The White Bone: A Novel [Hardcover]

Barbara Gowdy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1999

A thrilling journey into the minds of African elephants as they struggle to survive.

If, as many recent nonfiction bestsellers have revealed, animals possess emotions and awareness, they must also have stories. In The White Bone, a novel imagined entirely from the perspective of African elephants, Barbara Gowdy creates a world whole and separate that yet illuminates our own.

For years, young Mud and her family have roamed the high grasses, swamps, and deserts of the sub-Sahara. Now the earth is scorched by drought, and the mutilated bodies of family and friends lie scattered on the ground, shot down by ivory hunters. Nothing-not the once familiar terrain, or the age-old rhythms of life, or even memory itself-seems reliable anymore. Yet a slim prophecy of hope is passed on from water hole to water hole: the sacred white bone of legend will point the elephants toward the Safe Place. And so begins a quest through Africa's vast and perilous plains-until at last the survivors face a decisive trial of loyalty and courage.

In The White Bone, Barbara Gowdy performs a feat of imagination virtually unparalleled in modern fiction. Plunged into an alien landscape, we orient ourselves in elephant time, elephant space, elephant consciousness and begin to feel, as Gowdy puts it, "what it would be like to be that big and gentle, to be that imperiled, and to have that prodigious memory."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Barbara Gowdy has an utter affinity for the unconventional. In the title story of We So Seldom Look on Love, necrophilia is exquisite rather than execrable, and her wildly funny--and wildly affecting--novel Mister Sandman invites us into the hearts and minds of Toronto's least normal and most loving family. With The White Bone Gowdy continues her exploration of extraordinary lives, but this time human beings ("hindleggers") are on the periphery. And we're grateful when they're not around, since this gives her four-legged characters--elephants--a chance to survive.

The White Bone opens with five family trees. Gowdy's pachyderms include an orphaned visionary, She-Spurns (more familiarly known as Mud), and the "fine-scenter" She-Deflates, not to mention nurse cow She-Soothes and the bull Tall Time. (Though Gowdy's nomenclature may displease some readers, Dumbo wasn't exactly an inspiring name either.) Then, before her tragic narrative even begins, Gowdy offers a second feat of empathy and imagination, a glossary of elephant language. Afflicted by premonitions and obsessed with memory and safety, these animals have terms that range from the formal to the low, the metaphorical to the deeply physical: the "Eternal Shoreless Water" is oblivion, a "sting" is a bullet, and a "flow-stick" a snake. Of course, if you have "trunk," you possess "soulfulness; depth of spirit"--something every participant in Gowdy's fourth novel desperately needs. Initially, her characters' impressions of familiar objects are amusing, but bright comedy precedes dark tragedy. Witness Mud's take on jeeps: "On their own, vehicles prefer to sleep, but whenever a human burrows inside them they race and roar and discharge a foul odour." Needless to say, such speeding tends to precede a killing fest.

Alas, this is a book heavy with omens and slaughter, and Gowdy makes each elephant so individual, so conscious, that their separate fates are impossible to bear. When Tall Time, for instance, hears a helicopter, nothing, not even Gowdy's poetry, can save him: "The shots that pelt his hide feel as light as rain. It is bewildering to be brought down under their little weight." As the devastation increases, and her characters fail, and fail again, to find the magical white bone that should lead them to safety, the novel becomes a litany of pain and death. The only success is Barbara Gowdy's, in getting so thoroughly under the skin of her elephantine protagonists. --Kerry Fried

From Publishers Weekly

Gowdy, the prodigiously talented Canadian author who caused a stir with Mister Sandman and We So Seldom Look on Love, writes with such immediacy and vigor that she can take a reader almost anywhere. In this novel, however, she has chosen to inhabit the minds of a series of elephants in African desert country, and despite her great skill and the colossal effort of imaginative empathy it must have entailed, her book is hard going. For a start, as in one of those vast generational sagas, there are endless family trees to sort out, and since the elephant families are whimsically named, always after the matriarchal leaders (the She-S's, the She-B's-And-B's, etc.), the relationships are difficult to come to grips with. The book is a series of quests, carried out against the fierce odds of a frightful drought and the occasional murderous intervention of ivory-seeking "hind-leggers." Little Mud, who has visions, is crippled and seeking her family; Date Bed, a "mind talker" shot in an ambush and given up for dead, is being sought by her family; all are seeking the Safe Place, a sort of elephant heaven that is located by throwing the iconic White Bone so that it points in the right direction. There is a great deal of interesting elephant lore, about the nature of their fabulous memory, their scenting and tracking skills, their eating, drinking and fornicating habits. Without being overly anthropomorphic, Gowdy manages to individualize a number of them as having human-scale emotions, even humor; and they have religious songs (lauding the She) that sound wonderfully like Victorian hymns. But despite her skillsAperhaps even because of themAthe reader is disappointed that so talented a writer could have exerted so much effort on so unpromising a subject. 50,000 first printing; BOMC selection; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 330 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books; First American Edition edition (May 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805060367
• ISBN-13: 978-0805060362
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #908,406 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MOVING, SAD -- AND BEAUTIFUL, October 24, 2002

By 

Larry L. Looney (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The White Bone: A Novel (Paperback)

The key, I think, to understanding and enjoying this wonderful novel lies in the quote from author Joy Williams that appears on the back cover: `This sorrowful novel does holy work because it engages us in that holiest of acts - empathy'. Rarely have I come across a creation as beautiful as this book - or as sad. The reviewers below who take issue with the `lack of plot' and the mourning that seems to occur on every other page should stop for just a moment and think about the world in which elephants live - a world that has seemingly focused itself on their destruction as a species, all for the prize of their ivory tusks. There are laws in place today to make an attempt to stem this slaughter - but poaching remains a constant threat, and more aggressive steps are obviously needed to save these gentle creatures.

