The Luminaries - February CC Book Club Selection

[mathmom]

<p>Well I don’t think reading the last chapter of the Luminaries would have helped much. I’ve been guilty of reading the last chapter of mysteries from time to time. I get really impatient with them. The absolute worst mystery I’ve ever read was one of Martha Grimes’. I read a lot of them at one time having gotten invested in the characters even though they annoyed me. Anyway - last chapter went something like this. “Jury looked out over the landscape and was satisfied as all the pieces fell into place. The End.” And I’m yelling at book, “Not for me! Not for me!” Last book of hers I read. Anyway, I’m positive I’d enjoy the Luminairies more with a second reason, since I really was enjoying it by the end. I just wish I read faster, because there are too many other books I want to read more. The funny thing about the book was I thought in some ways the mystery was more about how and why the gold got where it did more than who killed Crosbie. </p>

<p>Do we need to care who killed Crosbie? I do agree though, that the book fails in that I didn’t really end up caring about any of the characters that much. I think I liked Gasgoigne the best, and it seems to me he gets shortchanged.</p>

[ignatius]

<p>My favorite “Stellar” character - Cowell Devlin</p>

<p>My favorite “Planetary” character(s) - Walter Moody and Emery Staines</p>

<p>The trial section probably influences these choices. I like how Moody orchestrates the trial to get justice where justice is due. He has to know that all does not logically add up so he just works at getting where he needs to be.</p>

<p>Devlin, as chaplain, could have taken a rigid turn but does as Moody does: acknowledge the unknowable and work toward right. </p>

<p>Emery - our first real peek at Emery - is pretty irresistible. We learn more about him in the flashback chapters and he seems so young, impressionable, and ready to experience life. In a way, he enters the story as Moody exits.</p>

<p>So mathmom why Gascoigne? </p>

[mathmom]

<p>I thought he was sweet. I liked the way he took care of Anna even when he realized that her heart was elsewhere. And I like how he guarded that gold like a pitbull.</p>

[Mary13]

<p>

@mathmom

The funny thing about the book was I thought in some ways the mystery was more about how and why the gold got where it did more than who killed Crosbie.</p>

<p>Do we need to care who killed Crosbie?

</p>

<p>

Was the novel’s ending a shock or inevitable? And how does the outcome change your opinion of free will and determinism?

</p>

<p>mathmom, I agree. To me the mystery was in the journey of the gold—where it went and why. I assumed from the get-go that Francis Carver was behind Crosbie’s murder, and Catton did not insert any red herrings to fool us into feeling differently. So I was surprised to read the above discussion question. A shock? What shock? </p>

<p>As for the free will and determinism part, my opinion was not changed in any way. Eleanor Catton said in the interview that one of the questions she tried to raise in the book was the extent to which a person can overcome their nature. So I viewed the astrological piece in that light: human behavior is not set in stone, but we have tendencies to behave in certain ways (due to either nature or nurture) and rising above those tendencies can be a challenge. Sometimes, the path we might be taking is changed by luck, or lack of same.</p>

[Mary13]

<p>

@mathmom

I think I liked Gasgoigne the best, and it seems to me he gets shortchanged.

</p>

<p>That made me think of a line from the New York Times review:</p>

<p>

Characters come and go according to planetary movements. (The one representing Mercury sets, as it were, somewhere in the middle of the book and is never heard from again.) <a href=“Eleanor Catton Discusses ‘The Luminaries’ - The New York Times”>Eleanor Catton Discusses ‘The Luminaries’ - The New York Times;

</p>

<p>I don’t have the book with me, and even I did, I have sworn off charts for the indefinite future, so who is the character representing Mercury that disappears in the middle and is never heard from again?</p>

<p>

@Ignatius

Emery - our first real peek at Emery - is pretty irresistible.

</p>

<p>Did you notice that the male interviewer on the program did not like Emery nearly as much as we did? Maybe it’s a “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” kind of thing (ha ha, astrological humor).</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>Moody is Mercury… I don’t think it is quite correct that he disappears halfway though the book, because he provides counsel to Anna in the trial sequence that starts around p. 638.</p>

[ignatius]

<p>I think Moody disappears for obvious reasons as novel jumps back in time. He also tramps off to search for gold on page 715 - well past halfway.</p>

[Mary13]

<p>From another review:</p>

<p>

Catton doesn’t come out and tell you which of the seven Planetary characters goes with each symbol, but it’s not terribly difficult to figure out. Catton takes this application of astrology very seriously. For example, Mercury is only visible for a short period of time in New Zealand, and so Moody’s time in the book is similarly short.</p>

