The Luminaries
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The Luminaries
Buy Now for £17.99
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Narrated by:
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Mark Meadows
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By:
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Eleanor Catton
About this listen
Longlisted – Baileys Women’s Prize 2014
Man Booker Prize, Fiction, 2013
Canadian Governor General's Literary Award, 2013.
It is 1866 and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.
The Luminaries is an extraordinary piece of fiction. Written in pitch-perfect historical register, richly evoking a mid-19th-century world of shipping and banking and goldrush boom and bust, it is also a ghost story, and a gripping mystery. It is a thrilling achievement for someone still in her mid-20s, and will confirm for critics and listeners that Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international writing firmament.
Eleanor Catton was born in 1985 in Canada and raised in New Zealand. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University in 2007 and won the Adam Prize in Creative Writing for The Rehearsal. She was the recipient of the 2008 Glenn Schaeffer Fellowship to study for a year at the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop in the US and went on to hold a position as Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing there, teaching Creative Writing and Popular Culture. Eleanor won a 2010 New Generation Award. She now lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
©2013 Eleanor Catton (P)2013 Audible LtdListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"The Luminaries is an impressive novel, captivating, intense and full of surprises." (Times Literary Supplement)
"The Luminaries is a breathtakingly ambitious 800-page mystery with a plot as complex and a cast as motley as any 19th-century doorstopper. That Catton's absorbing, hugely elaborate novel is at its heart so simple is a great part of its charm. Catton's playful and increasingly virtuosic denouement arrives at a conclusion that is as beautiful as it is triumphant." (Daily Mail)
"It is awesomely - even bewilderingly - intricate. There's an immaculate finish to Catton's prose, which is no mean feat in a novel that lives or dies by its handling of period dialogue. It's more than 800 pages long but the reward for your stamina is a double-dealing world of skullduggery traced in rare complexity. Those Booker judges will have wrists of steel if it makes the shortlist, as it fully deserves." (Evening Standard)
Where does The Luminaries rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
In length it's number one! I started with the knowledge that this Booker Prize winner is long. People have seen the book & been daunted by its size. Audible is the obvious answer. It's still 29hrs, but life can go on alongside "reading" The Luminaries. Mark Meadows as narrator is excellent. His rendition differentiates the numerous characters to minimise confusion. It's a long and complex story which is well worth persisting with. The chapters start very long until near the end when the pace quickens with very short chapters. The passing of time is handled in an interesting way. Initially it's by the various characters relating their part in the story which centres on the death of an isolated man, the disappearance of another - young and newly successful in the gold rush - and the involvement of a young woman trapped by prostitution and opium. A mysterious fortune in gold and a universally despised sea captain link the characters. We gradually discover events over the past couple of years, whilst moving forward in the present. (19C New Zealand.) Eventually the past meets the present and we find the answer to the mysteries which bind the cast.What did you like best about this story?
The complexity, the gentle unfolding and the vision of the life of the times.What does Mark Meadows bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
Clarifies the complexity by differentiating the characters.Ideal choice for listening
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Would you listen to The Luminaries again? Why?
I would listen to it again if only to go over some of the details and see how it all hangs together.What did you like best about this story?
I enjoyed the historical setting and the slow way the story unfolded. Trying to work out the chronological order of events was also an enjoyable challenge.Which scene did you most enjoy?
I enjoyed the scene where Walter Moody is reading some letters he's found. That's when events started to fall into place.Any additional comments?
I thought the narration of this book was outstanding - there are lots of different characters and Mark Meadows brought each one to life with different accents and voices.Gripping tale with a strong sense of place
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Uneventful and never ending
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Where does The Luminaries rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Right behind my Top 10What did you like best about this story?
She made the recklessness of the age and the gold rush come alive and hid a few nuggets of golden wisdom in it. Besides I thought that each character was so unique and plausible it was like I'd be living among them.What about Mark Meadows’s performance did you like?
The german accent of Mr Loewenthal and the narrators easy flow.Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Neither, rather astound and curious, though I found the vehemence and fussing of some of the characters quite funnyAny additional comments?
I do not know how Master Charles Dickens could keep one so absorbed over great lenghts, Eleanor Catton tried her best and I really liked the book still I think it calls for an abridged version which I am sure many people will enjoyGold Digger
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If you could sum up The Luminaries in three words, what would they be?
Shaggy dog storyWhat did you like best about this story?
Convoluted plot that interlinked all the characters. I also like the setting. Loved the modern take on a Victorian novel - very Wilkie CollinsWhat about Mark Meadows’s performance did you like?
perfect - I don't think I could have managed this book without the voices all being appropriate and different for each of the 12 main charactersIf you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
concentrateAny additional comments?
don't let the 28 hours put you off - I wondered if I could survive but there are summaries dotted throughout!lingering
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