Reviews

Steinfisch by Keri Hulme

mnboyer's review against another edition

4.0

Stonefish has often been called an example of "exploratory writing," and in many ways there is truth to this. Many of the short stories explore various states of dream, which is quite different than what most of us consider "typical" writing. However, I am quick to point out that many of these experiments are full of Maori tradition, culture, oral stories, etc., that make them worthy of reading a few times as you try to find the point of each.

The title itself is rather telling. The stonefish (synanceia) is the most poisonous fish in the world. It is often dangerous and even deadly to humans that might accidentally step on it, taking in poison from its needle-like dorsal fins, which flare up when it gets scared or threatened. They are commonly called stonefish because they can camouflage themselves and look like large stone on the bottom of the Indo-Pacific floor in coastal regions. Just keep this literal fish in mind while reading.


"Floating Worlds" gives some great examples of TEK or traditional ecological knowledge, mostly through the example of what individuals know about mushrooms in their community. There is also some good information here about storytellers: "Storytellers never stay in one place for long."

"The Eyes of the Moonfish See Moonfish Pain" is another interesting intersection that shows the dichotomies and parallels between traditional Maori lifestyles and contemporary lifestyles. This can be seen as a woman cleans fish--something that was once done with a bit more respect, as fish were culturally significant. But it seems that commercial fisheries care little about the fish and more about the profits. At the end, it seems that some people are better at separating their traditions from their jobs, but this is not the case for all. Nor should it be (imho). This is later picked up in "Midden Mine," which also shows some of the negative outcomes of commercialization of the fishing industry. The example of packages of fish sticks is quite comical, if also somewhat saddening because of how true it is. The fish have "happyhappy smiles" on their faces even though we are going to eat them--how does that seem correct?

If you want to read about colonization, I recommend "Storehouse for the Hungry Ghosts." In the section "Midden Mine" you also get some insights into the way in which academia and treasure hunters have altered the way in which we look at communities. Academia tends to like looking at dead communities--even though they might not be dead. Part of this is sifting through their materials (sacred or otherwise) so they can catalogue them, preserve them, keep them, etc.

Overall, the writing is indeed a bit experimental. But Hulme is pointing readers in all sorts of directions. You don't have to be a scholar to appreciate the novel, but looking up a few Maori facts here an there wouldn't hurt you either.

ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

“‘Is - this - real?’ I ask the tūrehu.
‘As real as your life,’ it answers, ‘and as real as whatever you call reality. It is just that your kind can't stand very much reality. You much prefer your patterns and your stories and your noisy dirty tramplings over everything. However, you don't last forever and we almost do. We are going now. I would go quite soon too, if I were you,’ and it gives a small smile and, horrifyingly, winks. And the mist and Others weren't there any more.”
— from ‘Getting It’

TITLE—Stonefish

AUTHOR—Keri Hulme

PUBLISHED—2004

PUBLISHER—Huia Publishers NZ

GENRE—poetry, short literary fiction & prose poetry, speculative fiction

SETTING—Aotearoa

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—pounamu, ancestral legacy, indigenous sovereignty, mushroom foraging, climate change/crisis, post-apocalyptic/dystopian/alternate/futuristic worlds & possibilities, writing, grocery stores & poison, imperialist economies & capitalism, fishing, antipodean melting pot, fish-processing factory work, colonialist oppression, sumptuous descriptions of food, sacred memory, Māori mythology & story-heritage, tūrehu, maeroero, taniwha, death & grief, moths & butterflies, living in the present moment, joy, the Moriori, archaeology 

“To be at a remove from my own history: to see it only as through lens or mic. To know my real history, I would forego any comfort I derive from what my mother told me and get right in there among the blood and tears. O I would—“
— from ‘Midden Mine’

Summary:

“…if we cast our lines out, if we dig and if we dream, who knows what we’ll find?”

My thoughts:

Another flawless collection from one of my favorite writers. I was so excited to find so many stories that resonate with my favorite literary themes and subjects including embodied spirits, indigenous belief systems, inherited trauma, and even archaeology.

This collection also emphasizes Hulme’s particularly original writing style. She makes her own rules, and while the result might take some effort in finding your sealegs to be able to navigate the oceanic undulations and emotional depths of her prose, the effect is always stunning and the experience always rewarding.

I would recommend this book to readers who love adventurous poetic writing styles with themes of our relationships with nature, each other, and ourselves. This book is best readseaside.

