. Don't let me get ahead of myself -- this is a well-written and absorbing novel. But it hurts. It's long, or it feels long, and I found myself always trying to get through it faster, eager both to know what would happen and to escape the brutality of it.
We are introduced to Kerewin, an independently wealthy artist who lives a hermit-like existence in a self-built Tower in New Zealand. By chance she meets Simon, a young, troubled boy who can't speak, and his foster father Joe, who took him in when Simon was washed ashore in a shipwreck. A three-way friendship begins to blossom among these very different, very wounded people.
This section of the book is inviting, unfolding slowly, rich with setting and personality. Kerewin Holmes is overtly a self-insert for Keri Hulme, which I think confused me when I first tried to read it, thinking only bad authors did this. Indeed, most writers lack the self-insight to do it, or do it while fighting against it ("she's not *exactly* like me!"), which makes it not work. Hulme is an extremely gifted writer who is able to deconstruct herself wholeheartedly, honestly, with the same sympathy and ruthlessness she uses to create other characters. (The only problem I had with Kerewin as a character is that she shares Hulme's brilliantly lyrical poetic voice to such an extent that you wonder why Kerewin is not also a professional writer, and why visual art has been substituted instead.)
Joe and Simon are also skillfully drawn characters, though I was uncomfortable with Simon at times, initially disliking him and not relating to why Kerewin was drawn to him. The sections that are written from his point of view helped a lot, and I wish there had been more of them earlier, but that's a nitpick.
This could almost have been the whole story, just a story of three people reaching out to one another, and the novel would have been half the length. I think it could have been good that way. But even in the early pages, there are hints of violence and unrest -- animals are killed often in this book, for food, for pest control. The violence is lingered over, not sadistically or in pleasure, but in grim fascination. We are told that Joe and Simon have a secret, not just the secret of Simon's origins (which is also explored, but as a bit of an afterthought) but something much worse, and more everyday.
The secret, of course (if you've read the back of the book) is that Joe beats his child.
( skip spoiler)
What did surprise me (and this is why I'm pretty sure I didn't finish the book the first time) is that Kerewin's efforts to reform him go in vain, and that Joe beats Simon into a coma and is sent to prison, leaving the three of them to go their separate ways for most of the remainder of the book.
On their separate journeys, Kerewin and Joe are at last cleansed of their respective ailments -- Kerewin's cancer and Joe's violence -- quite literally by magic. I have no objection to magical realism, but in this instance it didn't satisfy me, not in either case.
I was skeptical that Kerewin would really change as much as she did by the end of the book, even after the incredible experience of her dark night of the soul (and body) followed by a miraculous cure. The reunion with her family feels hasty and forced.
I was VERY skeptical that Joe would actually be safe around Simon again, even after the very soul of his country breathed peace into him. I didn't doubt that it would try, and I didn't doubt he would believe that it worked, but after all we'd seen of him, I just felt his illness was too strong. I thought he needed to stay and be the guardian of that sacred place, that was what I would have bought into as a happy ending for him.
I hate to say it, but by the finale I thought Hulme gave Simon the short end. He doesn't get a mystical realization, and the lopsidedness of that really felt off to me. It makes him read like someone who only exists so the adults can find themselves, which is pretty awful and trite after everything he goes through, and everything *they* go through. This is such a long, languid novel -- what was her hurry in the last few chapters? Everything is wrapped up far too quickly and neatly.
I know some people read this as Christian symbolism, with Simon as Christ being tortured for the sins of his parents (virginal, indeed asexual Kerewin, and Joseph the foster father). If so, all I can say is it didn't work for me.
As a fairly minor point, I was unhappy with the negative portrayal of queer characters in the book. Queerness is always depicted as bad, unpleasant, stereotypical, or abusive. Joe's discomfort with his bisexuality is touched on very briefly but never gets a resolution. It felt like Hulme went out of her way to take a couple of potshots at queer people, and it seemed to come from nowhere.
Non-spoilery sum-up:
I wish I could recommend this book because the language is really lovely, but I don't think I'm quite there. I was willing to accept a sympathetic child abuser (more than one, really), which I imagine many people would not be willing or able to do. I think Hulme does well in portraying shades of gray, in allowing Joe to be quite monstrous, yet also human. I think she gets those notes just right and doesn't turn him into a "poor misunderstood baby" as you might fear. I was with her right up to the end, but I just couldn't accept the ending she provided for the characters, precisely because it went away from the grayness and was too black-and-white. I didn't buy it, even with her assurance that the end is also a beginning. I didn't believe that this new beginning would turn out any different from the beginning on page one.
If anyone else here has read the book I'd be very interested to hear what you thought of it.
[eta: Possible spoilers in the comments!]