<p>“I had his arc plotted out,” Catton told the Telegraph. "I knew he had about four months before he had to set.” <a href=“http://juneauempire.com/art/2013-11-14/book-review-luminaries#.UvVBQvZkJKw”>http://juneauempire.com/art/2013-11-14/book-review-luminaries#.UvVBQvZkJKw&lt;/a&gt;

</p>

<p>Thanks for the Moody info, NJTM and ignatius. And—duh! (knocks self in forehead)—I might have figured it out had I noticed that the chapter in which Moody heads off with Paddy Ryan is entitled “Mercury Sets.”</p>

<p>(I agree with you both – hanging around the story until p. 715 does not qualify as a “short” appearance.)</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>That Juneau Empire article mentions that at the height of the gold rush, Hokitika had 102 hotels and three opera houses. Wow!</p>

[Mary13]

<p>

@ignatius

Anna is fair game to him by dint of where she is. I don’t think he forces her, so I can only figure she’s not completely innocent in that way. She only feels upset when she realizes that he’s Lydia’s husband not because of other actions taken.

</p>

<p>Yes, it was more like the embarrassment of a faux pas than the trauma of lost innocence. In the grand scheme of things, Anna’s career as a “member of the old profession” is relatively short-lived. She arrives in April 1865 and by mid-October (after she loses the baby), she has donned the mourning dress and gone straight.</p>

<p>When I was reviewing the timeline, I came across a passage in which Pritchard thinks about how Anna lost the baby “sometime after the spring equinox, when the evenings were becoming longer, and the days brighter.” I knew Anna had lost the baby in October and I could not for the life of me figure out what Pritchard was talking about….until I suddenly realized: New Zealand. It’s all reversed. Spring arrives in September. “D’oh!”<br>
:"> </p>

[ignatius]

<p>

@Mary

In the grand scheme of things, Anna’s career as a “member of the old profession” is relatively short-lived.

It may have been short-lived but it seemed that a goodly number of our 12 men knew Anna - in the biblical sense.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>Well there may have been 102 hotels, but it sure didn’t seem like there were 102 prostitutes!</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>^Although Catton barely mentions any prostitutes apart from Anna (Mannering once stated that she was the best), historically speaking, there were apparently at least forty prostitutes in Hokitika at around the time of the story.</p>

<p>

Many of the 40-odd prostitutes who worked in the Hokitika area were given nicknames: ‘Hobart Town Sal’ of Woodstock, and the obese ‘Porpoise Mary’ being two examples.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1w11/weldon-barbara”>http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1w11/weldon-barbara&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I would have thought there might have been even more.</p>

<p>By the way, Anna was apparently not allowed to have men at the Gridiron at night. I"m not sure how she would have conducted her business!</p>

[Mary13]

<p>

@ignatius

Crosbie’s death: Perhaps Crosbie is already drunk - blacked out. Carver enters, doses Crosbie’s whiskey, pokes around, leaves. Crosbie drinks. Or perhaps Crosbie’s on his feet but drunk enough not to assess correctly the trouble he’s in.

</p>

<p>Going back to this for a second. (I guess it bothers me.) On p. 140, Shepard says, “Dr. Gillies was careful in the examination of the dead man’s stomach and intestines, however, which contained not only food and spirits, but traces of laudanum—though not enough, I should add, to warrant undue suspicion."</p>

<p>Yet in the final italicized summary on p. 831, we are told “Crosbie Wells drinks half the phial.” Are we supposed to chalk up the discrepancy to the lack of decent toxicology tests in 1865?</p>

<p>One detail about the Carver-Crosbie murder amused me because I thought it was incongruous, yet true-to-life at the same time. Tauwhare reports that “he saw Carver approach Wells’s cottage, knock, and enter” (p. 306). The point of Carver’s visit was pre-meditated, cold-blooded murder. How nice of him to knock first! </p>

<p>

@NJTheatreMOM

By the way, Anna was apparently not allowed to have men at the Gridiron at night. I’m not sure how she would have conducted her business!

</p>

<p>She must have made a lot of house calls. Apparently, Anna and her three co-workers (“Kate, the plump one; Sal, with the curly hair; Lizzie, with the freckles”) were the 19th century version of high-priced call girls. Anna made “appointments” with “clients” (p. 152). Edgar Clinch says about Mannering:</p>

<p>

"Dick—he’s got an eye for them. Only the class acts—and he doesn’t drop his standard; he holds to it. You want a shilling whore, you go down to Clap Alley, and see what you catch. There’s no spending your loose change with him. It’s pounds or nothing.” (p. 243)

</p>

[ignatius]

<p>And as Mannering tells Anna:</p>

<p>

“I’ve never had a girl murdered, and I’ve never had a girl beat,” he said.</p>

<p>“I know,” she said.</p>

<p>“So you can trust me,” he said.

