The Bone People
The Bone People, styled by the writer and in some editions as the bone people, is a 1984 novel by New Zealand writer Keri Hulme. Set on the coast of the South Island of New Zealand, the novel focuses on three characters, all of whom are isolated in different ways: a reclusive artist, a mute child, and the child's foster father. Over the course of the novel the trio develop a tentative relationship, are driven apart by violence, and reunite. Māori and Pākehā culture, myths and language are blended through the novel. The novel has polarised critics and readers, with some praising the novel for its power and originality, while others have criticised Hulme's writing style and portrayals of violence.
Hulme spent many years working on the novel, but was unable to find a mainstream publisher willing to accept the book without significant editing; it was eventually published by the small all-women collective, Spiral. After initial commercial success in New Zealand, the book was published overseas and became the first New Zealand novel and first debut novel to win the Booker Prize in 1985, although not without controversy; two of the five judges opposed the book's choice for its portrayals of child abuse and violence. Nevertheless, the novel has remained popular into the 21st century, continuing to sell well in New Zealand and overseas, and is widely recognised as a New Zealand literary classic.
Plot summary
Kerewin lives in a tower overlooking the sea on the coast of the South Island. She is isolated from her family and interacts little with the local community, but is able to live independently after winning a lottery and investing well. On a stormy afternoon, a young child, Simon, appears at the tower. He is mute and communicates with Kerewin through hand signals and notes. He is picked up the next morning by a family friend; later that evening Simon's foster father, Joe, visits Kerewin to thank her for looking after Simon. After a freak storm years earlier, Simon was found washed up on the beach with very few clues as to his identity. Despite Simon's mysterious background, Joe and his wife Hana took the boy in. Later, Joe's infant son and Hana both died, forcing Joe to bring the troubled and troublesome Simon up on his own.Kerewin finds herself developing a tentative relationship with the boy and his father. Gradually it becomes clear that Simon is a deeply traumatised child, whose strange behaviours Joe is unable to cope with. Kerewin discovers that, in spite of the real familial love between them, Joe is physically abusing Simon. Horrified, she initially says nothing to Joe, but suggests they travel to her family's bach by the beach for a break. Early on in their stay she confronts Joe and asks him to go easier on Simon. Joe and Kerewin argue, and after Simon spits at Joe, she intervenes to stop Joe from beating him, using her aikido skills. Following the incident, Joe promises not to beat Simon without her permission. They spend the rest of their time at the beach fishing, talking and drinking.
After returning home from the holiday, Simon sees the aftermath of a violent death and seeks Kerewin out for support, but she is angry with him for stealing one of her prized possessions. Simon reacts by punching her; she instinctively hits him in the chest and in response he kicks in the side of her guitar, a gift from her estranged mother. Kerewin tells him to get out. Simon goes to the town and breaks a series of shop windows, and when he is returned home by the police Joe calls Kerewin, who gives Joe permission to beat the child. Joe beats Simon severely, believing he has driven Kerewin away. Simon, who has concealed a shard of glass from a shop window, stabs his father. Both are hospitalised, with Simon falling into a coma. Joe is released quickly but sent to prison for three months for child abuse, and in the meantime Kerewin leaves town and demolishes her tower.
Simon eventually recovers, albeit with some loss of hearing and brain damage, and is sent to live in foster care against his wishes. He is unhappy and continually runs away, trying to get back to Joe and Kerewin. After Joe's release from prison, he travels aimlessly. He jumps off a cliff and nearly kills himself, but is rescued by a dying kaumātua who says he has been waiting for Joe. He asks Joe to take over guardianship of a sacred waka, containing the spirit of a god, which Joe accepts. In the meantime, Kerewin becomes seriously ill with stomach pains. Although she visits a doctor who says he is concerned it may be stomach cancer, she refuses to allow him to investigate further and insists he write her a prescription for sleeping pills. After several weeks in a mountain cabin, on the point of death, she is visited by a spirit of some kind and cured.
Kerewin returns to her community and takes custody of Simon. Joe also returns, bringing with him the sacred spirit. Without Kerewin's knowledge or permission, he contacts Kerewin's family, resulting in a joyous reconciliation. The final scene of the novel depicts the reunion of Kerewin, Simon and Joe, celebrating with family and friends back at the beach where Kerewin has rebuilt the old marae and rebuilt her home, not as a tower but in the shape of a shell with many spirals.
Themes and characters
The novel focuses on three main characters, all of whom are isolated in different ways. In the short prologue at the start of the novel, the then-unnamed characters are described as "nothing more than people by themselves", but together "the hearts and muscles and mind of something perilous and new, the instruments of change". The three characters are:- Kerewin Holmes – Kerewin lives in an isolated tower by the sea, estranged from her family and community. She is part-Māori, part-Pākehā, and asexual. She is skilled, knowledgeable and creative, but although seeing herself as a painter finds herself unable to paint. At the outset of the novel she spends her days fishing and drinking. She is often preparing food or eating, which links the novel to traditional Māori storytelling themes of food and its preparation. She has been described as a "clear stand-in for the author". Hulme said that Holmes began as an alter-ego character but "escaped out of my control and developed a life of her own".
- Simon P. Gillayley – Simon is a mute child, aged six or seven, with an immense interest in details of the world around him. Simon has a deep attachment to both Joe and Kerewin, but he shows his love in odd ways. He exhibits a disregard for personal property. He is isolated from others by his inability to speak, and others mistake his muteness for stupidity. His life before meeting Joe is never described in detail, although it is hinted that he was abused before meeting Joe. He is Pākehā, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
- Joe Gillayley – Joe is Simon's foster father. His alcoholism clouds his judgement, particularly in his raising of Simon, whom he physically abuses. Joe seems to both love and respect Kerewin, but also to compete with her. He is deeply scarred and isolated by the death of his wife and infant child, and he is disconnected from his Māori heritage.
Over the course of the novel the three characters bond and become "the bone people". In Māori, the term iwi, usually referring to a tribal group, literally means "bone". Thus, in the novel, Simon imagines Joe saying the phrase "E nga iwi o nga iwi", which the book's glossary explains: "It means, O the bones of the people, or, O the people of the bones." Each character represents aspects of New Zealand's racial culture. Through their love of Simon and acceptance of Māori myth into their lives, Joe and Kerewin are able to transform themselves. The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature describes the three as becoming "a new multicultural group, founded on Māori spirituality and traditional ritual, who offer transformative hope to a country stunted by the violence of its divided colonial legacy".
The relationship between Joe and Kerewin is not a sexual one, although Joe does consider Kerewin as a possible partner and the two form a close bond that is akin to a romantic relationship or a parental one with Simon. At the end of the book Joe and Simon take her last name, not for sentimental reasons but for what Kerewin describes as "good legal sense". Critic C.K. Stead has said he considers this to be the "imaginative strength" of the work: "that it creates a sexual union where no sex occurs, creates parental love where there are no physical parents, creates the stress and fusion of a family where there is no actual family".
The spiral form frequently appears as a symbol throughout the novel, and is linked to the koru as an "old symbol of rebirth" in Māori culture. An early review by New Zealand writer and academic Peter Simpson noted how particularly apt it was for the book to have been published by the Spiral collective, because "the spiral form is central to the novel's meaning and design; it is in effect the code of the work informing every aspect from innumerable local details to the overall structure". It represents the sense of community, cultural integration and open-endedness that gives the characters hope at the end of the novel.