"Bone" Reflection: Part 3

Smith, Jeff, "Bone" Book 1, p. 114.

In the end, Fone Bone chooses to return to Boneville.

I had a very strong and very sad reaction to that.

You see, finishing up reading through the entire “Bone" saga was the culmination of something that began when I was a child. When I was nine years old, I first saw an excerpt of the first chapter of the first book in a kid’s magazine subscription that my mom had taken out for me for a year. Before that year’s subscription was up, I saw two more excerpts from that first chapter that followed in two subsequent issues. And then that was that, for a very long time.

I don’t recall when it was I bought the first book of the nine-book saga. I believe it was three or four years ago, and in the time since I accumulated the first four books out of the nine (all in full color, mind you). Each time I bought a new book in this graphic art saga it was the kind of thing where I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t help but read it straight through.

Not only that, but it was the kind of thing where I had to read through it at least twice, if not three times, straight through each time, before I was even remotely satisfied with having absorbed the story. There are so many intricacies (if the first two posts in this series didn’t tell you already), so many plots and so many sub-plots. And each book ended with just enough of a cliffhanger that I had to find out where the plot was going. Hence Wikipedia. Even then, I realized that the articles wouldn’t do the storyline justice.

So I finally splurged and bought the entire saga in one large, thick volume. I saved quite a bit of money though by buying it in black-and-white. I sacrificed the color. (Mind you, this wasn’t the plan! I just thought I found a really good deal!)

The day it arrived in the mail (I’d ordered it off Amazon), I read the last five books — books five through nine — in two sittings. I was even up until 2 AM finishing it up! (Like I said, gripping.) The following day, I re-read books six and seven. The third day, I re-re-read books six and seven, and re-read book five. The fourth day, I re-read books eight and nine, and by this point was often cross-referencing key story points from earlier books.

I worked to answer the insatiable question: “how did we get from there to here?” over and over again, each chapter within each book I re-read (or re-re-read). I wanted to leave no stone unturned. And in doing so, I allowed myself to experience everything. I was in the story.

I rooted for Fone Bone and Thorn to enter into a relationship together. I rooted for the same thing with Rose and Lucius. I rooted for Smiley and the rat creature cub to become family. I rooted for reconciliation between Thorn and Rose. I rooted for all of the top ten characters on the good side to make it out alive, and for all of them to accomplish their goal. I found myself rooting for so much to go right, in part because my obsession allowed me to become part of the story, but also because the story spoke so much about my thoughts, my dreams, my life experiences, my losses, my pain, and my yearnings. And also because I was first introduced to, well, some of the characters when I was nine years old.