I’ve written once before about giving myself permission not to finish a book. I usually make the decision within the first 50 pages. I just stopped after 360 pages of Eleanor Catton’s 830 page tome, The Luminaries. The strange thing is, I will probably finish. Someday. Not now though; I have too many other books on my nightstand, and the library copy I’m reading is already overdue.
I can’t say it took me more than 300 pages to get into the 2013 Man Booker Prize winner, but it was no easy trek to make it that far, which is not even halfway.
The tale begins in January 1866 when Walter Moody arrives in a New Zealand mining town seeking his fortune. His first night in town finds him among 12 men ready to discuss a series of events to which they are all directly or tenuously connected. Catton pays meticulous attention to detail. Each character is exhaustively described from appearances, mannerisms, likes, dislikes, self-perceptions and reputation. Moody and company aren’t the novel’s only characters: a few women of mystery and ill-repute and several men who have either died or gone missing are also fastidiously introduced. Yet.
The relationships through business, friendship and happenstance actually do make for an interesting story. Hidden gold, lost fortunes, prejudices and the association of the characters is a maze. while easy to follow from one possible explanation only to be thwarted by another, is eventually, and finally, enthralling. I just hate to have library fines.
The Luminaries
Undecided on Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Co., 2013
360 pages of 830
The Blue Page Special 