Essentiality: 🌟🌟
Accessibility: 🌟🌟
Quality: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
In Year 13, Māori poet and creator Apirana Taylor, for the sake of argument, spoke out against teaching NZ literature in schools in the journal English in Aotearoa. My English teacher recruited me to rebut. Researching arguments left me, to self-indulgently quote, “almost tempted to go out and actually read a piece of NZ literature”. Instead, I read the Wikipedia article about The Luminaries, used that info in making my case, and moved on. Later, I needed a prize book for English, and thought the only appropriate candidate was The Luminaries. I can now report this is a legendary work of NZ lit.
The Luminaries tells you with its title and shows you on its cover what to expect. Your hand is held with horoscopes and old-timey chapter summaries. You can control your experience by choosing Googling to get what’s going on, unless Co-Star has already made an astrologer out of you. To understand this unique mystery I offer only one clue: structure.
One problem the brilliant structure creates is shared with the old-style epics (think Count of Monte Cristo) it successfully emulates. They grab you with their starts and draw you breathless towards conclusion. Gorgeous writing soaks you in their story. However, they slump a little in the middle, where only the author knows the purpose of the setup they’re writing. So much of The Luminaries is built on backstory that takes time to learn about. Those slower pages let you reflect and inspect what you know. Consider why this author, so engaging and gripping, has loosened her hold on the reins.
The writing of Chinese and Māori characters and concepts doesn’t differ enough from how other characters stereotype them. For example, one of them arrives in an uncomfortable environment to wait, and...bam, we’ve skipped to hours later. No description of how they spent the time. Patience was never established as a trait of theirs. My immersion broke. The timeskip is uncharacteristically artificial and unrealistic, compared to the usually detailed writing. This negligence others those characters, as if they do not have human needs or personalities. However, their presence, their agency, and coverage of their own backgrounds and histories, such as a Chinatown of immigrant miners, enriches the novel considerably.
As for setting, I’m not too familiar with the West Coast outside of Greymouth. The level of detail and organic explanations for the way of life there convince me that Catton has done her historical research. The book certainly transports you through time. The gorgeous 1800s aesthetic sets the scene luxuriantly, then you get to see the muck and grind of everyday life.
I felt choked up when I finished The Luminaries. In part, I was emotional. In part, I still felt off guard from the way the story was structured. This could not be processed like any other book. That’s due to exceptional writing. I am looking forward to the day I can reread this and thoroughly study all the details: from who knows what, when, to the significance of the charts. I think that’s the strongest recommendation for The Luminaries: you’ll know it’s great, and you’ll know you’ll be back for more, however long it waits on your shelf.
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