The Luminaries is a big book that requires a lot of you attention. So let me preface this review by saying that you should absolutely read The Luminaries. An easy read? No. But a very rewarding one. The plot is fairly straight-forward and, like so many things, borrows heavily, knowingly and jestingly from Victorian tradition. The place is New Zealand, the year is 1866. The New Zealand Gold Rush is in full swing in the tiny coastal town of Hokitika. Stranger Walter Moody, hoping to […]
In 1866, the South Island of New Zealand was the hottest frontier for those who wanted to find their fortunes in the unexplored territories of the Southern Hemisphere. The California gold fields were mostly played out, so Europeans who had missed the opportunities of the fledgling West of America were booking passage to Dunedin, then on to Hokitika for a chance to strike it rich in the newly discovered gold fields. This exotic and diverse world becomes the setting for Eleanor Catton’s Booker Prize winning, expansive novel The […]
A beautiful, complex doorstop of a novel that needs to be a BBC mini-series. Like, right now.
Ever since The Luminaries was announced as 2013’s Man Booker Prize winner, I have been intrigued to read it. When I heard that Eleanor Catton, the author, was my age, I immediately felt depressed that I have not even finished my (about) 200-page dissertation, when Ms. Catton quadrupled my page count. The sheer size discouraged me from picking it up before now (and I felt rather foolish for borrowing this tome, thinking I would just have to return it to the library). And then I […]
Who were the homestead wives, who were the gold rush brides?
In which Popcultureboy is left floored by and in awe of Catton’s supreme mastery and skill as a writer and storyteller, but is ultimately forced to conclude he found the novel easier to admire than to love. So here we are at the pinnacle of the Booker challenge for 2013, with the winning book. There were some firsts with this book lifting the Booker, as it was the longest ever book to do so with the highest page count (Catton is 28, and the book […]