The world that Barbara Gowdy has imagined in this book is not one that leaps merely from her imagination - a look at her acknowledgements at the end of the novel will reveal this. She has definitely done her homework, and her work here has its roots in science and reality - which makes the scope of her creation all the more amazing. She has brought to life not just the surface of the elephants' lives - she has envisioned and made very real the structures of their society, their thought processes, the various methods with which they communicate (both with each other and with members of other species), and even a vast system of mythology, embodying legends, `links' (omens, signs and folk wisdom), a vast knowledge of their natural world, and even the concept of a creative deity. This might sound like quite a feat for the author to pull off - and it is, but she does so with breathtaking success.

The society of elephants is a matriarchal one - the females are the leaders and seem to be more plentiful. The central character of the story - a young cow named Mud - is seen to go through the changes that life brings about to all species. She is born, orphaned, adopted by another family group, and grows into adolescence and adulthood over the course of the story. Her understanding and concept of the world around her grows and changes as her life progresses and takes shape - altered both physically and emotionally by her experiences. She is a visionary - an elephant within the family group who is sometimes gifted with visions of occurrences in other places and times. These events sometimes lie in the near or far future, sometimes in the present, and sometimes in the past. There is also (usually) present within each family group a member gifted with `mind talking' - able to communicate without sound with the other group members and with other species. When a mind talker or a visionary - or a fine-scenter or a tracker, or other specifically talented member - dies or is killed, the gift is passed on to another individual.

The story is not, as at least one other reviewer has indicated, plotless. It involves the elephants' constant struggle for survival in a world where `hindleggers' (humans) are continuously a threat, slaughtering them mercilessly and in whatever numbers they can manage. Their treatment is brutal - if you think that elephants in a circus are treated without respect, imagine them being hunted by jeeps and helicopters and slaughtered in the wild - with absolutely no discrimination as to age and size - and then cut apart by chain saws and axes, often before they are dead, in order to `harvest' their tusks, tails, feet and sometimes heads. It's gruesome and horrifying - but it happens.

Gowdy's story brings this horrific treatment to life for the reader - but she also gives us a moving portrait of some of the most gentle, non-aggressive creatures on the planet. Individuals are imbued with a distinct personality - it's as easy to get to know them as human characters in other well-crafted fiction. The above-mentioned empathy that the novel invokes is, again, the key here. I was drawn into this book almost immediately when I started reading it - I was afraid at first that the name structure would be a high hurdle, but the vivid personality differences (and the appropriately given names) aided greatly in clearing it. This book wound up being one of the most moving experiences I've had with fiction in quite some time - there's a lot of sorrow and sadness here, but there is an amazing beauty to be found as well as joy and hope.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderfully imaginative novel, March 6, 2000

By 

Marie Rochon - See all my reviews

This review is from: The White Bone: A Novel (Hardcover)

Initially, I stayed away from reading this novel as any reviews I came upon described it in a most uninteresting fashion.

When I finally picked up the novel, I heaved a sigh. Another book introduced with family trees (this one for elephant clans), as well as a map and a glossary of terms. But upon reading, I found that the charts and glossary were merely assistive tools, and certainly not mandatory for enjoying this thoroughly imaginative book.

I was constantly struck by Gowdy's ability to paint the world of the elephant, through their eyes. Their search for a Safe Place, where humans do not slaughter them or their famiily for their heads, tusks, or feet.

Gowdy creates a wonderfully imaginative read in looking at the elephant's existence through their eyes, so rich in memory, mysticism and spirituality, but also full of sorrow. I found myself to be incredibly moved by the mourning rituals that Gowdy described.

Don't be put off by the subject matter. If nothing else, this is worth reading if only to see a writer at the peak of their craft. I am awed by Gowdy's ability to use extensive research to create a novel that is creative, interesting, touching and meaningful.

Does the ending disappoint? No, not when you consider that happy endings should not be expected in a world where one's reality is that of being pursued and hunted down.

This novel is a creative, imaginative journey, and I loved every second of it. I highly recommend taking this adventure.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A story about elephants...well done, June 25, 2001

By 

"nicollej" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The White Bone: A Novel (Paperback)

I've read a few reviews in which the readers were disappointed by the lack of plot in the book. I say, "bah humbug!" Please remember, people that this book is about and written from the point of view of elephants. No, there is no "boy meets girl, boy kills girl," or "husband dies of cancer and oh no what do I do?..." plots here. The plot of the story is getting to THE SAFE PLACE. These elephants want to make it to a safe place. They don't want to go through these awful butcherings of their kind any longer. They want to feel SAFE...that is the plot and as far as elephants go, I think that is a pretty good plot!!! Barbara Gowdy does a fantastic job of describing these elephant "characters" in somewhat humanistic terms so that, we, the HUMAN readers can understand them. She does this quite subtely, actually, seeing as how she could have completely gone anthropomorphic on us and made this into some goofy Disney-like elephant freak show.

I really can't imagine the research and empathy that went into this on the author's part. The animals (all of them...not just the elephants) are so interesting and individual. The trials they go through are so intricately depicted. You actually live on this African desertland with these animals and can feel the fear, love, hope they feel (and I am one of those people who believes animals feel certain pangs of love, hope, etc. in their own way).

All in all, I thought the book was good. It was not the easiest read, and it's not for everyone; it's not something you can plow through. I probably wouldn't recommend it to people who are into those "Oprah" books. If you have a really deep reverence for animals, and want to read 300 pages about elephants, this book could be for you (as I said, "it's not for everyone").