It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.
The Luminaries is an extraordinary piece of fiction. It is full of narrative, linguistic and psychological pleasures, and has a fiendishly clever and original structuring device. Written in pitch-perfect historical register, richly evoking a mid-19th century world of shipping and banking and goldrush boom and bust, it is also a ghost story, and a gripping mystery. It is a thrilling achievement and will confirm for critics and readers that Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international writing firmament.
I absolutely loved this and I can't think of a single thing I'd change about it. I seem to have a thing for polarizing, long novels - though I will say that I found this one much faster-paced than, say, anything by Donna Tartt. It never dragged at all for me. I loved the Victorian pastiche, I loved the clever structure (with each chapter being approximately half as long as the one preceding it, thus inducing a sort of urgency until it all comes to a head), I loved the characters. Oh, and I adored the conspicuous, self-referential narrative voice. All in all it's a great yarn written expertly and structured cleverly. I know some reviews have panned the structure as being gimmicky and intellectual rather than artistically-pleasing, but I do get a thrill from some of the structural tricks Catton pulled whether or not they were of narrative importance. All in all, I loved this book - it's whimsical, a bit fantastical, and completely enjoyable. I got sucked in and enjoyed every minute of it.
