ManBookering discussion

And the winner is....The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton! It got 78 votes to Wolf Hall's 50 votes. So it's been decided. We will be reading Catton's 2013-winning mammoth of a novel in February.

As always, if you have spoilers to mention, give fair warning in your comment.

I've read this one before, and it's absolutely phenomenal. I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks!

I will probably have to pass on this one. I will try but I don't think I will be able to fit this huge read into my crammed February schedule.
But: happy reading to the rest of you!

That is one advantage of reading on a kindle- books are all the same size. Looking forward to this as I loved this book when I read it in the year in won.

Yeah, I'm excited. This book is a beast so it's nice to have the community to read it with.

It is long, but it is not a difficult read. It will be fun reading it together.

I read this last year and I can't see myself ever rereading it so I'll probably skip this, but it's a really well written novel. It is pretty enormous though, it took me three weeks to read it :')

I just read this a couple of months ago, so I won't read it again, but will join in with the discussion.

I cannot wait! I just read the Goldfinch and thought, you know, I think the Luminaries would be a nice next read. And then this happened. Fate :P So looking forward to it!

Miranda wrote: "I cannot wait! I just read the Goldfinch and thought, you know, I think the Luminaries would be a nice next read. And then this happened. Fate :P So looking forward to it!"

Me too! (Well I read it a week ago, but still). I think I'm going to begin the luminaries tomorrow :)

That's great, I've been wanting to read this for a while :)

As always, thanks for organising Maxwell!

The size of the book kept me away from it before even though I've wanted to read it for a while now, I cannot wait to get it off my TBR! Definitely glad I managed to find a copy a while back for 5$ now.

Looking forward to re-read it! It's got so many details that I'm sure I'll discover something new.

I know it has an unusual structure, but, on my first read, I could not work out how that contributed to the book. Perhaps I will find out in the next few weeks!

Trivia: to date it is the Booker winner with the most pages. Incidentally that year there was Colm Toibin's the testament of Mary, which is the shortest book to ever be included in the prize's history

Neil wrote: "I know it has an unusual structure, but, on my first read, I could not work out how that contributed to the book. Perhaps I will find out in the next few weeks!"

I agree, the structure seemed rather superfluous to me.

Robert wrote: "Trivia: to date it is the Booker winner with the most pages. Incidentally that year there was Colm Toibin's the testament of Mary, which is the shortest book to ever be included in the prize's history"

And what a year it was! The Luminaries, Mary, and my personal fave of the list - Harvest. All great books.

it was a great shortlist! It was also the first time I invested in the longlist and watched all six authors reading from their novels the day before the prize was announced.

I loved Harvest and The Testament of Mary that year! I also really enjoyed reading The Kills which I think was on the long list. Definitely a good year!

Checked it out from the library this morning! I got it as an ebook, so I'll probably be reading it off my phone. I'm in the middle of a ton of books right now so I reeeally need to power through them asap so I'll have time to read this one! Of course the longest book was chosen to read in the shortest month. Excellent. :)

100 pages into A Little Life, I really have to get on that if I want to finish that and Luminaries this month

So excited to finally join in! I found a great copy in eBay for 7$!! Hardcover

So excited to finally join in! I found a great copy in eBay for 7$!! Hardcover

This might be useful: http://www.shmoop.com/the-luminaries/...

EDIT: My apologies - as Maxwell points out below, there are major spoilers here and I should have mentioned that. It's useful for keeping track of the story once you have read the chapters, not before!

Neil wrote: "This might be useful: http://www.shmoop.com/the-luminaries/..."

Very helpful for those who have read and want a refresher. But if you haven't read it, that post has *major* spoilers. Just FYI.

Maxwell wrote: "Neil wrote: "This might be useful: http://www.shmoop.com/the-luminaries/..."

Very helpful for those who have read and want a refresher. But if you haven't read it, that post has *major* s..."

Apologies everyone - I meant to add a comment saying it's a useful thing to use to review a chapter you have read or to scan back to remind yourself of something you forgot. I would not recommend looking at summaries of chapters you haven't yet read!

Neil wrote: "Maxwell wrote: "Neil wrote: "This might be useful: http://www.shmoop.com/the-luminaries/..."

Very helpful for those who have read and want a refresher. But if you haven't read it, that po..."

No problem. Thanks for sharing! Just wanted to give first-time readers fair warning.

Maxwell wrote: "Neil wrote: "Maxwell wrote: "Neil wrote: "This might be useful: http://www.shmoop.com/the-luminaries/..."

Very helpful for those who have read and want a refresher. But if you haven't rea..."

I know, but "don't post spoilers without warning" is like Goodreads 101...doh!

This is a re-read for me, so I sort of know what is going on. But, even so, I am finding it a little bit confusing at the start: lots of things being introduced. It is great fun, though, which is what I mostly remember from the first time I read it.

Despite not being a fan of the writing style (a story within a story) and of stories in general about the "white man's struggle," I find myself quite interested in this one so far. Looking forward to other people's thoughts..

This article includes some interesting thoughts on the structure and style of the book. Be aware it contains some minor spoilers. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013...

Something that is really annoying me about this book is the censoring of the word "damn" - every time one of the characters uses it, Catton spells is "d-n." If she is trying to write as people spoke at the time, why is she censoring that particular word? Especially since she uses racial slurs freely the rest of the time. Does anyone have an explanation for this?

I take it to be a style thing in keeping with the period in which it is set. I think I have seen similar in other books, notably Pynchon (I think: struggling to remember but Mason & Dixon springs to mind for some reason and is set in the same kind of time period). I think you often see G-d in books set in this time period, too. Same with the racial slurs, as it was a different world 150 years ago.

