When I
turned page 797 of this Man Booker Prize winner a feeling of pure relief washed
over me. The end was in sight. It had only taken me three months.
“Oh you’re
reading The Luminaries, what do you
think of it?” I have been asked this question quite a few times over the summer
and I was never really sure what to say, except to describe to the plot in
simplistic terms, hoping that this would suggest something positive.
Eleanor Catton’s
doorstopper of a novel is set 1866 at the time of the New Zealand gold rush. In
the township of Hokitka, a key gold mining settlement, a set of scandals have occurred
and since been reported in The West Coast
Times.
Alongside his
dead body, an enormous fortune has been discovered in the cottage of drunken
hermit, while a “lady of the night” has tried to end her life by overdosing on
opium and a known wealthy young man has mysteriously disappeared.
A group of
twelve local men, all connected in some way to the events, congregate in
the smoking room of The Crown Hotel in order to solve the puzzle.
The plot has all the inviting elements
of a murder mystery game and Eleanor Catton provides the traditional characters
and their detailed backstories.
There’s Dick
Manning, the fat gold magnate with “mutton-chop whiskers”, Walter Moody, the curly-haired
boyish newcomer who has come to seek his fortune and Harald Nilssen, the merchant
famous for his wardrobe of grey bow ties and “cashmere striped morning trousers”.
On paper it
sounds promising but at 832 pages it's a bit of a slog.
Unfortunately
Catton’s enthusiasm for Victorian sensation becomes long-winded and
tedious at times (and I love anything wordy or Victorian).
The problem
is the narration becomes so convoluted and repetitious that it loses the feeling
it is trying to convey. This means the décor of the parlour rooms and attire of
the flamboyant cast end up lost in the frustrations of the recitation.
If you do find yourself lost, there some cheat
sheets available, I found this one quite useful.
There are
some glimmers of excitement though, look out for a staged séance and the Chinese
stowaway with a vengeance to kill.
You cannot ignore levels Catton went to in order to research the novel; in her Acknowledgements she quotes the National Zealand newspaper archives, astrologers and some interesting non-fiction works as sources (Diggers, Hatters and Whores by Stevan Edlred-Grigg has now been added to my reading wishlist).
You cannot ignore levels Catton went to in order to research the novel; in her Acknowledgements she quotes the National Zealand newspaper archives, astrologers and some interesting non-fiction works as sources (Diggers, Hatters and Whores by Stevan Edlred-Grigg has now been added to my reading wishlist).
Read if you
want to add to your Victorian pastiche library collection...and if you can find the
time.
