Russel Banks' fourteen-year-old Bone is a latter day Holden Caulfield—aware of the phoniness and empty, sordid posturing of adults—and he's also a Huck Finn, lighting out from the strictures of conventional society. Bone tells his story in an unselfconscious manner, a naive narrator telling the story straight. He leaves his troubled family (with a contemptible, sexually abusive step-father), lives alongside a larcenous motorcycle gang till a fire leaves their leader dead. He and his buddy fear the law and possible reprisals from survivors, so hide out for several months. When his buddy gives up on the independent and anarchic life of a squatter, Bone returns incognito to his small Vermont home and establishes a strange life with Rastafarian I-man in an abandoned school bus. In the process, he tries to do right by a young mid-western girl who'd been bought by a sleazy operator who oozes perversion. After nursing her back to health, he locates her mother, whom he knows is a drug addict, and puts her on a bus to return her to her home, however broken. I-man takes Bone to Jamaica, and Bone quickly learns that the spiritual, self-sustaining farmer and pot grower/smoker I-man is considerably more worldly and lethal in Jamaica. Bone stumbles upon his real father—a well-moneyed, philandering drug dealer cum doctor. Dreams of re-uniting and bonding with his father fade quickly, even before his father has I-man killed. Bone learns the girl whom he'd saved has died of pneumonia. Bone eludes a rendezvous with his Vermont buddy, and he sails away from Jamaica as a hand on a small-time cruise boat. At novel's end, Bone is staring into the skies, formulating new constellations of the three people who have best guided him: Bruce, the not-so-bright, fatherly motorcycle gang leader; Sister Rose, the innocent girl whose fate was to be abused and neglected; and I-man, his spiritual father from whom Bone learned to trust himself.Given that Bone is himself an innocent—despite all of the violence, perversion, neglect, abuse, and amorality that has washed over him. He is able at novel's end to retain a sense of what is good and pure. He has experienced all the shit the world can throw at him, and he has been able to see it for what it is: harmful to the welfare of the world's children. This is the Holden Caulfield who dreams he might be the catcher in the rye, saving all the children from the despoliation of adulthood.All the pieces seem to fit, and I left the novel with admiration for its construction and its depiction of Bone, but time has eroded some of the luster from the Jamaica scenes with Bone's father Paul Dorset and his heiress lover Evening Star. Bone does narrative service to Jamaica and I-man's people and Evening Star's people, but the experience of Jamaica itself is finally more than I was able to absorb. My failing, perhaps, or maybe it's just that Holden/Huck/Bone simply don't have to go that far afield to observe what's wrong with the [American] world.
Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks is a story about a young boy named Chappie. Chappie lives with his mom and step dad in a small town in upstate New York in the Lake Placid area. Chappie, just 13 at the time grows a fondness for marijuana and hangs out with a tough crowd that is all very much older than him. As time goes on Chappie becomes more and more addicted to weed and alcohol. This addiction eventually leads him to stealing from his mother to buy drugs and he gets kicked out of the house because of it. This is where his journey really begins. He takes off with a friend of his named Russ and they begin their lives on the road as homeless teenagers. With no car, no shelter and little to no money the boys spend their money on food and drugs. Through a strange turn of events Chappie gets the nick name Bone and from that point on is always referred to as that. Bone and Russ eventually go their separate ways, they were best friends for a long time but the isolation they shared for so long while they were on the run eventually drove them to dislike and then to hate each other. Bone does not take this easy and feels like his best friend deserted him after contributing to getting him in the difficult situation. After Bone recovers from the loss he regroups and decides that nothing can be accomplished by just hoping things will get better. With this new proactive attitude Bone retraces his steps. After being turned away by his mother and again having nowhere to go Bone crashes in a bus with a Rastafarian man who called himself “I-man”. He preached finding “I-self” which is like finding what is really important to you. Following I-Man’s lead Bone then goes on a very strange and exciting journey that you definitely will not see coming. Personally I liked this book for a few reasons. Rule of the Bone had a lot of things that the rest of the books I read this semester did not. In the book the main character was a younger boy who was a drug user. I thought that this was a nice change because at the very least I haven’t read too many books where the main character is a 13 year old druggy; it adds a different element to the story. Something I really liked also was that the book took place in the Adirondacks about 2 hours north of here. Having been in the area that the book describes made it really easy to imagine what was going or at least where the events were taking place. The other big thing that I liked was that the book was very unpredictable. The story will look like its going one way and all the sudden it’s going in a direction that you couldn’t imagine. The unpredictability of the book keeps you on your toes and definitely keeps you interested. These are a few reasons that I can think of why I liked the book and if any of that sounds interesting to you I would highly recommend this book for you.
