The Bone People: Winner of the Booker Prize

A hard, but rewarding read; Keri Hulme takes us into the company of three damaged people in a small New Zealand community.Kerewin is disturbed by the sudden presence of Simon, the mute six year old, who has a propensity for trouble. When his polite father arrives to execute his son's intrusion, she recognises him as the mouthy drunk she recently saw in the local pub.There is a terrible violence underpinning the relationship of father and son along with a great affection which is gradually revealed through the interaction of the main characters. The tie that binds them is woven tight and results in Kerewin's consummate work of art that will hold them together forever.Somewhere underneath the tangled emotional web runs a Maori sensibility that surfaces in a mystical revelation when the three are forcibly separated. Subconscious archetypes abound as the story moves to an equable conclusion.The language can be evocatively descriptive, earthily direct, or bilingual. In some ways it mirrors the art that Kerewin is working so hard to create.This is a deeply involving book that takes the reader on an almost spiritual quest.Its happy ending is of its time for with such content it would be unlikely that an author now would allow such a "satisfactory" conclusion; the world and its attitudes have moved on.

This was a second hand purchase of a book I read while living in N.Z. Have search for ages to find an edition which would not break the bank. Wonderful story and the book is in very good condition .Very happy with my purchase….now for a re-read in a quiet corner!

Started the book it was hard work but just half a dozen pages in I got hooked, I am transported to a parallel universe and noise of the outside world dissappears. I enjoy the kiwi references, had to research the Maori words ....not finished yet and I am intrigued to continue. God bless you Keri Hume

Wow, tough!! I would strongly recommend this, it is wonderfully written, but it is only for those with a strong constitution!! A beautiful and very human tale, exposing the most beautiful and the ugliest traits within man. I found it a very tough read at times, but couldn't put it down either. Try it!!

A little too much of the writer's poetry for me, and also dream sequences that dragged a bit. The flavour of the book if very seventies hippy, but worth reading for the sympathetic characters and their relationships. I read it just before visiting New Zealand and the author's evocation of the landscapes and customs added to my enjoyment of that wonderful country. Generally, a worthwhile read.

Interesting and engaging read, I enjoyed it. I am visiting New Zealand for the first time soon and wanted some novels beforehand this was an interesting insight into the culture. Very well written and the characters all have depth.

This is a replacement copy. My daughter's original copy of her favourite, much read title was stolen from her luggage after her hire car was broken into on holiday in Mexico.

I could not read it. It was a complete muddle. Absolutely boring.

The quality of the book make it seem as if it were a copy from the original.

Bought as a gift for a friend. First read this decades ago when 1st published. The story stays with you forever. New Zealand's first Booker Prize winner.

Der Schreibstil ist gewöhnungsbedürftig, aber nach einer Weile hat man sich eingelesen und kann kaum noch aufhören weiterzulesen. Die Autorin erzählt die Geschichte einfühlsam und spannend, dennoch bleibt genügend Zeit die Umgebung so ausführlich zu beschreiben, dass man als Leser keine Probleme hat sich das Haus oder die Wälder vor seinem inneren Auge vorzustellen!

I had originally read this as a library book. Liked it so much I had to buy it. My favorite author is Tim Winton and Keri Hulme's work is now just behind him. Woe, that she has not written any more.The story is one of aboriginal peoples and their relationship with their invaders and how they have altered the tribal world. The style is fluid but intense and the story is compelling - a boy washes up as the only survivor of a boat wreck on the western shore of New Zealand's South Island. He does not speak. The story is about how that silence produces emotions and actions in those who would care for him.

I chose to read this novel because it received international awards when published in 1984, because it rated a 4.06 in goodreads.com--a very high score--and because I'd never read a work of fiction about New Zealand's aboriginal people. The story is narrated in first person by a woman who appears white but has some aboriginal blood, an artist who deeply associates with native traditions, and we first meet her living alone in a tower she designed and built herself with friends in a spiral form sacred to aborigines: the chambered nautilus so fascinating for all of us, and so often repeated throughout nature.She lives alone; something in her has broken, and she finds herself unable to paint or draw at all. She's been disconnected from her family as a deliberate point of will for some time, but the point has proven a psychic hara-kiri from which she suffers daily.One day she sees a boy in her window, a window higher than any boy should be. Gradually she comes to know him, even though she fairly despises children. This boy cannot talk. His complexion is fair and his hair, white blond, falls below his shoulders. He appears to be about seven years old physically but has the bearing or spirit, the indescribable something, of an old man.Eventually, she meets the man this boy knows as father, a full aborigine--so he can't be the boy's natural father. Like many disaffected peoples who suffer diaspora and discrimination, the man is struggling in life, financially and spiritually. He yearns for ancient traditions even while deliberately estranging himself from them. He drinks too much beer. But the artist and the man share a connection through the boy. Over time, they begin to act essentially as a family, although the artist is clear from the beginning they can never have a sexual relationship. She doesn't need or want sex.Catastrophe forces her to face visceral horrors that break them up in every conceivable way.Then reality and science begin to interweave with an alternate, mystic reality. The future and the past begin to coalesce, rising separately then intermingling, like smoke from different, nearby fires. Life progresses from one home to another as the characters and their story grow, leaving one home for the next, and the one after that, as the entire tale begins to form the familiar construct of a chambered nautilus, in which the animal inside accretes section by section as it grows and expands.I loved this story first for its tough, sophisticated, and modern intellectual assessments. I loved it for its grittiness. Then I hated its grittiness but was intrigued by the shift into mysticism. Finally, I was inspired.Where the spoken language is aboriginal, please be sure to refer to the glossary at the back of the book for the translation. I didn't realize there was a page-by-page translation until quite late, and I found it worthwhile to go back and read again with better understanding. Perhaps for this reason there is no Kindle version of the book.This novel is for folks who understand that all who wander are not lost. It is for seasoned readers eager to leap into a willing suspension of disbelief. For well-reasoned people capable of feeling their souls expand when they give up the need to decipher.