read every Booker Prize winning novel

The Bone People is a difficult book about identity, love, and belonging. Hume tells the story of three tough-as-nails characters: Kerewin, an isolated artist who can no longer paint; Joe, a Maori workman struggling to raise his adopted son alone; and Simon, the mute little boy Joe found washed up on the seashore.

The style is difficult because the point of view switches around among the three main characters without warning; Hulme uses Joycean made-up words as well as Maori words; and it is hard to tell when the adults are speaking their own words or thinking out loud what they think the mute little Simon is trying to communicate.

The story is difficult because of the child abuse at the center of the plot. The ambivalence with which Hulme treats the topic makes the story incredibly interesting, but absolutely distressing.

The characters are difficult because none of them are likable. Simon is sympathetic, for sure. But even he has his moments of maliciousness, although these are less convincing than Hulme may have intended.

Joe, on the other hand, does not deserve the sympathy Hulme seems to want the reader to give him. Yes, he gets his comeuppance in the end, but it does not seem sufficient punishment. His role is key to the story because he is the hinge between Simon and Kerewin, but the ultimate resolution seems a little unrealistic, given the prior conflict.

Kerwin is particularly prickly and seething with anger. She is quick to lash out verbally, and if angry enough or drunk enough, physically. She has cut herself off from her family and her community, preferring to live in an isolated tower by the ocean. She has even isolated herself from her own sex, considering herself to be a third gender – a “neuter.” But Kerwin’s story makes the book worth reading. She is one of the most complex and intriguing characters in contemporary literature.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The story was complex and engaging, but it seemed to end in mid-stream.

Following the death of his wife, the widowed narrator of The Sea spends a lengthy recuperative and reflective stay at the same beach town where he vacationed as a child. The story goes back and forth between his present grief and his coming-of-age memories.

Banville has a graceful way of turning a phrase and more than a few clever lines (“If there was such a thing a ‘long shrift,’ I was in need of some” and “He was half way to a half wit” for example). The present-day story of the wife’s death is particularly touching. The childhood story is charming, although the end did not work as well, in retrospect, as it seemed to. All in all, an entertaining read.

I’m heading to Green Apple today (my favorite used book store in San Francisco), so wanted to update my list before I went.

Bold for books I’ve read. Italic for thos on my self.

2005 – John Banville, The Sea

2004 – Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty

2003 – DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little

2002 – Yann Martel, Life of Pi

2001 – Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang

2000 – Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

1999 – J M Coetzee, Disgrace

1998 – Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

1997 – Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

1996 – Graham Swift, Last Orders

1995 – Pat Barker, The Ghost Road

1994 – James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late

1993 – Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

1992 – Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

1992 – Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger

1991 – Ben Okri, The Famished Road

1990 – A S Byatt, Possession

1989 – Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

1988 – Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda

1987 – Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger

1986 – Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils

1985 – Keri Hulme, The Bone People

1984 – Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac

1983 – J M Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K

1982 – Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s Ark

1981 – Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

1980 – William Golding, Rites of Passage

1979 – Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore

1978 – Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea

1977 – Paul Scott, Staying On

1976 – David Storey, Saville

1975 – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust

1974 – Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist

1974 – Stanley Middleton, Holiday

1973 – J G Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur

1972 – John Berger, G

1971 – V S Naipaul, In a Free State

1970 – Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member

1969 – P H Newby, Something to Answer For

I didn’t like this book and I do not see the point of it. Near the end, the main character, Michael K, questions whether the moral of the story is that there is time for everything. But if that is the moral of this story, then it wasn’t clear a all. Michael K has nothing but time, but he doesn’t do anything. He seems incapable of doing anything. He cannot cope with living in any kind of society; nor does he succeed in living on his own in the wilderness.

Read literally, the book is horribly depressing, because Michael seems to be mentally ill or mentally deficient (because he cannot provide for himself and he has no will to survive), but no one is able to help him. Read symbolically, I just don’t get it. If Michael is supposed to represent some greater meaning, as the doctor/narrator suggests in the second part of the book, what is that meaning? The book doesn’t answer that question.

I ready Offshore and The God of Small Things, both as breaks from slogging through Henry James’s, The Ambassadors (on the 100 Best list).

By coincidence, Offshore and TGST were similar in several respects—both were by women, about women, and involved atypical, insular communities. Offshore is about a group of misfits living in converted barges on the Thames river in London. TGST is about a Syrian Christian family in a small town in India.

Also, both were excellent entertainment and have stuck with me. Offshore was a little gem that offered a glimpse into this secret world on the river before ending without tying up loose ends. TGST addresses bigger issues, has a more complicated plot, and uses wonderful, Nabokov-like word play.

39 novels have one the Booker Prize since it was established in 1969. Thos in bold I’ve read; those in italics are on my TBR shelf:

2005 – John Banville, The Sea

2004 – Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty

2003 – DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little

2002 – Yann Martel, Life of Pi

2001 – Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang

2000 – Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

1999 – J M Coetzee, Disgrace

1998 – Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

1997 – Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

1996 – Graham Swift, Last Orders

1995 – Pat Barker, The Ghost Road

1994 – James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late

1993 – Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

1992 – Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

1992 – Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger

1991 – Ben Okri, The Famished Road

1990 – A S Byatt, Possession

1989 – Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

1988 – Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda

1987 – Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger

1986 – Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils

1985 – Keri Hulme, The Bone People

1984 – Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac

1983 – J M Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K

1982 – Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s Ark

1981 – Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

1980 – William Golding, Rites of Passage

1979 – Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore

1978 – Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea

1977 – Paul Scott, Staying On

1976 – David Storey, Saville

1975 – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust

1974 – Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist

1974 – Stanley Middleton, Holiday

1973 – J G Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur

1972 – John Berger, G

1971 – V S Naipaul, In a Free State

1970 – Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member

1969 – P H Newby, Something to Answer For

Of those I’ve read, Amsterdam was my favorite by far. I’ve read it twice now—once out loud to my husband. It is diabolically clever and reminded me of some of the best of Roald Dahl.

I also loved Life of Pi. It is wonderful.

Vernon God Little was by far my least favorite. I don’t go in for scatological humor and the satire was crude. It also drove me nuts that the characters, supposedly white trash Texans, referred to thong panties as “tangas” throughout. Huh? You want to satirize America, at least use American words. That’s just one example of the clunkers that distracted from what little point there may have been.

This goal has been pushed to the back burner while I try to finish the Modern Library Top 100 list by the end of the year.