The Luminaries

Thanks for your posting BTW

Glad others feel a bit the same as me about it. I do appreciate the beautiful writing though, and she has taken the time to get the rather 'formal' speaking style of the time.However I forget who the characters are, what has happened, and the timeline!I may try the Rose Tremain book.

I found it hard to understand why this book had won the Booker Prize! I agree with what you say about it, TerriBull. It made the West Coast area of NZ seem dreadfully dreary! I think a much better book set in the same period in NZ is The Colour by Rose Tremain who, unlike Eleanor Catton isn't a Kiwi but makes it feel as if she is.

rosesarered - I read this book a while back, it's very long and I found it tedious. There are a lot of characters, a lot of conversations, which I found I had to keep going back to at times. I'm not afraid of long books if they crack along, I really enjoyed Crimson Petal and the White, The Goldfinch and a number of other books with 800 pages or more, this one really dragged and ultimately, for me, it was disappointing and I wished I hadn't wasted so much time on it.

However, don't let me put you off, you may really enjoy it.