Review - THE LUMINARIES, Eleanor Catton

Obviously one of the most commented on aspects of THE LUMINARIES is the size. Clocking in at 830+ pages this is not a book for fans of thrillers, or fast reads, not just because of its sheer size, but because of the dense nature of the writing and the story. Set in 1866, this novel feels and reads exactly as if it was written in that time. Littered with so many of the elements that come into this sort of fiction: opium dens, families losing everything, illegitimate children, multiple identities, belief in the spirit worlds and illicit relationships, there's something utterly perfect about the evocation of time and place.

The other commented on element is the cleverness of the structure - with a decreasing number of pages in parts as the book proceeds. Undoubtedly quite a writing feat to pull off, and something that commentators are fascinated by.

The characters in this story are beautifully apt for their time, and their voices realistic. The sequence of events felt believable and everything about the setting works. The descriptive passages of both the people, their inner turmoil and the place in which they are located is beautifully done - in fact that's probably what this reader came away from THE LUMINARIES with. There are some absolutely beautiful words, built into some glorious sentences, that alas seem to suffer from not a lot of conviction in a large number of pages.

Perhaps it's because it is so very mannered, controlled and structured, genteel and staged that there seems to be such a lack of fire at the source. Certainly the tone struggled to hold this reader through the same sequence of events, from a number of different character perspectives, frequently hurried towards the end, but consistently passionless - rushing / or jumping to a conclusion for reasons to do with page count rather than motivation. Mind you, it's hard to put down a book which has each new chapter starting with the impact that they do. Yet so many of those chapters petered, padded or simply wandered around lost and vaguely disengaging. In the first half of the novel that journey too quickly becomes a series of long drawn out one on one discussions, explanations and explorations of the action, motivation and behaviour. It tipped too quickly into "tell, don't show" and that, for this reader, lead automatically to attention flagging, of finding excuses to put the book down, of a certain dragging feeling to say nothing of inevitability.

Add to that a tendency for some of the more curious characters to fade into the background, and the second half of the novel starts to draw out, which given the sheer size of it, becomes an increasingly daunting task. Whilst the beauty of the writing doesn't let go, the plotting and devices used bury much of that in a frantic desire for something, anything passionate, committed or unexpected to happen. Something that says that yes, these are people who believe in what they are saying / doing / commenting on.