This winner of the 2013 Mann Booker Prize takes place in New Zealand, 1866. A cross-section of society in the gold-rush town of Hokitika tries to explain several events that took place on 14 January: a hermit was found dead with a fortune hidden in his house; a popular local whore apparently tried to kill herself with an opium overdose; the richest man in town vanished without a trace. How do these events relate to the politician who arrived in town the same day? Or to the ominous sea captain who may or may not be related to the hermit?
The Luminaries is an amalgam of a hard-boiled detective novel (its twisty plot recalls something like Farewell, My Lovely) and a nineteenth-century "loose baggy monster" (for its locale and loquacious prose style), with a dash of modernism (characters and chapter titles based on signs of the zodiac). It is entertaining, although I'm not sure it justifies all of its 830 pages. I was disappointed that Catton resolves the final mysteries of the plot through flashbacks instead of the detective work of Hokitika's citizens.
The Luminaries is an amalgam of a hard-boiled detective novel (its twisty plot recalls something like Farewell, My Lovely) and a nineteenth-century "loose baggy monster" (for its locale and loquacious prose style), with a dash of modernism (characters and chapter titles based on signs of the zodiac). It is entertaining, although I'm not sure it justifies all of its 830 pages. I was disappointed that Catton resolves the final mysteries of the plot through flashbacks instead of the detective work of Hokitika's citizens.
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