---
product_id: 7179881
title: "The Luminaries"
price: "R$309"
currency: BRL
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reviews_count: 7
url: https://www.desertcart.com.br/products/7179881-the-luminaries
store_origin: BR
region: Brazil
---

# The Luminaries

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desertcart.com: The Luminaries: 9780316074292: Catton, Eleanor: Books

Review: An Ouroubos of the Mind - Wow, wow, wow! Beyond words. That was my first impression upon reading The Luminaries. It's a mindful novel, vast in scope, steeped in thought. At least for this reader, the time taken to read it slowly, with diversions to explore astrology sites to plumb the many allusions and the story's framework, all proved rewarding, not that I claim any great degree of mastery after a single passage through its pages. But, it is understandable why it took a highly qualified Booker jury no more than two hours to sort through a most competitive field of nominated tomes to arrive at the consensus (no vote was needed) that the most deserving of the lot is The Luminaries. Each of the jury members read it thrice and was rewarded handsomely each time through. This puzzle of a book is well worth a reread. As might be expected, professional reviewers split in their judgments. The majority, as best I can determine, deemed The Luminaries a wonder; with a minority not nearly so positive. Janet Maslin of the NYTimes even went so far as to trash it: "There are readers who will be fascinated by the structure and ambiguities of 'The Luminaries.' But by and large, it's a critic's nightmare." I agree that this is no book to be read under deadline pressure, with the goal of arriving at some simplistic judgment on its worthiness. In addition to a slow hand, it might be more illuminating (ha,ha) to approach Eleanor Catton's book in a way that accommodates the thought and art Eleanor Catton infuses in its pages. It is a book, I think, that most rewards readers who surrender their projections before opening the cover. Catton employs several structural devices, the most important being the Golden Spiral, a geometric configuration frequently seen in galaxies. The spiral, a cousin to the gyre, expands by a factor of roughly 50% from the preceding spiral as it moves away from its source. Graphically, it's a tunnel effect. Catton says her original application of the Golden Spiral would have resulted in 300,000 words. So, like many others who start out to employ the Golden Spiral, she modified the formula and came up with a 200,000 word tome. The effect on the reader is a leisurely spiraling story for the first 360 pages, the essence of which is that a group of 12 residents of the gold town - the luminaries - are gathered in a hotel to shed light on a murder, a disappearance, and the provenance of a fortune in gold discovered in the murdered recluse's hut. As the story spirals, the sections are reduced by half, and the pace quickens as the story enters the 12th and final section. The second structure is a circle, which obviously manifests in the inner and outer circles of the astrology charts at the outset of each chapter, but also the ourouboros or snake/dragon figure from antiquity symbolizing a cycle of regeneration. In one of many fascinating and poetic passages, Cotton examines not only how the houses of the Zodiac each contain qualities that relate them to neighboring houses on either side, but that the whole Zodiac is a story unto itself, which incidentally manifests in the novel's characters as they move through the various characters: "What was glimpsed in Aquarius - what was envisioned, believed in, prophesied, predicted, doubted, and forewarned - is made, in Pisces, manifest. Those solitary visions that, but a month ago, belonged only to the dreamer, will now acquire the form and substance of the real. We were to our own making, and we shall be our own end." The passage goes through the houses examining their influences on one another in describing the story of the Zodiac governing the story of The Luminaries, concluding with this: "But the doubled fish of Pisces, that mirrored womb of self and self-awareness, is an ourobouros of the mind - both the will of fate, and the fated will - and the house of self-undoing is a prison built by prisoners, airless, doorless, and mortared from within." The reader who takes the time to reflect on this passage gains the key to the story. The end of The Luminaries is all about beginnings springing from the union of the male and female luminaries, in the convergence and divergence of the sun's direct light and the moon's reflected luminosity: "Different beginnings? I think we must." "Will there be more of them?" "A great many more..." This is a story set in circular space/time, an eternity without beginning or end. There is no inherent distinction between the three times, past, present, and future. Enough about the structure that is causing such a buzz, and I think discomfort to those reading The Luminaries under deadline pressure and readers more comfortable with a more linear story. The more traditional linear action of the book is easily described. It answers these questions: Who killed the recluse? Where did the prodigal son get to? What is the provenance of the gold treasure that so many lay claim to? The answers are sifted like gold by a cast of approximately 20 characters in the spiraling course of the story with no beginning and no end. (Interesting to note that the movement of panning for gold is at once circular, but also requires tilting of the pan so that the circular motion resembles a spiral to tease out the gold.) The characters - including the 12 luminaries each aligned with a house