Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2013. 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 for someone still in her mid-20s, and will confirm for critics and readers that Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international writing firmament.
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Review
The Luminaries is an impressive novel, captivating, intense and full of surprises. --Times Literary Supplement
The Luminaries is a breathtakingly ambitious 800-page mystery with a plot as complex and a cast as motley as any 19th-century doorstopper. That Catton's absorbing, hugely elaborate novel is at its heart so simple is a great part of its charm. Catton's playful and increasingly virtuosic denouement arrives at a conclusion that is as beautiful as it is triumphant. --Daily Mail
It is awesomely - even bewilderingly - intricate. There's an immaculate finish to Catton's prose, which is no mean feat in a novel that lives or dies by its handling of period dialogue. It's more than 800 pages long but the reward for your stamina is a double-dealing world of skullduggery traced in rare complexity. Those Booker judges will have wrists of steel if it makes the shortlist, as it fully deserves. --Evening Standard
Eleanor Catton is nothing if not ambitious. Her latest novel, longlisted for this year's Man Booker prize, is an 828-page blockbuster. With astonishing intricacy and patient finesse, Catton brings to life the anomalous nature of 19th-century New Zealand. --Sunday Times
Expansive and quite superb. Catton writes with real sophistication and intelligence... with intricate plotting and carefully wrought scenes. --Scotsman
Highly original, meticulously constructed, thematically convincing, this is a richly evocative mystery. --Good Book Guide
Wonderfully vivid… The Luminaries deserves to win the Man Booker Prize this year. The characters are so lush and the mystery is so complex. Usually I find that a novelist is either an exceptional writer or an exceptional storyteller, but rarely are they both. With this book Catton has proved, at least in my eyes, that she's the exception to the rule. --Booker Marks blog
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 Luminaries has been perfectly constructed as the consummate literary page-turner. --Guardian
An intellectual deconstruction and a remarkable act of literary ventriloquism that truly feels as if it has been written in the same spirit as its antecedents. Although I felt the need to gallop through the book in pursuit of some answer that would satisfy my increasingly painful curiosity, I found myself frequently slowing down to savour Catton's characterisations and gentle wit. The Man Booker judges have really struck gold. --Sunday Express
For the scale of her ambition and the beauty of its execution, somebody should give that girl a medal. --Lucy Daniel, Daily Telegraph
Carefully executed, relentlessly clever, easy to read… Catton sustains a human comedy that sweeps through the hope, the mud, the lies and the secrecy underlying gold fever. It is not so much a morality play as an astute celebration of the power of the story. --Irish Times
For the scale of her ambition and the beauty of its execution, somebody should give that girl a medal. --Lucy Daniel, Daily Telegraph
Carefully executed, relentlessly clever, easy to read… Catton sustains a human comedy that sweeps through the hope, the mud, the lies and the secrecy underlying gold fever. It is not so much a morality play as an astute celebration of the power of the story. --Irish Times
For the scale of her ambition and the beauty of its execution, somebody should give that girl a medal. --Lucy Daniel, Daily Telegraph
Carefully executed, relentlessly clever, easy to read… Catton sustains a human comedy that sweeps through the hope, the mud, the lies and the secrecy underlying gold fever. It is not so much a mor --'Fiction of the Year', Economist
That someone should write this beautifully at 28 is the kind of thing that keeps my dentist busy replacing ground-down enamel but there's no denying that this nod to the Victorian mystery novel is a fantastic achievement in its own right - and a gripping read. --'Books of the year', Vice magazine
A good old-fashioned page-turner set in New Zealand goldrush... Its narrative structure, mirroring astrological movements in a beautifully-wrought minuet, really set it apart. --'Literary fiction of the year', Independent on Sunday
The Luminaries is a breathtakingly ambitious 800-page mystery with a plot as complex and a cast as motley as any 19th-century doorstopper. That Catton's absorbing, hugely elaborate novel is at its heart so simple is a great part of its charm. Catton's playful and increasingly virtuosic denouement arrives at a conclusion that is as beautiful as it is triumphant. --Daily Mail
