Rating: 
Summary: MOVING, SAD -- AND BEAUTIFUL
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: It Moved Me
Review: The words that describe this book cannot compare to the emotions that grapple you as you read it. Each elephant in this story is an individual,a person, looking for hope in a land of despair. What adds to it is that though its a story your reading, it's so real. Mud's family doesn't find the safe place, because there is no safe place for elephants in this world. And at the same time families and friends are slayed for their tusk, a sacred and precious object to the elephnats described. The story has you feeling empathy and despair with the characters, because the situations described are so real, even to this day! This story will help you to examine how we, as human beings, should respect life. All of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Love those elephants
Review: This is an unusual story, and it requires you to open your mind to a different way of thinking about things (thus some of the complaints from some readers about it being "slow, etc.".... but if you love elephants and you can accept a different way of listening to (reading) a story, you will enjoy The White Bone and the elephant's persepective.
Rating:
Summary: The White Bone
Review: This was a *very* engrossing, imaginative, detailed and well-written book, although it tended to drag at times. My only real problem with it was the ending, because I'm a sucker for happy endings. When a book ends sad or tragically, I end up never wanting to read it again--which is a waste of money for me. I read this book in two days straight and then returned it in exchange for another, having been dissappointed with it. I would much rather recommend "Silverhair", "Longtusk" and "Icebones" by Stephen Baxer (mammoth trilogy) than the White Bone to anyone who is into elephants or furry literature in general. They are just as detailed and engrossing, and what's more, they have *happy* endings! :) (...)
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