</p>

<p>I thought to make a snide remark here about Anna landing in a good place then, but I guess she did, if you think about it. Luck is not with Anna once she meets Lydia Wells, but it could be so much worse (referring here to Clap Alley).</p>

<p>I forgot the coroner’s report. So, why do the men believe Crosbie was murdered? The phial of laudanum? The hidden gold?</p>

<p>We know Carver knocks and enters the cabin, uncorks the laudanum, and Crosbie drinks it. Why? A threat of some sort - maybe Carver lets him know that he and Lydia have a “twinkle” on him … that they blackmailed Lauderback in his name and can continue to do so, should they choose. Crosbie hasn’t been dead long before Lauderback arrives - maybe Crosbie drinks the laudanum himself - no longer running from Carver, perhaps knowing his death can protect Lauderback. (Crosbie tells Tauwhare earlier in the book that he’s never killed a man - not many options left when it comes to Carver.) </p>

[Mary13]

<p>

@ignatius

maybe Crosbie drinks the laudanum himself - no longer running from Carver, perhaps knowing his death can protect Lauderback.

</p>

<p>I love that explanation. Crosbie would do that – it fits with the unrequited brotherly love (or at least loyalty) that he felt for Lauderback.</p>

<p>And you know what? It makes Carver’s knock on the door appropriate. He didn’t head over to Crosbie’s in a fit of homicidal rage. He had a Royal Flush in hand and knew it. All it took was a conversation to make Crosbie do Carver’s bidding.</p>

[ignatius]

<p>It makes sense: no evidence of violence in Crosbie’s cabin. Carver’s good at the con … at getting what he wants … but not a killer. He hides from Ah Sook till Shepard kills him. Carver himself could have killed Ah Sook with no repercussions - called it self-protection - but he doesn’t.</p>

<p>So Carver arrives with the laudanum and lays out the details of his “twinkle.” Crosbie - slightly drunk - humiliated, thinking that he himself brought about Lauderback’s problems, decides that he’s had enough. He drinks the laudanum and tosses the phial, landing it under the bed.</p>

<p>Still makes Carver responsible for his death though. </p>

[buenavista]

<p>Thanks for all the great links, especially the maps and pictures of Hokitika. It reminds me a little of early pictures of Gold Rush San Francisco (I had family there later in the 1850’s–“camp followers,” not prospectors), though the California gold fields were farther inland. Those gold fields had Chinese immigrants, too. </p>

<p>From the book I was envisioning Hokitika as much smaller than it really was. I think there would have been more women, and more than just a few children, but that didn’t fit the story.</p>

[NJTheatreMOM]

<p>I have been going back over the book and trying to understand the section titles. Some are pretty easy to figure out if you know which astrological signs or heavenly bodies the characters represent. Some are names from Maori astrology.</p>

<p>Here are a few titles I found confusing. Maybe someone could provide insights.</p>

<p>p. 147 MIDNIGHT DAWNS IN SCORPIO. Pritchard is Scorpio. This is the chapter in which the shooting in Anna’s hotel room occurs.</p>

<p>p. 257 TRUE NODE IN VIRGO. Quee is Virgo. True Node (also known as North Node) has something to do with the paths of the sun and moon. This is the chapter in which Mannering questions Quee aggressively.</p>

<p>p. 627 FIRST POINT OF ARIES, Tauwhare is Aries, but this section is about Emery and Anna meeting on the ship.</p>

<p>p. 663 EXALTED IN ARIES. Tauwhare is Aries, but this section is about the courtroom testimony.</p>

<p>p. 721 PART FIVE, “Weight and Lucre.” This part of the book has a number of section headings I can’t make sense of: SILVER, GOLD, IRON, TIN, TAR, and MAKEWEIGHT.</p>

<p>p. 770 MARS IN CANCER. Cancer is Clinch, but there is nothing about Clinch in this chapter.</p>

<p>p. 778 ACCIDENTAL DIGNITY. Emery learns Anna’s name, realizes Crosbie mentioned it.</p>

<p>p. 795 INHERENT DIGNITY, Staines asks Anna about her connection to Crosbie and Carver. </p>

<p>p. 809 ANOTHER KIND OF DAWN. Anna is aware of Quee feeling her gown.</p>

<p>p. 825 MOON IN TAURUS (ORION’S REACH). Taurus is Frost, but he is not mentioned in this section. I don’t know what Orion (also mentioned in the section title) signifies.</p>

[ignatius]

<p>I noticed the titles in Part Five. I figured out that values decrease as you go from silver to makeweight. (Silver was valued higher than gold at the time, mentioned obliquely a couple times in the book.) I assume the sections refer to Crosbie’s change in circumstance (value) as he moves from having a fortune (or thinking he does) to a man on the run with nothing. (Just a guess, though.)</p>