What do You think about Rule Of The Bone (1996)?
I started this book hoping that it will grab my interest, but it didn't worked out that much for me. The flatness of the voice and how the novel was written by Russell Banks -- no commas and conversationally distant sentence structure as if Chappie, the 14-year old lead character had really written it -- didn't appeal to me.But this book is not just awfully written though. The plot was fantastic and Russell Banks really represented a strong voice for the youth. He provided a good point of view on teens of the new generation. But regardless of the plot, I don't think anyone would be going through this thick 390-page book without getting drowsy.Rule of the Bone is a coming of age novel that tells how the world looks like through the eyes of an unwanted boy. Chappie narrates his own story of drugs, theft, abuse and sex. He details his experiences after he leaves home, away from his mother and his stepfather, to make a life of his own, and for his quest to find someone who cares. He encounters various individuals thoughout his journey such as a six-year-old girl who is a victim of child pornography, a group of crazy bikers, a spiritual and drug addict Jamaican Rastafarian, and of course, his real father.Even though I didn't liked the book that much, it still presents real-life issues that young people deals within our society today. Chappie is a more complex Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye that represents a part of all the teens that were neglected by their own family or those who ran away from home.In the end, you might find yourself hating and loving Rule of the Bone at the same time.
—Alden
Rule Of The Bone cracked my shit up and also made me cry a little. Bone is the nickname of this scrawny little fourteen-year-old boy with a shitty home life. He ends up running away from home, makes a few nutty friends, and moves into a school bus with a Rastafari man who ends up taking Bone to Jamaica at some point in the book where he actually is reunited with his biological father. It's funny, infuriating, and touching all at the same time and at certain points.This is one of my many favourite pieces of dialogue in the book:Finally Russ said, "I got to get rid of my tattoo.""Yeah," I said, "but it's permanent, isn't it?"Actually, I'd almost forgotten that he even had a tattoo. He rolled up his sleeve and held out the underside of his forearm and examined it for a minute like it was somebody else's."Fuck those guys," he said. "You know? After what they did to Bruce and us, I hate them, man. I never shoulda got this thing."It was a green nazi helmet with these black and red eagle wings attached and the words 'Adirondack' on top and 'iron' below and not too big, about like a half-dollar."Whyn't you go to a tattoo guy and just get him to turn it into something different?" I said."Like what?""I dunno. Something bigger, with a lot of black in it. Like a humongous black panther all ready to leap and rip and tear living flesh with his fangs bared and claws and yellow eyes and everything. Or maybe one of those black and orange butterflies, whaddaya call 'em, monarchs. Or a black guy. I saw a tattoo once of that guy Malcolm X that they made a movie out of and it was because the guy who had it was a white dude and it really stood out."Russ liked the panther idea the best. "It'll be my new identity," he said, "my trademark. I'm going underground, man. I might even change my name.""To what?""I dunno. Buck maybe. Whaddaya think?""Your last name is Rodgers, asshole. You wanna be Buck Rodgers? A fucking astronaut?""I'll change my last name too.""How about 'Zombie', that's cool. You can be Buck Zombie, the living dead boy.""Maybe I will," he said, but I knew he wouldn't because in spite of everything, Russ isn't radical enough to be a true criminal. Basically he's an astronaut.Ugh, I love that.
—Amanda
Any novel featuring a precocious and cynical young narrator is going to be compared to Catcher in the Rye, but in this case the comparison is valid. Like Holden, Bone has a strong, likeable personality, and even though you'd like to slap him upside the head, you also love him. There is such authenticity in Bone's voice that many young readers are completely sucked into this book - to the point where the narrator and the author are confused. I met Russell Banks in 1998 when he toured to promote Cloudsplitter, and after the reading he joined a group of us from the bookstore for sushi. Naturally, we got him to talk as much as we could about his books. About Rule of the Bone he said; "I get letters from fifteen-year old kids who write, Dude! Your book is awesome! They think I'm a kid too. They'd be disappointed to find out I'm a grey haired old man." Such is the power of a great book.Those kids, of course, are right. This book is totally awesome. However it lost me a bit when the action goes to Jamaica - things don't quite ring as true as they do in the gritty and real first half of the book. I'm so picky.
—Tyler Jones