(tags: author: hulme keri, maori (author & characters), setting: new zealand/aotearoa)
I thought I'd read this book over ten years ago, when it was recommended to me by a teacher, and I'm sure I started to read it, but I have a feeling I didn't finish. That or I blocked it out. Don't let me get ahead of myself -- this is a well-written and absorbing novel. But it hurts. It's long, or it feels long, and I found myself always trying to get through it faster, eager both to know what would happen and to escape the brutality of it.
We are introduced to Kerewin, an independently wealthy artist who lives a hermit-like existence in a self-built Tower in New Zealand. By chance she meets Simon, a young, troubled boy who can't speak, and his foster father Joe, who took him in when Simon was washed ashore in a shipwreck. A three-way friendship begins to blossom among these very different, very wounded people.
This section of the book is inviting, unfolding slowly, rich with setting and personality. Kerewin Holmes is overtly a self-insert for Keri Hulme, which I think confused me when I first tried to read it, thinking only bad authors did this. Indeed, most writers lack the self-insight to do it, or do it while fighting against it ("she's not *exactly* like me!"), which makes it not work. Hulme is an extremely gifted writer who is able to deconstruct herself wholeheartedly, honestly, with the same sympathy and ruthlessness she uses to create other characters. (The only problem I had with Kerewin as a character is that she shares Hulme's brilliantly lyrical poetic voice to such an extent that you wonder why Kerewin is not also a professional writer, and why visual art has been substituted instead.)
Joe and Simon are also skillfully drawn characters, though I was uncomfortable with Simon at times, initially disliking him and not relating to why Kerewin was drawn to him. The sections that are written from his point of view helped a lot, and I wish there had been more of them earlier, but that's a nitpick.
This could almost have been the whole story, just a story of three people reaching out to one another, and the novel would have been half the length. I think it could have been good that way. But even in the early pages, there are hints of violence and unrest -- animals are killed often in this book, for food, for pest control. The violence is lingered over, not sadistically or in pleasure, but in grim fascination. We are told that Joe and Simon have a secret, not just the secret of Simon's origins (which is also explored, but as a bit of an afterthought) but something much worse, and more everyday.
The secret, of course (if you've read the back of the book) is that Joe beats his child.
( skip spoiler)
What did surprise me (and this is why I'm pretty sure I didn't finish the book the first time) is that Kerewin's efforts to reform him go in vain, and that Joe beats Simon into a coma and is sent to prison, leaving the three of them to go their separate ways for most of the remainder of the book.
On their separate journeys, Kerewin and Joe are at last cleansed of their respective ailments -- Kerewin's cancer and Joe's violence -- quite literally by magic. I have no objection to magical realism, but in this instance it didn't satisfy me, not in either case.
I was skeptical that Kerewin would really change as much as she did by the end of the book, even after the incredible experience of her dark night of the soul (and body) followed by a miraculous cure. The reunion with her family feels hasty and forced.
I was VERY skeptical that Joe would actually be safe around Simon again, even after the very soul of his country breathed peace into him. I didn't doubt that it would try, and I didn't doubt he would believe that it worked, but after all we'd seen of him, I just felt his illness was too strong. I thought he needed to stay and be the guardian of that sacred place, that was what I would have bought into as a happy ending for him.
I hate to say it, but by the finale I thought Hulme gave Simon the short end. He doesn't get a mystical realization, and the lopsidedness of that really felt off to me. It makes him read like someone who only exists so the adults can find themselves, which is pretty awful and trite after everything he goes through, and everything *they* go through. This is such a long, languid novel -- what was her hurry in the last few chapters? Everything is wrapped up far too quickly and neatly.
I know some people read this as Christian symbolism, with Simon as Christ being tortured for the sins of his parents (virginal, indeed asexual Kerewin, and Joseph the foster father). If so, all I can say is it didn't work for me.
As a fairly minor point, I was unhappy with the negative portrayal of queer characters in the book. Queerness is always depicted as bad, unpleasant, stereotypical, or abusive. Joe's discomfort with his bisexuality is touched on very briefly but never gets a resolution. It felt like Hulme went out of her way to take a couple of potshots at queer people, and it seemed to come from nowhere.
Non-spoilery sum-up:
I wish I could recommend this book because the language is really lovely, but I don't think I'm quite there. I was willing to accept a sympathetic child abuser (more than one, really), which I imagine many people would not be willing or able to do. I think Hulme does well in portraying shades of gray, in allowing Joe to be quite monstrous, yet also human. I think she gets those notes just right and doesn't turn him into a "poor misunderstood baby" as you might fear. I was with her right up to the end, but I just couldn't accept the ending she provided for the characters, precisely because it went away from the grayness and was too black-and-white. I didn't buy it, even with her assurance that the end is also a beginning. I didn't believe that this new beginning would turn out any different from the beginning on page one.
If anyone else here has read the book I'd be very interested to hear what you thought of it.
[eta: Possible spoilers in the comments!]
(tags: author: hulme keri, maori (author & characters), setting: new zealand/aotearoa)