Final note: So excited to have finally been able to read this out-of-print collection! I now also have managed to add STRANDS, HOMEPLACES, and LOST POSSESSIONS to my shelves as well so aside from THE SILENCES BETWEEN which is veryyy out of print, I now have all of her published works. 🙌🏻 A bit sad that she only wrote these six(/seven) books but luckily they are the kind that will benefit from umpteenth rereads. 🫶🏻

“Casually say to yourself these three sentences; one: everything that is, is interconnected; two: everything you can think of, exists, and everything you can't think of, does too; three: you are what you eat. Now, go away and sort out which one, if any, was the lie.”
— from ‘The Pluperfect Pā-wā’

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Season: late winter / early spring

CW // colonialism, environmental destruction & desecration, terminal illness & mental degeneration, domestic violence (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

• TE KAIHAU THE WINDEATER by Keri Hulme
• THE BONE PEOPLE by Keri Hulme
• STRANDS by Keri Hulme—TBR
• WHAI by Nicole Titihuia Hawkins—TBR
• THE WHALE RIDER by Witi Ihimaera
• Haunani-Kay Trask
• No’u Revilla
• THE WORLD KEEPS ENDING, AND THE WORLD GOES ON by Franny Choi
• DYKE (GEOLOGY) by Sabrina Imbler
• THE SENTENCE by Louise Erdrich

Favorite Quotes—

from Floating Words:

“I amble along the strip, seemingly aimlessly. When I first went gathering, I would mistake driftwood and pallid stones and old gnawed bits of sheepbone for mushrooms, because I made the mistake of looking for them. That was years ago; now I have my eye in.”

“I sigh: Change, change, change. Where is solidity? Where is the rock?”

“In the misty distance is a shy retreating figure, a grey shadow in the drizzle. Though there are so few of us left, it makes no move towards me. That is understandable. Mushroom-pickers are solitary creatures, and don't like other mushroom-pickers too close.”

“I grab my last bottle of Lindauer's finest. Ultra Brut Cuvee Sans Dosage. That’s about as mean, and lean, a champagne as you'll get, anywhere. I can already see, despite disbelief—it’s like reality has sneezed, and split—it is going to be one of those occasions where sober straight forward action will get me nowhere. The winter moon that night was very pale. ‘A pale moon doth rain.’”

“‘When you are drowning, the depth of the water is of last concern.' The essential requirement of a whakataukī-waina is that it seems to make sense—it does make sense, a kind of sense, but that sense is edgy and changeable, and if you think too much not about it, you step into mental quicksand, skiddy and sinking all at once. That's why they're wine proverbs, not too much use or good anywhen else… There I was, drowning in unreality, and the depth of the wine the last concern.”

“Our worlds are drifting further

apart. The tide has reached my front fence… Ah wind, blow the mists away…”

“Where are you going? I don't know. Wherever the inward and ingoing tides take me. To stop temporarily wherever I strand. Storytellers never stay in one place for long.”

“Once upon a time, We were a community here… Now, here is wherever you find me, and nowhere is where I’ll be.”

from The Pluperfect Pā-wā:

“You don't know me. You won't know me after this either. Don't worry about it.”

from The Eyes of the Moonfish     See Moonfish Pain:

“She is deft and fast enough to make the rank of Able Hand first class, but she chooses to hide her speed, her skill. Outstanding nails get hammered down, says her father, tall poppies get chopped.”

“'Sweet dreams,' she whispers to her hidden mother, her gone father, her quiet and satiate self.”

“says her father,

Who cares what the day brings?

The night will always come.”

from Hinekaro Goes on a Picnic and Blows Up Another Obelisk:

“There's an old saying: The more you look, the more you see. It is a misquotation. It should be, The more you look, the more there is to see.”

“today be umber

eat water

plant rumours

fish for kraken

think: a whisper dies on her lips”

from Getting It:

“I can see the smile too. Someone who smiles like that would slice your belly open to check what you had for breakfast, quite playfully and just in the interests of learning. Then they'd tie your intestines in a bow—“

“We were here first. We have never left. We own our homelands.

We prefer to be in the shadows. We roam the lands at night.

We were on the Almost-island before you came, it has always

been ours.

We will remain there, in company with the first arrivals.

We share with them but not with humans. Go away. Leave

us alone.”

“Gran had never said much about them, unlike her stories about the bush fairies whom she dearly loved, but I dimly recall it was all terrifying. A clever and vindictive seafolk, who killed humans much more often than humans killed them (although our stories didn't exactly emphasise this).

Note: ponaturi nails are long, strong-looking, and savagely pointed.”

“We came because we thought seeing us clearly might cause wonder, make you realise there is much more than you think you know about our world. We thought our very presence might open minds and change present attitudes. All of us heard most minds snap shut minutes ago.”

