The Bone People
Why do you pick the books that you do? Let me tell you about why I checked out The Bone People by Keri Hulme. In early January, I read an obituary of Hulme because the NYT identified her in the headline as New Zealand’s first Booker winner. (The Bone People won in 1985.) Here’s a paragraph from that tribute: “At the time of the novel’s publication, Ms. Hulme (pronounced HEWM) was a relatively unknown writer even in her native New Zealand. But the book’s surprise win over shortlisted titles by Iris Murdoch and Doris Lessing vaulted her into the literary spotlight, prompting brutal criticism from New Zealand’s established, and mostly male, literary elite.”
I felt a compulsion to somehow honor the life of this new-to-me writer by reading her work. I’m always drawn to underdogs, to people or institutions or ideas that don’t necessarily present themselves as clear-cut “top dogs.” Often, the most beautiful and rewarding things come from unexpected places.
The Bone People was sometimes tough to read: It deals with a Maori hermit named Kerewin (thought to be modeled after Hulme herself), a mute boy who befriends her, and the boy’s abusive foster father. There’s a lot of alcohol and otherwise self-destruction, attempted justification of said abuse, and pain at trying to bridge a cultural divide between the Maori (native) population and European New Zealanders (Pākehā). But it’s nonetheless a very tender book about the complex love that these three characters share. Hulme has said that the novel was inspired by her dreams and there is, indeed, an esoteric quality to the book.
The NYT obituary closes out with this: “’It might seem that I’m low in the productive stakes,’ she told Radio New Zealand in 2011. ‘But I don’t think the writing game is about being productive. I don’t think it’s about being a celebrity at all. It’s about creating stories and songs that will last. Otherwise, it’s not worthwhile.’”
Whose work will you continue reading and sharing about in the hope that those stories “last”?
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