I just finished Keri Hulme's The Bone People last night, and all I can say is, wow. It was so amazingly complex, with tragic characters, magical realism, Maori legends, and a decidedly modernist feel to it.
The Bone People is the story of three individuals set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand. Each of these people is damaged by their pasts: Kerewin is a painter and loner who has built the Tower for herself to live in; Simon is an orphan who was found washed up on the beach and has no verbal skills, although he can read and write better than many older children; Joe Gillayley is a laborer who has brought Simon in, but is as destructive to the boy as he is loving. These three find each other when Simon breaks into the Tower, only to be discovered by Kerewin. It's not your typical man meets woman--they fall in love--happily ever after story, though. These three become even more bruised and battered throughout the novel than they were to begin with, and even the connections between them can't undo that.
The style is a throw-back to the great modernists of the early twentieth-century. It's not always easy to tell who is speaking or thinking. Hulme uses the space of the page to dictate those changes, rather than punctuation. (Hulme even has a note at the beginning thanking her editor for trusting her and allowing her to tell the story the way she wanted.) Even though the style may take some getting used to, once you do, it's easy to see why she created the text in this way.
This 1985 Booker Prize winner (and first novel) absolutely wrecked me. To be honest, I really didn't like any of the characters; even the young Simon tries his best to hurt others and make it difficult for the reader to connect with him. But even though I didn't particularly like anyone, I still found myself rooting for them. And THAT is the sign of a good writer: making you care about characters that don't deserve it. I'm definitely going to be checking out more of her work.
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