in the Zodiac - are deeply drawn psychologically in the first 360 pages. The astuteness of the psychology, based on the story of the Zodiac, itself is otherworldly. The defining qualities of each character as well as the recessive counter qualities all come into play under various conditions (including convergence with others manifesting complementary or opposing qualities). The discerning reader will come to see that the qualities manifest in these characters mirror people and relations we face in our lives. The play between these qualities and their manifest characters explain how the most hardened and mercenary character can show compassion to someone he has victimized such as when the capitalist Mannering in one instance is threatening the Chinaman digger Ah Quee with a pistol, and soon thereafter shows the same man compassion in saving him from a beating being administered by thugs who have been set in motion by the primary law authority in town. The characters are drawn with great humanity and compassion, which allows them not to appear as ideas with arms and legs as they might if sketched by a lesser talent than Catton. The cast itself creates a community with all of its functioning parts that itself evolves as a character, with many balances not the least of which is the convergence of goldfield law, and the more established codes of civilization's law. I've gone on at too great a length. For that I apologize. But like the many professional critics who have taken a run at this wonderful book, I have yet to scratch its surface. About the author: In addition to doing some research on astrology and the Zodiac, I culled interviews - written and audio - of Eleanor Catton. Normally, I pretty much leave the author out of any book's consideration (how do you factor into Billy Faulkner's works his diddling 17 year old girls...don't answer, please). But in this exceptional case, it's well worth the time to pore through the interviews. As one might expect, The Luminaries springs from the finest kind of creative mind, and she is guileless enough to field every question asked of her and answer intelligently. As a former newspaper reporter, I have never seen anyone so accomplished in an interview, and she's doing it without talking points. Her sure-footed answers are offered graciously and without hesitation. As she matures, you might not be offered such an unobstructed glimpse into that fine mind.
Review: Very Entertaining, But Parody, Homage or What? - This epic Booker Prize-winning novel is a compelling page-turner but I think it falls short of greatness in at least one important respect. "The Luminaries" weaves a spellbinding and convoluted plot around dozens of characters whose lives intersect in the gold-mining region of New Zealand in the 1860's. It has been described as an homage and, alternately, a parody of the kind of complicated tales written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins in the nineteenth century. It involves multiple mysteries and many characters at cross-purposes. It jumps back and forth in time, only slowly revealing parts of its puzzle. Individuals and actions are pegged to changes in the astrological chart of the Southern Hemisphere, a stylistic conceit whose significance I (and apparently many readers) did not entirely grasp. The book's strength is the cleverness and intricacy of its plot. The story (many stories really) keeps you engaged and turning pages madly to find out what happens next or what led to the current state of affairs. I felt immediately drawn in and, except for a bit of fatigue between about pages 400-500, was hooked until the end. Greed, revenge, exploitation, loyalty, virtue, family dysfunction, the opium trade, innocence, the law, and racism are among the many themes explored. The hustle and hardships of a colonial gold-mining town are dramatically conveyed. Author Eleanor Catton has an incredible facility with the language; many of her descriptions are beautifully written and evocative. Yet most of her characters are one-dimensional. There are several obvious villains, a few noble-minded characters, and innocent naïfs who get caught up in other people's nefarious schemes. There is a noble Maori native, an evildoer with a scarred face, and two major women characters who run the gamut from evil procuress to reluctant whore with a heart of gold. (If this is parody, OK; if not, it's pretty tired stuff.) Although I was eager to find out how the plot strands were resolved, I never grew invested or really cared much about any of the characters. They all seemed to be "types" or symbols used as pieces in the book's machinery. In the end, there was no Pip or Dorothea Brooke whose complex story arc became embedded in my memory. As entertaining as it is and although I still recommend it, I think "The Luminaries" is a triumph of style over substance. I hope another reading at a later date or a good discussion with others who have read it will bring out more of its value. I certainly plan to follow the promising career of young Eleanor Catton. Despite the flaws in this epic novel, her imagination and ambition shine through.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #14,846 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #43 in Magical Realism #51 in Historical Mystery #1,137 in Literary Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars (11,665) |
| Dimensions  | 6 x 1.38 x 9.25 inches |
| Edition  | Reprint |
| ISBN-10  | 0316074292 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0316074292 |
| Item Weight  | 1.94 pounds |
| Language  | English |
| Print length  | 864 pages |
| Publication date  | October 7, 2014 |
| Publisher  | Back Bay Books |

