The Luminaries

It was with anticipation that I sat down to read Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries. I did so not long after it was announced that the young author had won the Man Booker Prize in 2013. I was excited to be reading a novel so acclaimed, yet written by a young woman, of similar age and similar antipodean extraction to myself. As an astrology enthusiast, I was also curious to see how Catton had executed a plot structured according to astrological sensibilities.

Although the book is dense - definitely a ‘doorstopper' in the traditional sense- I found the narrative engrossing and compelling. In brief, The Luminaries is a murder-mystery set in nineteenth century New Zealand. For the most part, events take place in a weatherbeaten and isolated town built upon the gold rush and its surrounding coastal region. Everyone is looking to make something of the boom, though all in their own ways.

Catton's cast of characters are positioned to represent both the planets and the twelve zodiac signs, and their personalities designed to manifest their respective astrological traits. Not only the characters in Catton's novel, but all the story's events are written to correspond to the stars' position in the heavens. In this way, one chapter may manifest the square of Uranus in Capricorn and Venus in Pisces, for example. And there is another layer, that is evident to the reader as they progress, which is that the length of the chapters themselves are measured to correspond to the waxing and waning of the lunar cycle.

There is no denying the structural genius and penetrative research that Catton demonstrates in this work. Though with all the focus on timing and astrology, I felt that perhaps an element of the human was lost in the emphasis on the engines of fate, so to speak. At times I felt it difficult to connect to characters, not least because Catton's chosen style, though executed with great grace, necessitated shifting the narrative from one character's experience to another's. In terms of astrology too, the characters were restricted to wholly manifesting almost one sign or planet exclusively, rather than a more realist portrayal of nuanced influences that modern astrology generally takes. There was a dryness to the story, I felt, and a magic left out of it, for all the calculation. I was never transported, or truly moved. This is not to say I don't admire Catton's breaking of new ground. Reading it was quite a rigorous exercise - in all senses, but one which I nevertheless was happy to partake in, though it fell short of my high expectations.