Reading the Chunksters discussion

And another thread, but this section is smaller than the previous one, and is only for the seven days. Wish me good luck - I will try to crush read this week. Well, I always read, but so many books at the same time, so sometimes some books get sidelines. I wish it had not been The Luminaries ....

Yeesh I am about a week behind. I still have this whole section before I can even start on the next one. Holiday season is already ramping up!

I feel ya, Zulfiya. I pushed The Luminaries to the side for some time, then tried to focus solely on this book. I found it easier when the chapters got smaller. And yet, when the chapters got smaller, I felt the impulse to get onto the next chapter.

What a relief when, in the Mercury in Sagittarius chapter, Moody mused "Thomas Balfour had not told his tale at all chronologically, and his narrative had been further convoluted by countless interruptions,..." and then proceeds to recount the "events into the order in which they actually occurred." It is 3 pages of very helpful prose although I was not always aware of some of the 'facts.' I post this in the hope that it will offer a carrot for those who have not reached this much needed summary.

I agree - it's like the author acknowledges this & then does us a favor & gives a break. I think it's a brilliant book & I wish I wrote it. I love all the personal character quirks!

I had to go back to about p97 to verify one fact, and even then it may have been more inferred than baldly stated. Very useful summary. Plunge on!

Sry. Ive been on a bit of a hiatus since its hunting season. I hope to catch back up the first two weekends in december!

I don't know about you guys, but I BADLY needed the "recap!" I still feel that I can't really keep track of the characters, but it helped put everything in a more logical order in my mind, which I find helpful.

And then, of course, Moody has to throw his own story in there, which further twists and confuses the tale! Curiouser and curiouser...

Did anyone else notice how Moody, in his mind, puts the "missing" persons (those not present at the meeting) into counterpart pairs? Definitely fits into our astrology theme.

And I keep pondering the cover: I think it's of a relatively famous painting, but I can't tell which. The moon phases are obvious, but what is the purpose of the woman on the cover, or the painting, if it's a specific one?

And I'm trying to keep up, but the holidays are sapping my reading time, so I'll try to keep up when I can!

The Cover was bugging me, too. I did a bit of Googling and found that there's a lot out there on graphic design of book covers, and this cover was praised. Evidently, the artist took the figure from a period painting sold at auction, but I can't find the painting credited anywhere in my brief search and the database is a little old.

Also interesting is that the American cover is different from the English and NZ covers, which are different from the Canadian, etc. The English cover just has a single column of 4 phases, while the US publisher thought that would be too boring for us, hence the matrix revealing more of the woman. Additionally, there is a male figure that the cover designer also tried, representing Moody, and the lady seems to be Anna.

The lady reminds me of other paperback covers of Pride and Prejudice, or Little Women, appropriate to the period.

SusanK wrote: "The lady reminds me of other paperback covers of Pride and Prejudice, or Little Women, appropriate to the period."

That's what it made me think of, too. Probably why I feel like I should know which painting it is.

Hi everyone! I am a late joiner for this one, and already breezed through it, so I am just going back and adding my thoughts on each major section.

Part I was very interesting and Catton did a good job holding my attention, keeping me reading, and setting up the mystery. I did find Part I quite unbelievable from a story perspective, though, in that each person kept much of the story in their own heads and didn't share it with the group, yet it is all pertinent to the story. It was like the council was solely a device for putting all of the parts of the mystery out there. This was especially evident in Moody's summary. I definitely think that the summary was necessary (and Moody had made some connections that I hadn't made yet!), but it wasn't believable that it was happening in the story. Who just sits there for several minutes thinking in their heads like that while 12 people stare at them? Maybe if he summed it up out loud or something. But anyways, throughout this section, I thought Moody would be the "detective" who puts everything together and solves it for everyone, but after the summary I realized he was just a plot device for setting up what had already happened before the start of the story. When I suspend my disbelief here, though, I am enjoying the mystery.

Several people commented in previous sections that they were put-off by the writing style, which I didn't notice at all so it must have been fine for me! It could help, too, that I read this entire section in about a day, so I didn't have the time to set the book down and have to pick it back up to get back into the story. I also think reading in one huge chunk was a really good idea for this book with all of the names and facts flying around. I don't know how much I would have liked it if I had to keep stopping and picking it up again. Much happens in the book, but not necessarily in the weekly 60-80 pages.

Also, as per the astrology, I don't know too much about it nor do I really care that much. I am using it only as a guide to determine what each chapter will be about. I also learned very early on that the kindle X-ray function named each person's sign or planet, so it wasn't hard at all for me to keep track of everything.

Oh yes, I am also wondering if the chapter summaries at the beginning of each chapter are a nod to "The Name of the Rose" with all of the "In which...". It seems very likely - both being mystery stories and I haven't seen chapters start like this is other books that I can recall.

I read "The Name of the Rose" not long prior, so I noticed that as well, but actually, I think a lot of novels that were actually written in the time period of the 1960s and previous did contain summaries like that. Doesn't a lot of Dickens' work have those?

Hmm... I don't remember another book that specifically used the "in which..." beginning, though maybe "don quioxte?" Dickens titles his chapters as brief, one phrase synopses, which i know a lot of books do as well. The "in which..." just really stood out for me here. And the ridiculous length of some of the intros.

I'm still slowly trudging onward. I greatly appreciated Moody's summary. The mystery is interesting enough to keep me reading but has not been a page turner for me. Im hopeful that the story will become less convoluted now that it has reached the present so to speak

I found it started getting a little easier after that part because I had a better idea of who app the characters were, but it's still pretty twisted for awhile.