Rule of the Bone: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I think everyone has certain books they will associate with periods of their life. This is one of those books. I'm not going to sit here and tell you this is the best book I've ever read. But I will tell you this is an amazing story and that Russell Banks is very talented and under appreciated writer. I had never heard of him untill my roomate gave me his book, and now I'm turned on to his other works. Do yourself a favor, read it!

Rating:
Summary: a great book... worth the read
Review: I'm going to keep this short, because i'm sure the other 32 current reviews do a great job of comparing to catcher in the rye and such. This book was recommended to me by my english teacher when I first finished catcher, and wanted more. It's definitely a great book, but as someone growing up in the era definied, I found it somewhat cliche at parts. I figure enough years have passed that most people picking it up now wouldn't recognize the cliches, and would enjoy the book for it's great adventure story.

Rating:
Summary: An honest review
Review: There is something very beautiful and intriguing about a twisted life like Bone's, from Russell Banks's novel Rule of the Bone. Banks builds his character on honesty and impulse, sending readers on a turbulent journey of a troubled teenage mind, starting with a sincere, Catcher in the Rye style opening vowing everything told is true.
Rule of the Bone is narrated through Banks's main character Bone, who like Holden Caulfield, uses slang and colloquial language to compliment his image. Banks does a wonderful job of writing his book to seem as if it were coming out of the characters mind itself, using run-on sentences to represent jumbled thoughts, a vocabulary that seems appropriate for its speakers, slurred words and repetitions, and above all, an innocent truthfulness. This syntax of Banks's is similar to J.D. Salinger's, and becomes evident on the first page.
"You'll probably think I'm making a lot of this up just to make me sound better than I really am or smarter or even luckier but I'm not. Besides, a lot of the things that've happened top me in my life so far which I'll get to pretty soon'll make me sound evil or just plain dumb or the tragic victim of circumstances. Which I know doesn't exactly prove I'm telling the truth but if I wanted to make myself look better than I am or smarter or the master of my own fate so to speak I could. The fact is the truth is more interesting than anything I could make up and that's why I'm telling it in the first place."
This is the first taste of Bone that Banks feeds us, drawing us in with the mystery of the "the truth." What struck me most about this opening was how personal it is- a great method to draw readers into the book by making them feel closer with the characters.
Though the openings may be similar, this story is not a reproduction of The Catcher in the Rye. Banks introduces his own idiosyncratic characters along with scandalous scenarios creating a wild, modern flavor. Readers are easily seduced as Bone honestly recounts a time in his life when he was nothing but an immature punk trying to build an image. We are given this fourteen year old boy whose family life is shattered and seeks euphoria in pot smoking and low key mischief. He finds comfort in nothing, he commits several criminal acts, and he follows all the wrong leaders. By and large, Bone is an offbeat, lost teenager with a shattered life who subconsciously embarks on a mission to find himself.
"Basically people don't know how kids think, I guess they forget. But when you're a kid it's like you're wearing this binoculars strapped to your eyes and you cant see anything except what's in the dead center of the lenses because you're too scared of everything else or else you don't understand it and people expect you to, so you feel stupid all the time. Mostly a lot of stuff just doesn't get registered. You're always f***ing up and there's a lot that you don't even see that people expect you to see..."
Something that remains constant about Bone's character is that he is always worried about doing what is expected. For example, there is a period in the beginning of his escape when he lives with the gang of bikers and a sixteen year old high school dropout. During this time, they expect him only to keep the marijuana on a steady flow.
Bone reaches a higher level of maturity towards the middle of the book when he meets I-Man, a homeless Jamaican Rasta with whom Bone ends up living for a few months. During his stay with I-Man, Bone learns more about himself than he knew possible, and gains a certain level of wisdom and knowledge. We begin to see that Bone actually digs deeply into everything he thinks about, though he appears to just be a punk rock kid without thought or direction. At this point, Bone begins to set a really curious tone in the story with all the new perception and maturity that begins to flood his life. This tone took me by surprise because Bone usually does not let many people intrigue him. However, when he meets I-Man, he becomes extremely curious and fascinated by everything that I-Man has to offer. For example, when it seems like his adventures with I-Man may be coming to an end, Bone says "...I wasn't actually thinking too much about my future just then, it was too scary and lonely to contemplate any possible futures without the company and teaching of I-Man to guide me..." From this the reader can gather that I-Man has taught Bone about life, something that he never knew about, therefore sparking this curiosity in his mind to always be around I-Man and learn more. He gives Bone confidence and courage- something that is not present within him at the beginning of the story.
The plot only picks up as the story still progresses. Towards the end, Bone actually ends up becoming Rastafarian and living in Jamaica, which adds to the voyage through his mind by introducing new characters and untamable situations. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a creative attention-grabbing novel. I have little criticism for Banks- only praise for his style, his plot, and his chaotic entertaining characters. This is a book you should not miss.