The Bone People: A NovelIntegrating 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 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 Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character's thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment. Compared to the works of James Joyce in its use of indigenous language and portrayal of consciousness, The Bone People captures the soul of New Zealand. After twenty years, it continues to astonish and enrich readers around the world. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - Ma_Washigeri - LibraryThingVery engaging. The plot is quite simple for such a long book - a demi-god living amongst us, and the affect on a father and son who dare to recognise and engage. However the book is not a word too ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - bodachliath - LibraryThingAn original, personal and visceral novel, which for me is the kind of book that justifies the existence of the Booker Prize. The surface story is about the interactions between three difficult and ... Read full review
Contents
Prologue | 3 |
Portrait Of A Sandal | 11 |
Feelers | 44 |
Leaps In The Dark | 93 |
A Place To Sleep By Day | 157 |
Spring Tide Neap Tide Ebb Tide Flood | 202 |
Ka Tata Te Po | 239 |
Mirrortalk | 261 |
Nightfall | 302 |
Candles In The Wind | 310 |
The Kaumatua And The Broken Man | 335 |
The Boy By His Own | 386 |
The Woman At The Wellspring Of Death | 411 |
Epilogue | 441 |
Translation of Maori Words and Phrases | 446 |