The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

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).

Read if you want to add to your Victorian pastiche library collection...and if you can find the time.