It is awesomely - even bewilderingly - intricate. There's an immaculate finish to Catton's prose, which is no mean feat in a novel that lives or dies by its handling of period dialogue. It's more than 800 pages long but the reward for your stamina is a double-dealing world of skullduggery traced in rare complexity. Those Booker judges will have wrists of steel if it makes the shortlist, as it fully deserves. --Evening Standard
Eleanor Catton is nothing if not ambitious. Her latest novel, longlisted for this year's Man Booker prize, is an 828-page blockbuster. With astonishing intricacy and patient finesse, Catton brings to life the anomalous nature of 19th-century New Zealand. --Sunday Times
Expansive and quite superb. Catton writes with real sophistication and intelligence... with intricate plotting and carefully wrought scenes. --Scotsman
Highly original, meticulously constructed, thematically convincing, this is a richly evocative mystery. --Good Book Guide
Wonderfully vivid… The Luminaries deserves to win the Man Booker Prize this year. The characters are so lush and the mystery is so complex. Usually I find that a novelist is either an exceptional writer or an exceptional storyteller, but rarely are they both. With this book Catton has proved, at least in my eyes, that she's the exception to the rule. --Booker Marks blog
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 Luminaries has been perfectly constructed as the consummate literary page-turner. --Guardian
An intellectual deconstruction and a remarkable act of literary ventriloquism that truly feels as if it has been written in the same spirit as its antecedents. Although I felt the need to gallop through the book in pursuit of some answer that would satisfy my increasingly painful curiosity, I found myself frequently slowing down to savour Catton's characterisations and gentle wit. The Man Booker judges have really struck gold. --Sunday Express
For the scale of her ambition and the beauty of its execution, somebody should give that girl a medal. --Lucy Daniel, Daily Telegraph
Carefully executed, relentlessly clever, easy to read… Catton sustains a human comedy that sweeps through the hope, the mud, the lies and the secrecy underlying gold fever. It is not so much a morality play as an astute celebration of the power of the story. --Irish Times
For the scale of her ambition and the beauty of its execution, somebody should give that girl a medal. --Lucy Daniel, Daily Telegraph
Carefully executed, relentlessly clever, easy to read… Catton sustains a human comedy that sweeps through the hope, the mud, the lies and the secrecy underlying gold fever. It is not so much a morality play as an astute celebration of the power of the story. --Irish Times
For the scale of her ambition and the beauty of its execution, somebody should give that girl a medal. --Lucy Daniel, Daily Telegraph
Carefully executed, relentlessly clever, easy to read… Catton sustains a human comedy that sweeps through the hope, the mud, the lies and the secrecy underlying gold fever. It is not so much a mor --'Fiction of the Year', Economist
That someone should write this beautifully at 28 is the kind of thing that keeps my dentist busy replacing ground-down enamel but there's no denying that this nod to the Victorian mystery novel is a fantastic achievement in its own right - and a gripping read. --'Books of the year', Vice magazine
A good old-fashioned page-turner set in New Zealand goldrush... Its narrative structure, mirroring astrological movements in a beautifully-wrought minuet, really set it apart. --'Literary fiction of the year', Independent on Sunday
About the Author
Eleanor Catton was born in 1985 in Canada and raised in New Zealand. Her debut novel The Rehearsal was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and longlisted for the Orange Prize. The novel garnered prizes and acclaim around the world, including the 2009 Betty Trask Award. It has since been published in 17 territories and 12 languages. Eleanor Catton holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she also held an adjunct professorship, and an MA in fiction writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
235 of 252 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The Luminaries is a tale of lies and deceit, fraud and vengeance, set amongst the goldfields of Western New Zealand in the 1860s. It was a time when men had dreams of getting rich very quickly based as much on luck as on hard work. But just as some are content to rely on the odds, others are willing to change the odds in their favour by nefarious means.
So when Walter Moody, a recent Scottish émigré, accidentally gatecrashes a clandestine meeting of twelve local businessmen, he is drawn into their various shady dealings. There is gold lost and found; a missing man; a dead drunk; a suicidal prostitute and a very sinister, scar-faced sea captain. There are tensions between the white settlers and the Chinese camp. Oh, and there is a token Maori. The writing, for the most part, is really good. The setting is conveyed well and the reader feels fully transported through space and time into a complex and authentic world.
