oh hello. i am beyond behind in my book reviewing (in fact i added 13 books to my 'finished' folder in my kindle, plus also read some printed books since we last convened) but have been entreated to entertain the notion again, given my moaning and groaning about the latest man booker prize winner and also the booker prize in general.
the luminaries, eleanor catton
hmm where to start. if i ignored the fact that it won the booker prize, here is how i would review the book. the only reason it is upwards of 800 pages is that it tells the same mystery story in and around itself a total of four separate times. the first is a recounting by a group of men to a naive newcomer. the second, after all the back stories and explanations, is a summary of the first. (which is somewhat necessary given the convolutions, but really. if it was really just about plot it would render the first telling unnecessary. more on this later.) the third (after a fashion) is a courtroom scene, in which... the story is told again. there is a veritable ending and comeuppance (more on this later as well) and all that good stuff. nope, only page 600 or so. what is the last 25% (in kindle parlance) of the book dedicated to? oh, it's not enough to know why everything happened, it must be literally spelled out by showing the very scenes which we assume to have occurred. nonono. if it's going to be a mystery, leave it as such. it's much more mysterious that way.
the style of writing was of that 19th century pulpy mystery story type. so one doesn't really read it for the writing. to be honest the only thing which kept me reading was the plot. so why have it four times?! slightly more details are added at each retelling, but as any seasoned reader of crime novels of the type that i have read knows, follow the money. the money trail was pretty clear after the first couple of plot runthroughs, and nothing much was a surprise after that. i guess i kept reading to see if there was anything else that was going to make it revelatory and booker prize-worthy... nope.
further, while most everything was shown and retold excessively, some plot points were left unexplained. why these? it makes them stand out all the more. and not for any good reason that i can see. in fact one of them involves the murder of a 'chinaman', the last in a string of unfair situations for this guy. this entire secondary story arc (begging for justice and revenge) was then summarily ignored and not addressed again. no punishment for his killer, just a secondhand account of a 'rap on the knuckles'. the main plot involved a vicious takedown of the villain. why not also give satisfactory justice to the 'chinaman', huh huh eleanor catton? this is not acceptable for a modern book, 'victorian style' and otherwise accurate cantonese transcription be damned.
speaking of which, as a young female author, i feel that eleanor catton has seriously gone the patriarchal route and stuck to the cliched and typical. a total of three women in the book and two of them are 'whores' and the other one is an abused downtrodden wife? please. if you're going to write a victorian mystery then you should at least shake it up a little, modernise it, subvert cliched expectations.
i guess the only other thing to talk about is the structure and title. to be honest i thought this was the weakest and least interesting part. yeah each chapter was half the length of the preceding chapter. there were star signs and other stuff as chapter titles and theoretical groupings of characters. did it impact/enhance my reading of the book? nope.
4.5/10 for effort. excessive effort that doesn't pay off in any revelatory way about the human spirit or the art of fiction writing. it goes without saying that i don't think it should be on the same list as 'midnight's children' or 'disgrace' or even 'the blind assassin'. but perhaps my expectations were altered by choosing to read it because it won the booker prize. or (even more likely) i am failing to understand what the booker prize is really rewarding. maybe we can go down the path of arguing 'it will get more people reading' a la 'the da vinci code' but in my opinion it should be more dignified.