## Images

![The Luminaries - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81xLb+7IxDL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Ouroubos of the Mind
*by M***K on November 8, 2013*

Wow, wow, wow! Beyond words. That was my first impression upon reading The Luminaries. It's a mindful novel, vast in scope, steeped in thought. At least for this reader, the time taken to read it slowly, with diversions to explore astrology sites to plumb the many allusions and the story's framework, all proved rewarding, not that I claim any great degree of mastery after a single passage through its pages. But, it is understandable why it took a highly qualified Booker jury no more than two hours to sort through a most competitive field of nominated tomes to arrive at the consensus (no vote was needed) that the most deserving of the lot is The Luminaries. Each of the jury members read it thrice and was rewarded handsomely each time through. This puzzle of a book is well worth a reread. As might be expected, professional reviewers split in their judgments. The majority, as best I can determine, deemed The Luminaries a wonder; with a minority not nearly so positive. Janet Maslin of the NYTimes even went so far as to trash it: "There are readers who will be fascinated by the structure and ambiguities of 'The Luminaries.' But by and large, it's a critic's nightmare." I agree that this is no book to be read under deadline pressure, with the goal of arriving at some simplistic judgment on its worthiness. In addition to a slow hand, it might be more illuminating (ha,ha) to approach Eleanor Catton's book in a way that accommodates the thought and art Eleanor Catton infuses in its pages. It is a book, I think, that most rewards readers who surrender their projections before opening the cover. Catton employs several structural devices, the most important being the Golden Spiral, a geometric configuration frequently seen in galaxies. The spiral, a cousin to the gyre, expands by a factor of roughly 50% from the preceding spiral as it moves away from its source. Graphically, it's a tunnel effect. Catton says her original application of the Golden Spiral would have resulted in 300,000 words. So, like many others who start out to employ the Golden Spiral, she modified the formula and came up with a 200,000 word tome. The effect on the reader is a leisurely spiraling story for the first 360 pages, the essence of which is that a group of 12 residents of the gold town - the luminaries - are gathered in a hotel to shed light on a murder, a disappearance, and the provenance of a fortune in gold discovered in the murdered recluse's hut. As the story spirals, the sections are reduced by half, and the pace quickens as the story enters the 12th and final section. The second structure is a circle, which obviously manifests in the inner and outer circles of the astrology charts at the outset of each chapter, but also the ourouboros or snake/dragon figure from antiquity symbolizing a cycle of regeneration. In one of many fascinating and poetic passages, Cotton examines not only how the houses of the Zodiac each contain qualities that relate them to neighboring houses on either side, but that the whole Zodiac is a story unto itself, which incidentally manifests in the novel's characters as they move through the various characters: "What was glimpsed in Aquarius - what was envisioned, believed in, prophesied, predicted, doubted, and forewarned - is made, in Pisces, manifest. Those solitary visions that, but a month ago, belonged only to the dreamer, will now acquire the form and substance of the real. We were to our own making, and we shall be our own end." The passage goes through the houses examining their influences on one another in describing the story of the Zodiac governing the story of The Luminaries, concluding with this: "But the doubled fish of Pisces, that mirrored womb of self and self-awareness, is an ourobouros of the mind - both the will of fate, and the fated will - and the house of self-undoing is a prison built by prisoners, airless, doorless, and mortared from within." The reader who takes the time to reflect on this passage gains the key to the story. The end of The Luminaries is all about beginnings springing from the union of the male and female luminaries, in the convergence and divergence of the sun's direct light and the moon's reflected luminosity: "Different beginnings? I think we must." "Will there be more of them?" "A great many more..." This is a story set in circular space/time, an eternity without beginning or end. There is no inherent distinction between the three times, past, present, and future. Enough about the structure that is causing such a buzz, and I think discomfort to those reading The Luminaries under deadline pressure and readers more comfortable with a more linear story. The more traditional linear action of the book is easily described. It answers these questions: Who killed the recluse? Where did the prodigal son get to? What is the provenance of the gold treasure that so many lay claim to? The answers are sifted like gold by a cast of approximately 20 characters in the spiraling course of the story with no beginning and no end. (Interesting to note that the movement of panning for gold is at once circular, but also requires tilting of the pan so that the circular motion resembles a spiral to tease out the gold.) The characters - including the 12 luminaries each aligned with a house in the Zodiac - are deeply drawn psychologically in the first 360 pages. The astuteness of the psychology, based on the story of the Zodiac, itself is otherworldly. The defining qualities of each character as well as the recessive counter qualities all come into play under various conditions (including convergence with others manifesting complementary or opposing qualities). The discerning reader will come to see that the qualities manifest in these characters mirror people and relations we face in our lives. The play between these qualities and their manifest characters explain how the most hardened and mercenary character can show compassion to someone he has victimized such as when the capitalist Mannering in one instance is threatening the Chinaman digger Ah Quee with a pistol, and soon thereafter shows the same man compassion in saving him from a beating being administered by thugs who have been set in motion by the primary law authority in town. The characters are drawn with great humanity and compassion, which allows them not to appear as ideas with arms and legs as they might if sketched by a lesser talent than Catton. The cast itself creates a community with all of its functioning parts that itself evolves as a character, with many balances not the least of which is the convergence of goldfield law, and the more established codes of civilization's law. I've gone on at too great a length. For that I apologize. But like the many professional critics who have taken a run at this wonderful book, I have yet to scratch its surface. About the author: In addition to doing some research on astrology and the Zodiac, I culled interviews - written and audio - of Eleanor Catton. Normally, I pretty much leave the author out of any book's consideration (how do you factor into Billy Faulkner's works his diddling 17 year old girls...don't answer, please). But in this exceptional case, it's well worth the time to pore through the interviews. As one might expect, The Luminaries springs from the finest kind of creative mind, and she is guileless enough to field every question asked of her and answer intelligently. As a former newspaper reporter, I have never seen anyone so accomplished in an interview, and she's doing it without talking points. Her sure-footed answers are offered graciously and without hesitation. As she matures, you might not be offered such an unobstructed glimpse into that fine mind.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Entertaining, But Parody, Homage or What?
*by J***A on January 26, 2014*