But, and it's a big But, the involvement of so many players makes the novel far too complicated and grinds the pace down to a glacial speed. Every player has to have a relationship with each of the other players, resulting in many events being played out multiple times from multiple perspectives. Moreover, the use of reportage to create a non-linear time structure heightens the feeling of repetition. When it seems that the novel has finally moved on, it gets brought back again and again and again. The twelve main characters are supposed to represent different signs of the zodiac and perhaps those who like astrology would recognise their traits and interactions. But for the lay reader, the characters seem rather indistinguishable and, frankly, not much more than a personification of their job. Read more ›
So when Walter Moody, a recent Scottish émigré, accidentally gatecrashes a clandestine meeting of twelve local businessmen, he is drawn into their various shady dealings. There is gold lost and found; a missing man; a dead drunk; a suicidal prostitute and a very sinister, scar-faced sea captain. There are tensions between the white settlers and the Chinese camp. Oh, and there is a token Maori. The writing, for the most part, is really good. The setting is conveyed well and the reader feels fully transported through space and time into a complex and authentic world.
But, and it's a big But, the involvement of so many players makes the novel far too complicated and grinds the pace down to a glacial speed. Every player has to have a relationship with each of the other players, resulting in many events being played out multiple times from multiple perspectives. Moreover, the use of reportage to create a non-linear time structure heightens the feeling of repetition. When it seems that the novel has finally moved on, it gets brought back again and again and again. The twelve main characters are supposed to represent different signs of the zodiac and perhaps those who like astrology would recognise their traits and interactions. But for the lay reader, the characters seem rather indistinguishable and, frankly, not much more than a personification of their job. Read more ›
64 of 70 people found the following review helpful
By Kiwi
Format:Hardcover
My dominant feeling on finishing this book was one of self-congratulation in actually having made it to the end. I have joined the elite band of readers who have done so, but I have not made it to the super-elite group who not only finished it, but understood it (but then I wonder if there are many at all in this category).
Normally, I would give Booker-prizewinners a wide berth, fearing over-intellectualism and incomprehensible story lines, but here was one with a crime/mystery theme, and by a New Zealand author, and I'm a NZer myself so, here we go...
For the first 150 pages, I thought my Booker prejudices were validated: hard going, put-downable, especially when I considered the hundreds of pages still to come. But I stuck with it and, very gradually, I found myself getting drawn in, with a mounting curiosity as to where it was going (as one might hope with a mystery). Things were looking up! (aided, I should say, means of one of the characters providing a 2-3 page summary of the story so far at the end of Part I, some 350 pages in - very helpful, this, you can look forward to it). And so on to the full 827 pages, but, after all that, to a damp-squibbish ending. Was that it? - after all that?
Notwithstanding the critics' accolades, I dare to say I can't understand how this story can be highly rated. The book is far, far, too long, moving at a glacial pace; the story is stupifyingly complex, propped up with far too many coincidental events and long-shot chance happenings; then there's the sleight-of-hand techniques such as two characters having the same name (or was it one character having two names? - can't remember, it's gone); and don't get me started on the resolution of the "missing bullet" saga - I'll keep this from you. Is this really award-winning stuff? Read more ›
Normally, I would give Booker-prizewinners a wide berth, fearing over-intellectualism and incomprehensible story lines, but here was one with a crime/mystery theme, and by a New Zealand author, and I'm a NZer myself so, here we go...
For the first 150 pages, I thought my Booker prejudices were validated: hard going, put-downable, especially when I considered the hundreds of pages still to come. But I stuck with it and, very gradually, I found myself getting drawn in, with a mounting curiosity as to where it was going (as one might hope with a mystery). Things were looking up! (aided, I should say, means of one of the characters providing a 2-3 page summary of the story so far at the end of Part I, some 350 pages in - very helpful, this, you can look forward to it). And so on to the full 827 pages, but, after all that, to a damp-squibbish ending. Was that it? - after all that?
