Book Review: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

This boisterous book, set in the New Zealand gold rush in 1866 captivated me long enough to read all 832 pages and to recommend it to others.  It is the winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize and has been hailed as genius by many.

The story revolves around a whore named Anna Wetherell, whom it seems is loved and cherished by many of the town's people as well as used by most of them.

A murder, a suicide, a missing trunk; these are all mysteries that unfold bit by bit
at a gathering of men at the Crown Hotel where 12 men meet to discuss their own involvement in the recent events and try to unravel what has happened.

In this way we are introduced to the rich life and characters of Hokitika, N.Z.  The 19th century language, the mannerisms of the diggers, chinamen, women and business men of this community are what kept me reading to the end.  Each of the multitude of characters is a gem in his or her own right.  The characters are colourful and varied but I would not go so far to say deep or developed.

The genius part of the novel is in it's structure. The book is framed by the astrological charts and mirrored by the jacket cover and the structure of the chapters.   Each chapter grows shorter and the prologue to each chapter becomes longer until the last chapter in which the introduction is actually longer than the chapter itself. This is clever and unique but added little more to the reading experience for me than a great card trick.

I enjoyed reading this book.  It was fun and witty and did what any great book should do. It whisked me away to a land and time I have never seen and never will.  It introduced me to fascinating  characters and let me go somewhere else for a little while.  I do agree with another reviewer who said that the book could have ended at page 600 or so after the scene at the court house but that did not stop me from reading the next 232 pages so it couldn't have been that much of a hardship.