“They are creatures of mist and rain and aloneness

says my gran

they play water and sadness into our world

she said.

They are people of cunning and malice, and sunshine and music and stillness

says my gran

they bring together all of the Others, the ancient unborn, the young and the old

she said.

And never forget the dwellers-in-water, shape-shifters, changers

says my gran

and that all of them hate us strangers, who came from the Abyssal Void

yes, I do remember what she said.

And I thought it was just one of Gran's little songs. Now I teach it to our children.”

from Storehouse for the Hungry Ghosts:

“But the books never told me what he truly was. It takes dreams to tell you that.”

“‘The People of the Sun' was an early christening, but they just called themselves tchakat henu, people of the land. We still do that, all of us here—tangata whenua, Earth people. And yet, we're islanders, habitants of the sea as much as the good earth. Maybe it's because we hope our bones will rest easy in the ground, rather than in the belly of a shark?”

“There's pain and cruelty in everything… Do I not tell you this story, giving you images you don't necessarily want, griefs that are old, old, and irremediable?”

“The good feeling of having grown and harvested your own food; the better feeling to have shared it; the best feeling, to eat to repletion with your family.”

“For years, to live was to despair.”

“heavy with memories of placid surfeit

he tipped the scales into the grave.

‘I am rich with good things and the poor ghosts

shall not be sent

empty away’”

“‘Nothing human is alien to me', but when anything comes that close to home, the ghosts begin to stir and work like yeast in your dreams.”

from Hatchlings:

“We are not lovely beings, she decides, watching the imperceptibly slow unfurling of the wings.”

from Kissing It As It Flies:

“You see, we can live in our memories or live in our hopes and fears. Or, we can live in this moment, you and me, talking, the sun there, the river here… remembering another time and other people, for sure, but also hearing the ripples rippling like a plenum of giggles, and watching the lekking flies... Because it's the only time we can be sure of, the only time we really have. Now.”

from The Trouble with A. Chen Li:

“…if we encounter technology beyond the reach of our imagination, we will think it magic.”

from Midden Mine:

”A dark night and seafog thickening.

I think

all we find

is what we're looking for”

“The oystercatchers are crying Keria keria! so a storm is coming despite this languid fog. Replace the tarpaulin and head for bed. Tomorrow is another year.”

“'You should know better than to pick up pieces of people!’”

“He was the best kind of teacher, a person of passion who shared what he knew.”

“By two, there's general agreement about throwing in the trowel.”

“You have to know the stories.”

“Maybe it's because we bury our noses in the remnants of human lives, human hopes, human endeavours—we're right down there in the bone dust and fragments of all the hard—hated or happy—work—but I don't know many joyful, or religious, archaeologists.”

“It's interesting, well at least to this me, how both diaries and field notebooks and, indeed, every kind of written (sometimes spoken or other) record, are started off with great detail and beady-eyed elaboration and almost literary explication, a hiss and a roar—and then they taper off and die.”

“A large amount of archaeology is—despite the attempted science of our endeavour—Why? And Why? is a question science doesn't pretend to answer... it is unanswerable except in very small scale very specific circumstances anyway. Everything larger is chaotic.”

“For us apes it's what you believe heartdeep, not what actually is—“

“Listen: Listen

between the sight of a word

and the sound of a word

is silence—

see?”

“We are stories eh? Well, no human story ever had a good ending, and all the endings are basically the same. We always wind up dead. Finished, pau, kaput, pakaru'd. End of story.”

from Telling How The Stonefish Swims:

“And older than humans of our kind, this fish swam

unimaginable waters crowded with nightmares of teeth

and tentacles: survived them all to sink at last

in final sleep…”

robdawgreads's review against another edition

2.0

Honestly, the "exploratory writing style" is not my jam. I really struggled to get through this book. I found it jumpy and abstract. Maybe it's a bit too artsy for my taste. I recommend giving it a try and if it speaks to you, that's great!

It reminds me of Bones & Murder by Margaret Atwood which was also not one of my favorites but some people loved it...

tessaays's review against another edition

5.0

Ugh, someone once said about Jia Tolentino, and I feel this way about Keri Hulme: I would read her shopping lists if she let me.

octavia_cade's review against another edition

4.0

Surreal, fractured, often fantastic and set like stones into their environment, this collection of shorts (plus the odd poem) is like a collection of little puzzles. It's certainly interesting to read - rising to fascinating in some cases.

Though as with any short story collection, some of the included tales are better than others. My particular favourites were the truly excellent "Floating Words" and "The Eyes of the Moonfish".