REVIEW: THE LUMINARIES BY ELEANOR CATTON

Published by Little Brown (division of Hachette Book Group), 2013. Hardcover, 830 pgs.

SUMMARY: I have so many thoughts and feels on this story that I will begin with two of the only less-than-stellar elements of the book:
1. The cover is beyond bleh. For a super large book, the design is critical in attracting attention and if I were in a bookstore (without having heard the buzz and award-winning status), I would have passed it on by. This would be a shame as the author is extremely talented. Unfortunately, judging a book by it's cover is often a reality if the reader hasn't heard anything about the story.
2. The length is daunting. I heard about this on a podcast, bought it as soon as it came out, and even when it won the Man Booker Prize in 2013 still let it languish on my shelves. Thankfully my Booktube friends Yamini from The Skeptical Reader and Elena from Elena Reads Books had the same issue and proposed we finally buddy read it in June. I'm so grateful they did!

This whopper has tons of polarizing reviews on Goodreads and I'd like to offer a helpful tip if you're interested but nervous about starting...GOOD NEWS! If you love the writing style of the first 30 pages, you're in a for a treat as it stays consistent throughout as the mystery deepens. If you find it verbose and stylistically unappealing, stop. Love it or hate it is a strong and general assumption to make, but I really feel like this is a particular type of book to enjoy. We are avid and varied readers, and this reviewer has a "no shame" in not-finishing a book policy. We have too little time in this life to slog through unrequired reading.

The basic rundown-A mining town in New Zealand in 1866. A hermit is found dead in his cottage with a considerable fortune, a prostitute has attempted to commit suicide, and a rich prospector has disappeared....all on the same night in January. Every type of person and shenanigan is involved and it is the hottest of messes. A secret meeting of twelve gentlemen is held in the Crown Hotel a couple weeks after these events to discuss the connections that might bind them to these unfortunate situations. "Men united less by beliefs than shared misgivings."

WRITING: I adored it. Heavily literary, it reads like a Victorian classic. Here's a good litmus test of whether this book would work for you:
"For human temperament was a volatile compound of perception and circumstance; Moody saw now that he no more could have extracted the true Shepard from Nilssen's account of him than he could have extracted the true Nilssen from his portrayal of Shepard." (pg. 392)
If you would prefer the author to have simply said, "Judge people for yourself" this might not be your type of book. I loved her use of language and the themes it let her explore with these flawed characters.

CHARACTERS: Catton can set a scene like nobody's business. She captures the nuances of a person's expression or snippet of dialogue. At the very beginning, Walter Moody meets Thomas Balfour in the lounge and they embark on this weird social dance- using subtle turns of phrases and questions to gleam info from each other without being overt.

The people are often affected, pretentious, and struggling with their version of the truth. It is a deep character study with lots of long, clever observations that feel like soul-bearing confessions. "He seized an idea, only to discard it immediately, if only for the reason that it was no longer novel to him; he started in all directions at once. This was not at all the mark of a fickle temper, but rather, of a temper that is accustomed to enthusiasm of the most genuine and curious sort, and so will accept no form of counterfeit- but it was, nevertheless, something of an impediment to progress." (pg. 82).

PLOT: This interconnected story becomes more and more intricate- and is not your usual straightforward mystery. Astronomy (specifically the stellar and planetary positions) play an important role in the telling . Someone who has knowledge or a keen interest in this subject would appreciate the way this thread was woven into the story perhaps more than I.

PACING: I like how the reader is fed bits and pieces of character and story over time, and you don't get all the information up front. It felt more natural to life, and less info-dumpy all in one place. Granted, this makes for a long book, but everything felt thorough. Around page 340 there is a nice summary of connections that pull the story thus far into focus. I suppose fifty pages or so could have been eliminated for argument's sake, but I'm not sure where.

FINAL RATING: 5 STARS
Whatever side of the fence you're on, it's hard to ignore the author's immense talent in breathing this story into life. I love literary fiction because I enjoy how a skilled writer can take something simple like "walking down the street with a sideways glance", and turn it into a brilliant thought or conjure up some evocative image that makes me see something in a whole new light. This is one of my very favorite things about reading.
Catton is merely thirty, and I'm greatly anticipating her future work!