Wallpaper that is. In my bedroom. 
I've just finished reading this. Well, re-reading, probably for about the 5th time. I bought it in 1985, according to the note I wrote on it. It was published in 1984. The bone people won both the Booker Prize for Fiction and the Pegasus Prize for Literature in 1985. I wrote essays about it. I remember that I loved it. When I picked it up, I remembered there was violence and sadness and hope within it's pages. But that was before I had sons. This time I found it compelling, and disturbing. Harrowing. It gave me nightmares, it changed my view of the world, I had to make myself remember it was a book I was reading, not a life I was part of. I cried. I was late a few times, most unlike me, because I couldn't put it down. It's poetic and beautiful, the language is rich and sings a story of a beautiful New Zealand landscape. Keri lives still in Okarito, on the West Coast of the South Island. One of my most favourite places in this big wide world. I'm not keeping that book in my bedroom though. I need some peace and calm in there, now I'm done turning it's pages. Maybe I'll read it again, in another 20 years time.
2 comments:
I too read The Bone People when it was first published, and several times since then. I got something different out of it every time, but my reactions are also much stronger now I have children.
I have read that, must re read it! A very powerful book.
I am here from Saggitarian, & glad I came to visit! An expat, who will always be a Kiwi at heart!
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