The White Bone

Author: Barbara Gowdy
POV: Third person limited (Mud, Date Bed, Tall Time)
Genre: Fiction (maybe literature?)  

I've had this book for a few years, and have always meant to read it.  Last night I finally got around to it.  I didn't feel like watching TV, or like writing, or really much of anything.  It's been a long month, and my mental and creative reserves are depleted.  So I thought about reading, and couldn't decide if I wanted to read an old comfort book (Sunshine and A Fistful of Sky being my first two options) or start a new book.  When I went to actually look at the books, though, I didn't feel like re-reading old favorites, so I decided to read something new.

I'm only explaining that I was in a weird mood when I decided to finally read this book to potentially help explain when I can't decide how I actually feel about this book.  The characters are African elephants; the main character's name is Mud (a baby-name).  Mud belongs to the She-S tribe.  The region they, and other tribes, inhabit is experiencing severe drought.  Additionally, the elephants are being demolished by poachers.  The elephants have heard of a white bone that will point the way to a Safe Place - free of both drought and humans.

Gar, was this a depressing book.  Most everyone dies.  Maybe I'm just a girl for happy endings, and that's why I can't make up my mind.  Because, here's the thing: it's not just as 'cute' book about humanized elephants. These stand on their own, with their own culture.  The elephants have their own rituals and ways and explanations. Gowdy has created a neat mythology for the elephants, and some have clairvoyant gifts (one is each tribe is a visionary, one a mind-talker).  One bull elephant, Tall Time, is obsessed with, for want of a better word, old-wife's tales.  He thinks he's collected them all.  There is, actually, a lot to like in this book.   

I was compelled enough by the book that I read it in one day.  However, that being said, I never did get all that emotionally attached to the characters, and I can't imagine reading this again.  The narrative is shared by three elephants: Mud, Date Bed, and Tall Time.  Mud was orphaned and rescued by Date Bed's tribe, the She-S's.  Tall Time is the bull that collects links (their word for the tales).  He's been in love with Mud since he met her when she was a baby.  Elephants don't fall in love, though, so this is a strange aberration (one that is never resolved nor explained).

This book starts off with a tragedy (the slaughter of most of the She-S's) and never gets better.  Things never look up for the characters.  They basically wander around a drought-stricken landscape searching for the white bone and the lost members of their tribe.  Most die.  The final pages have the few remaining She-S's heading off to what they think is the Safe Place.  Everyone else we've been introduced to has died.

So, depressing.  But I'm not even sure that's my main quibble with the book.  I found the names confusing (every female elephant's name, once they've been mated with, changes to She-something; the something will start with the letter of the tribe them belong to).  Mud's name has just been changed to She-Spurns.  Other members of the She-S tribe include She-Soothes, She-Screams, She-Sees, She-Scares, She-Snorts, etc.  I lost track of who was who. 

Gowdy also invented a language.  For instance, flow-sticks are snakes.  But she doesn't use this consistently.  They will be called both flow-sticks and snakes, often in the same narrative.  Choose one and stick with it.  I think one of my hesitations to start this book was the fact that I'd have to pick up a new vocabulary.  Not really necessary.  There's the nice dictionary at the front, but she also footnotes throughout. 

And it comes down to narrative, too.  She used a third-person limited narration, and it threw me to have animals and that described by their human names (like Grant's gazelles).  I don't think she ever called zebras ribs (the elephant name for them), although I could have missed that.  Trust the reader.  The reader can figure it out from context.

All that being said, I did feel the writing was solid and pleasurable, and I would probably read another of her books.  I would just hope it was not quite as depressing.

Disposition: Sale/Donation (it's likely someone will appreciate this book far more than I - and as I said, I can't imagine wanting to reread it).
Recommendations: There's not many people I can imagine wanting to read this book, mostly because it is so depressing.  Maybe someone else seeking to write non-human characters (again, I thought that was very well done).  More of a craft read than a pleasure read.

As a side note/random observation, this book was published in 1998.  It's one of the first fiction books with footnotes in it that I can think of - I believe Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell came out a few years later.