This epic Booker Prize-winning novel is a compelling page-turner but I think it falls short of greatness in at least one important respect. "The Luminaries" weaves a spellbinding and convoluted plot around dozens of characters whose lives intersect in the gold-mining region of New Zealand in the 1860's. It has been described as an homage and, alternately, a parody of the kind of complicated tales written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins in the nineteenth century. It involves multiple mysteries and many characters at cross-purposes. It jumps back and forth in time, only slowly revealing parts of its puzzle. Individuals and actions are pegged to changes in the astrological chart of the Southern Hemisphere, a stylistic conceit whose significance I (and apparently many readers) did not entirely grasp. The book's strength is the cleverness and intricacy of its plot. The story (many stories really) keeps you engaged and turning pages madly to find out what happens next or what led to the current state of affairs. I felt immediately drawn in and, except for a bit of fatigue between about pages 400-500, was hooked until the end. Greed, revenge, exploitation, loyalty, virtue, family dysfunction, the opium trade, innocence, the law, and racism are among the many themes explored. The hustle and hardships of a colonial gold-mining town are dramatically conveyed. Author Eleanor Catton has an incredible facility with the language; many of her descriptions are beautifully written and evocative. Yet most of her characters are one-dimensional. There are several obvious villains, a few noble-minded characters, and innocent naïfs who get caught up in other people's nefarious schemes. There is a noble Maori native, an evildoer with a scarred face, and two major women characters who run the gamut from evil procuress to reluctant whore with a heart of gold. (If this is parody, OK; if not, it's pretty tired stuff.) Although I was eager to find out how the plot strands were resolved, I never grew invested or really cared much about any of the characters. They all seemed to be "types" or symbols used as pieces in the book's machinery. In the end, there was no Pip or Dorothea Brooke whose complex story arc became embedded in my memory. As entertaining as it is and although I still recommend it, I think "The Luminaries" is a triumph of style over substance. I hope another reading at a later date or a good discussion with others who have read it will bring out more of its value. I certainly plan to follow the promising career of young Eleanor Catton. Despite the flaws in this epic novel, her imagination and ambition shine through.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review
*by S***H on July 1, 2014*

The characters and their stories inter-twine like moving cogs in a vast clock. Their interactions are carefully timed, and their actions and narrations create a patchwork of interwoven tales which are finally corroborate each other to weave a deliciously interesting and spell binding book. It is complicated, and there is plenty to remember as you move through the novel. I read and re-read parts to remind myself of who was who and what they were up to. Towards the middle of the novel the author returns to summarise each character as if to remind you again, and then moves on to the next story. I will return to read it again as it is one of those novels, like a good movie, where I think you will see things you missed the first time around. Really a wonderful book - loved it!

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