Neil wrote: "I take it to be a style thing in keeping with the period in which it is set. I think I have seen similar in other books, notably Pynchon (I think: struggling to remember but Mason & Dixon springs t..."

This doesn't seem right since saying d-n is just unpronounceable - and why only this one and not all the other swears/slurs? If you are going to keep with the time, let's say all things as they were said then - it seems quite arbitrary otherwise.

I don't really know: maybe others can comment. I know that I have read quite a few books set in this time period and they often use d-n and G-d instead of the actual words. I have always assumed it was just a convention of the time that the authors use to increase the impression of writing for that time.

Wikipedia might offer an insight: "During the 18th century and until about 1930, the use of damn as an expletive was considered a severe profanity and was mostly avoided in print. The expression "not worth a damn" is recorded in 1802.[1] The use of damn as an adjective, short for damned, is recorded in 1775. Damn Yankee (a Southern US term for "Northerner") dates back to 1812."

From what I've read about it I think Neil is right in saying it's a style in keeping with the period it's set. In the 19th century everyone was still quite heavily religious, and so in novels words like damn and God would be censored to d-n and G-d, while racial slurs wouldn't, because racial slurs weren't offensive to the white people who were reading these books, and damn was.

It shows how times change! Nowadays, we are much more offended by racial slurs than by blasphemy, but 150 years ago it was exactly the opposite. In fact, I don't think most people 150 years ago gave much thought to what we think of as racism.

I just finished Part 1 and I must say I am really enjoying this. I had some trouble at the start as I was unable to grasp what was going on with all these men in the room. The further I got into it, it all started to make sense and the entire story as well as all of the characters became more and more enjoyable. This book is just atmospheric! The last chapter of part one was just brilliant and I am oh-so curious to see whats gonna happen next.

Btw, I didnt experience the censoring as troublesome as I immediately felt it suited the time and setting.

Looking forward to your thoughts so far.

I have just finished it. This was a re-read for me and last time I gave it 5 stars. This time, I would very much like to increase my rating, but I sadly cannot!

Reasons for wanting to upgrade my rating? Last time through, I didn't really understand how the structure helped, but this time I really picked up on the sense of acceleration. I love the way the story takes its time at the start with a long, long set up and then it then it gradually picks up speed until a sudden rush at the end. I won't say what "the end" is, but I will say that I found this an incredibly enjoyable and satisfying book to read. 6 stars, if that were possible.

Things I love about this book: the characterisation, the virtuosity of the plotting, the writing. The sheer fun of reading it.

Here's a strange coincidence: finishing this book has taken my number of pages read in 2016 to 4096. When you finish this book you will realise the significance of this.

I think the reason I didn't like this one as much as a lot of people do is that it took me so long to read it. I think the pace and the different sizes of the parts would have been much more impactful if I'd read it in a much shorter timespan (it took my three weeks to read it) so I think if I ever go back to read it again I'll do it when I have a bit more time to just sit down and get through it in a few sittings.

Conversations are eerily quiet this month ;) I'm sure it's because you're all just so absorbed in The Luminaries that you haven't checked in on the real world for a while!

I hope it's going well for you all. I know it's an intimidating beast, but once you get into it, it's such a fun and surprisingly easy read. Best of luck!

Maxwell wrote: "Conversations are eerily quiet this month ;) I'm sure it's because you're all just so absorbed in The Luminaries that you haven't checked in on the real world for a while!

I hope it's going well f..."

It IS rather quiet here this month compared with the last few months! I'm looking forward to some discussion starting soon. Two questions to maybe get things going:

1. Do you think the complexity of the structure adds to or detracts from the plot?
2. Personally, I don't subscribe to astrology, but I would be interested to know if anyone who does has views on the astrological influences in the book.

I've had so many books ( and I won 13 more!) that I'm finding it difficult to juggle two books at the same time. I'll try squeeze The Luminaries.

I have conflicting opinions on this book, but still have about 200 pages to go before I make up my mind...

The astrology did nothing for me, which is probably because I don't know much about it - will be interested to hear other people's interpretations on that.

The astrological aspects were completely lost on me. I was tempted to do a bit of research and then reread it but it'll take so long and the book is so huge that I'm scared to commit to doing that :') I'd definitely be interested to hear more about how the astrology adds to the characters and the plot though.

http://www.welovethisbook.com/feature...

Commentary on the astrology influences.

Read it back in November. I didn't get the astrology part at all. It's basically just the start of the chapter (as far as I'm aware) so I just ignored it.

I found it quite funny how every time a character appears we get a full run down of their attire. This part here below made me laugh when I read it. These are the only sentences in which this Dutch sailor is mentioned in the book and yet we know how he wears his jacket.


"In fact Nilssen had been first spurred to make his voyage to New Zealand by a chance encounter with an able seaman at a roadside inn near Southampton, who was boasting (rather improbably, as it turned out) of his own encounters with the primitive peoples of the South Seas. The sailor was a Dutchman, and wore his jacket cut short above his hips."

Just started this one, about 50 pages in but I'm wondering if I need to understand the astrological charts to appreciate the story as I find these a little baffling! If anyone who has read the book could advise that would be great :)

Hi Claire - I love this book and I don't know a thing about astrology. I would say just enjoy the ride!

Thanks Neil, I appreciate the advice, didn't want to miss a trick if I should have prepared better! I'm just gonna crack on and see where it takes me, I'm intrigued so far. Can't wait to report back when I've made some progress.