The Luminaries: A Novel

The Luminaries: A Novel

Author: Visit Amazon's Eleanor Catton Page | Language: English | ISBN: 0316074314 | Format: EPUB

The Luminaries: A Novel Description

Review

"The Luminaries is a true achievement. Catton has built a lively parody of a 19th-century novel, and in so doing created a novel for the 21st, something utterly new. The pages fly." -- Bill Roorbach, New York Times Book Review

"A finely wrought fun house of a novel. Enjoy the ride."- Chris Bohjalian, The Washington Post

"An 848-page dish so fresh that one continues to gorge, long past being crammed full of goodness. Nearly impossible to put down, it's easily the best novel I've read this year." - Mike Fischer, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel



"Go ahead and call Eleanor Catton a prodigy. At 28, she's the youngest author ever to win Britain's prestigious Man Booker Prize for THE LUMINAIRES, which warrants every one of its imposing - yet surprisingly breezy - 848 pages." Stephan Lee, Entertainment Weekly

"The type of novel that you will devour only to discover that you can't find anything of equal scope and excitement to read once you have finished...Do yourself a favour and read The Luminaries." --The Independent

"Irresistible, masterful, compelling...The Luminaries has a gripping plot that is cleverly unravelled to its satisfying conclusion, a narrative that from the first page asserts that it is firmly in control of where it is taking us...[Catton is] a mistress of plot and pacing."
-The Telegraph (5-star review)

"Every sentence of this intriguing tale set on the wild west coast of southern New Zealand during the time of its goldrush is expertly written, every cliffhanger chapter-ending making us beg for the next to begin."
-The Guardian

"Note-perfect... [Catton's] authority and verve are so impressive that she can seemingly take us anywhere; each time, we trust her to lead us back...A remarkable accomplishment."
-Globe and Mail


"Beautifully rendered...Momentous. An exquisite world unto itself."
-Maclean's

"A remarkable achievement...Intricate, painstakingly detailed and deliciously readable...A novel that can be enjoyed for its engrossing entirety, as well as for the literary gems bestowed on virtually every page."
-Quill & Quire (starred review)

"As beautiful as it is triumphant."
-Daily Mail


"Falling in love with a fictional person is one of the greatest pleasures in life, Canadian-born writer Eleanor Catton believes. By the time readers have finished The Luminaries, they will have been enchanted by many of her characters, as they slowly reveal themselves through the novel's intriguing web of interactions and relationships."
-Toronto Star

To call it "daringly ambitious in its reach and scope doesn't really do it justice... There is a ludic quality in all this that is infectious: You pick up the author's joy in her enterprise." -Martin Rubin, The Wall Street Journal



"Several of the characters... are moving and even heartbreaking." She continues, "There will no doubt be readers who will nestle voluptuously into its 19th-century voice and think no more of larger matters...There are others who will treat The Luminaries like the fantastic puzzle it most certainly is. This is the rare novel that works beautifully on both levels, and that understands that each of these aspects is like a magnetic pole: The field between them is where all the power lies." - Laura Miller, Salon

Selected as one of the "100 Notable Books of 2013" by The New York Times.

"A historical mystery unlike anything else." -- The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

About the Author

Eleanor Catton was awarded the 2013 Man Booker Prize for The Luminaries. Her first novel, The Rehearsal, won the 2009 Betty Trask Award and the Adam Prize in Creative Writing, and was long-listed for the Orange Prize and short-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and an MA in fiction writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters. Born in Canada, Catton was raised in New Zealand, where she now lives.

• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Series: Man Booker Prize
• Hardcover: 848 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition (October 15, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316074314
• ISBN-13: 978-0316074315
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

This astonishing historical novel opens in Hokitika, New Zealand in 1866, a gold mining town along the West Coast of the South Island. Founded two years previously, Hokitika is in the midst of a population boom, as prospectors, hoteliers and other businessmen have flocked there after news of its vast riches and promise of easy wealth has reached people living within and outside of New Zealand. One of those men is Walter Moody, a young Englishman who is trained in law but seeks gold to provide him with material comfort and the start of a new life. He arrives in town after a harrowing and emotionally distressing voyage at sea, and after he checks in at a local hotel he proceeds to its smoking room, where he hopes to unwind with a pipe and a stiff drink. Upon his arrival he notices that 12 men are already there, who appear to be from different backgrounds but also seem to have gathered in secret for a particular reason. The atmosphere in the room is tense and troubled upon his entry, but in his agitated state Moody doesn't sense that he has disturbed them. He is approached by one of the men, while the others appear to direct their attention toward their conversation, and after slowly gaining their confidence the men begin to share their intertwined stories with Moody, and the reason for their confidential meeting.

The story is centered around several mysterious and apparently interconnected occurrences that took place two weeks previously on a single night, including the death of a hermit in a shack overlooking town, the disappearance of a young man who has struck it rich in a gold mine, and the apparent near suicide of the town's most alluring prostitute.

Twelve men meet at the Crown Hotel in Hokitika, New Zealand, in January, 1866. A thirteenth, Walter Moody, an educated man from Edinburgh who has come here to find his fortune in gold, walks in. As it unfolds, the interlocking stories and shifting narrative perspectives of the twelve--now thirteen--men bring forth a mystery that all are trying to solve, including Walter Moody, who has just gotten off the Godspeed ship with secrets of his own that intertwine with the other men's concerns.

This is not an important book. There is no magnificent theme, no moral thicket, no people to emancipate, no countries to defend, no subtext to unravel, and no sizable payoff. Its weightiness is physical, coming in at 832 pages. And yet, it is one of the most marvelous and poised books that I have read. Although I didn't care for the meandering rambling books of Wilkie Collins, I am reminded here of his style, but Catton is so much more controlled, and possesses the modern day perspective in which to peer back.

I felt a warmth and a shiver at each passing chapter, set during the last days of the New Zealand gold rush. Catton hooked me in in this Victorian tale of a piratical captain; a Maori gemstone hunter; Chinese diggers (or "hatters"); the search for "colour" (gold); a cache of hidden gold; séances; opium; fraud; ruthless betrayal; infidelity; a politician; a prostitute; a Jewish newspaperman; a gaoler; shipping news; shady finance; a ghostly presence; a missing man; a dead man; and a spirited romance. And there's more between Dunedin and Hokitika to titillate the adventurous reader.

Primarily, THE LUMINARIES is an action-adventure, sprawling detective story, superbly plotted, where the Crown Hotel men try to solve it, while sharing secrets and shame of their own.

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