Notwithstanding the critics' accolades, I dare to say I can't understand how this story can be highly rated. The book is far, far, too long, moving at a glacial pace; the story is stupifyingly complex, propped up with far too many coincidental events and long-shot chance happenings; then there's the sleight-of-hand techniques such as two characters having the same name (or was it one character having two names? - can't remember, it's gone); and don't get me started on the resolution of the "missing bullet" saga - I'll keep this from you. Is this really award-winning stuff? Read more ›
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Judge Holden
Format:Hardcover
This book is dull. I tried my best to get through it without falling asleep and failed on each occasion. The writing is unnecessarily convoluted in both its plotting and the way in which the plot is expressed. The characters are not engaging on any level. The writing style had me fighting to keep my eyes open within minutes. I am amazed anybody could stick with this to the end. I am sorry to say I gave up and dropped it off at the book depository after 300 pages. This is one of only 3 books I have not finished in my 35 years on this earth! Everybody should avoid like the plague - you are simply wasting your time.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By sl knapp
Format:Hardcover
I am amazed so many people who, like me, were bored to tears with this book, managed to get as far as page 300. I have just given up at p100 or so, having struggled to wade through the most turgid of prose. Reading for pleasure, it goes without saying, should not be a chore and this book is incredibly hard work and totally unengaging.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Although long and involved, very well written and life like characters. Interesting historically in terms of the relationships that are formed in fairly isolated conditions but linked to earlier times and situations so you gradually discover what the individuals are like and can guess what happens to them . The story also shows why they behave as they do and so that you are reluctant for the story to come to an end even after such a long read. The pace quickens towards the end so the last part can be read much more quickly than the first. Though it might be possible to cut some passages it's hard to know exactly which ones and Eleanor Catton manages to move on just as the reader wonders when this will happen. A very godd read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book
One of the best books I've ever read. Don't waste time reading this review. Read the book. A riveting tale from an extraordinarily gifted writer.
Published 1 day ago by Ann Collyer
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unfinished business
Perhaps I like things to be sewn up. Despite the length of this book and the excellent writing, I had so many questions at the end that I had to go back and see if I could find the... Read more
Published 1 day ago by Mme Roslyn Mor
3.0 out of 5 stars
Didn't ever understand the stars aspect
I found the novel overlong, with excessive description. Written in the style of a 19th Century novel, I cared just enough about the story to finish it, but not enough to really... Read more
Published 2 days ago by Snow on Hills
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great
Was so interesting as it it is not often you get books set in NZ and I learnt so much about the time of their gold rush that I had never heard of before. Read more
Published 3 days ago by E. Guyver
3.0 out of 5 stars
Phew, I've reached the end
I have to hand it to the author, this is a masterful book. Whether or not it grips the reader will depend very much on stamina and a determined liking for the whodunnits of... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Michael Watson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stylishly written and very interesitng read
Very well written and unusual structure of the chapters had me gripped during a holiday last Christmas. An excellent narrative that unravels through the book.
Published 5 days ago by Mandip Singh
1.0 out of 5 stars
waste of time
Self indulgent on the part of the author, hard work for the reader
While the descriptions are very like Dickens the plotting and awareness of reader needs a re not
While the descriptions are very like Dickens the plotting and awareness of reader needs a re not
Published 6 days ago by Avidreader
1.0 out of 5 stars
Why did I persist with this book ?
It is very long. There are too many characters most of whom I found neither particularly interesting or memorable. The plot wasn't particularly gripping either. Read more
Published 6 days ago by Bruce Dockeray
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great saga
It's a tome but a worthy winner of the Booker Prize. It brings a small mining town in the 1800s in New Zealand alive. You can almost smell and see the ramshackle town. Read more
Published 8 days ago by B. Ni Fhlatharta
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well deserved of Booker Prize
Eleanor Catton has cleverly woven and then carefully unravelled multiple plot lines.
She has intertwined NZ Gold rush history and landscape with murder, mystery and... Read more
She has intertwined NZ Gold rush history and landscape with murder, mystery and... Read more
Published 12 days ago by ms Julia Gray
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