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Kara Shamy
, October 17, 2013
(view all comments by Kara Shamy)
The Luminaries is, I think, a historic literary achievement. As I wrote in an online review on October 13: "If it doesn't win this year's Man Booker Prize, you'll be able to knock me over with a feather. Yeah, that's the most polite way to put it." I have had no feather related falls obviously. I cannot wait to read this novel again. It's a pleasure to read, and it bears substantial scholarly scrutiny as a work of literary art.
I've commended novelists for their ambition in some of my previous reviews. Eleanor Catton's ambition is revealed first by the somewhat abstract astrological structure she sets up for her work -- it's the kind of move a book meant merely to entertain does not dare. It reminds me somewhat of James Joyce's modeling his masterwork about June 16th in the life of Dedalus and Bloom, Ulysses, after Homer's Odyssey. While Catton's pretense does not match that of Joyce, her execution of her work places it squarely within the same tradition of masterful examples of the novel.
Also, as a sidenote, I found that some of Catton's prose reminded me of Joyce's in the penultimate catechism-type episode in Ulysses. I did not do a close side-by-side comparison, but that was the impression that jumped to the front of my mind as I read. In its scope and achievement, this work also calls to mind George Eliot's Middlemarch.
To speak more of The Luminaries on its own terms, as really I ought:
--There's poetry in this prose; it's everywhere evocative.
--The narrative voice is free and easy; Catton doesn't give the sense that she's trying too hard. To write such a complex and masterful work so confidently blows my mind. If I were to characterize her narrative style altogether in a few words I would choose: playful, with an affectionate disposition to reader and the narrative itself.
--Like other great novels I've mentioned in this review, it unites macroscopic and microscopic views of its subject matter and does so in a circumscribed setting in terms of time and place. This focuses the range of detail and ultimately epic effect of the work.
The Luminaries is resplendent; you won't want to miss it, dear readers. All you English majors, dust off your rigorous analytical skills, and all you lovers of literature, dust off that part of your heart that feels great books. Some classic literature is happenin' here!
I hope this helps; thanks for reading my ideas. Please be advised I read an electronic galley by generous permission of the publisher Little, Brown and Company.
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