The Luminaries

By: Eleanor Catton

Narrated by: Mark Meadows

Length: 29 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

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 Ltd

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)

Brilliant Narration but Book Needs an Editor

Mark Meadows is amazing, voicing more than a dozen characters so distinctly that it was like listening to an ensemble cast. His accents run the gamut from Scottish, to Irish, the various regional and class distinctions of England, Maori, Australian, Chinese, men and women, young and old. I only kept listening because of the narrator.

The book is Dickensian in scope and 19th Century in narrative style, which befits the subject, but it needed a good editor. The writing is very good, but the story jumps around in time to no purpose, and is numbingly repetitive. The last quarter of the book does little more than show in action what we already know from hearsay and narration, and leaves a few loose ends that would have given a more satisfying resolution.

Absorbing, Mystifying, Wonderful

Would you consider the audio edition of The Luminaries to be better than the print version?

I feel a little sorry for anyone who reads the print version because they would be deprived of the enjoyment of Mark Meadows brilliant work. So many varied characters and yet the listener knew exactly who was speaking every time.
In addition, the wonderful language of the book, a vocabulary from the past made one feel that book had been written in 1865! That may not be everyone's cup of tea but I enjoyed it enormously.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Emory Stains, even though he appeared late was refreshingly gentle and open. His appearance seemed to light up the place.

Which character – as performed by Mark Meadows – was your favorite?

That would be impossible to say. All interpretations were wonderful.

If you could take any character from The Luminaries out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Anna Weatheral because I would like to know more about life for women in that era.

brilliant!

loved this book! worth the time! everything is woven together perfectly from start to finish. intelligent prose, entertaining, fascinating human story.

ok

the story telling was fantastic!! the actual story was mediocre. I was expecting more from the ending and was a bit dissapointed.

Brilliant read, top story

Where does The Luminaries rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

One of the best audiobooks I've listened to.

What does Mark Meadows bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Mark Meadows managed the difficult task of so many characters and varied accents with consumate skill.

Wonerful narration

This is a beautiful, complex story. The narrator managed to keep it pacy and distinguished the characters brilliantly. I was engaged through all the twenty something hours of it, which is really quite a feat for a narrator.

The plot is so intricate, you'll want to concentrate to keep track of it, but it's so clever, I was amazed it was her first novel.

More suited to reading rather than listening

Any additional comments?

Mark Meadows did an admirable job of distinguishing between the many characters in The Luminaries with various accents and tones. Even the women came off well, each pleasingly voiced in their unique way. It is the story itself that kept my head spinning. Without the artifice of the astrological signs, longitudes, latitudes, etc. it is still quite a puzzle to solve. I needed a book in front of me for reference.

Like a neo-Victorian novel!

I didn't know what to expect from this book, especially because I knew I'd be missing an important part of the book with it being an audio instead of paper book. I browsed the printed copy and saw the star charts and astrological information that I'd miss out on with the audio version. For that reason, it took me a long time to start the book. But as soon as I did, I was drawn in.

This book reads like a classic Victorian-era novel. I felt like I was reading a new and fresh Dickens or Hardy novel. It has a deep and satisfying plot with as many twists, turns, hills, and gullies as the New Zealand landscape in which it is set. The opening drops you right in the middle of the intrigue, as the opening character, Walter Moody, stumbles upon a secret society. The detailed and florid descriptions of the events, the characters, and the setting were reminiscent of David Copperfield or Far from the Madding Crowd. Dickens is my favorite author, so I enjoyed the writing immensely.

I don't feel like I missed out on anything with not having the star charts and astrology right in front of me to reference. I still was able to enjoy the overall theme of the characters being guided and almost controlled by their "destinies" as outlined in the heavens. The ending is a satisfying one because of it's inevitability, not necessarily because it's a "happy" or "sad" ending.

I recommend this book to anyone - especially Victorian literature lovers!

the narrator is brilliant!

Have you listened to any of Mark Meadows’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

this book has many characters and a story that keeps getting more side stories so without the brilliant narration of Mark Meadows it would have been agony to follow.

If you could take any character from The Luminaries out to dinner, who would it be and why?

I can't say any of the characters were likable, but most were very plausible.

Any additional comments?

it was a study in human character,regardless where it is, but also shined a light on the gold rash era of New Zealand.

Enthralling

This is an incredible story with twists, intrigue and thrill.
Exceptionally narrated!
I couldn't stop listening!