The Luminaries
Eleanor Catton
Granta. First published 2013
At eight-hundred and thirty-two pages, this is a throwback, in style and some subtance, to some of the Victorian novels. Typical of those novels, especially those of Dickens, are the sub-headings to each chapter: 'In which so and so does such and such and such...'. (In fact the last bit of the book is carried forward entirely on the sub-headings, with the actually chapters being a few paragraphs that illustrate what the sub-headings say.) Again in Dickensian fashion, the novel is dense with characters and descriptions. It has a complicated story-line involving all of the characters in key roles. There are the twelve eponymous luminaries, about half-a-dozen more equally-important characters, and a host of less-important ones. The time is the mid-nineteenth century, and the place is New Zealand, chiefly a gold boom town called Hokitika on the western coast of the South Island, but various important events also happen in Dunedin, further south on the eastern coast of the island. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, starting in the middle, and going back and forth in time and space. The book is probably best read continuously. Maybe not in one sitting, (which, if undertaken, and given the size of the book, must be an ultra-marathon sitting), but at least without any distractions, the Internet or TV. Though constructed somewhat like a mystery novel, a murder mystery, the book is not written to grip, and except for a couple of portions, is not a 'page-turner' that will force the reader to forget to go to the bathroom (or if in the bathroom, forget to come out of it). I spent the better part of a month with this book, but I am not sure I follow all the details of the narrative.
It is difficult to summarize the tale linearly. I cannot say 'this happened first, and then this...' and so on. And perhaps that is the great thing about the book. (Perhaps.) We have a whole bunch of characters, loosely bound by a set of incidents, all with their own backgrounds and stories, coming together approximately at the same time and place. The characters include a man newly arrived from England in search of his father who abandoned him; the captain (a villain) of this ship that brings him to Hokitika; the jailer (or Governor) of the town; the town whore (who is one of the two or three characters sympathetically portrayed); a hotel owner; a young man who has come to New Zealand to make his fortune, and makes it in short order (and is another of the sympathetic characters); an exploitative lady (another villain); the publisher of the local newspaper; two Chinese men, one of them looking to take his wreak vengeance on the ship captain for grievous past hurts and insults; a Maori man, neutrally portrayed; and many more. Each of the characters is described in great detail, what they wear and what they look like, and what they like and do not like. Each of their back stories is narrated, sometimes in summary, sometimes in detail. And yet none of the characters come to life, none are memorable.
There are a large numbers of intertwined story lines, none of them complete or particularly interesting in themselves. And regretfully, not remarkable even when taken in the aggregate. The story lines include one following the fortunes of the Chinaman, from Canton to Hokitika, in pursuit of the man who robbed him of his fortune and reduced him to indentured status. There is the story of about 4000 pounds in gold (not enough to buy an English country estate, but maybe enough to get one in new Zealand) which is, at various times, found as nuggets from the gold field, found as dust in the river nearby, remelted and cast into bars, buried in a field, sewn into ladies' dresses, shipped in crate - perhaps there are two fortunes. And there are other stories.
The book is structured on astrological lines. Twelve of the characters, in particular, are associated with the signs of the Zodiac. Perhaps their characters and their life stories are also true to astrology. But this is lost on me. Similarly the chapters heading denote astrological events, but I could not make the correlations. I think, maybe, a lot of the book was lost on me. But perhaps there was nothing much to be lost. Perhaps the whole idea was to portray the randomness of Life, better represented and explained by astrology than by logically connected narratives. Perhaps.
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