<p>You can attribute a quote to another poster by doing the following – EXCEPT, where I have put parentheses, put brackets instead:</p>
<p>(quote=NJTheatreMOM)How do you guys make the quoted person’s name into a blue “link”?(/quote)</p>
<p>^ If you change the parentheses into brackets [ ], it will look like this:</p>
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<p>The blue link happens automatically, but you have to type the name in accurately if you really want to use the link. For example, goodnenuffmom typed just Mary instead of Mary13, so the link doesn’t actually go to my profile.</p>
<p>The name didn’t use to be a live link – I think that has happened with the upgrade.</p>
<p>I really did not cotton on to the magical realism until I’d done with the book. Rather annoyed with myself! OTOH, it seems to me if you are going to introduce the fantastical, you should do it earlier! Perhaps I should have been prepared with Moody’s “ghost”, but at the time I thought that there was a perfectly logical explanation for what he’d seen.</p>
<p>P.S. NJTheatreMOM, I see that you already use boxes to quote other posters. Sorry to give you instructions for something you know how to do! I was on auto-pilot. So my final answer is…I have no idea how you can make the poster’s name into a live blue link. For me, it just happens automatically…like MAGIC! </p>
<p>Another huge clue … Lydia explaining to Anna that Anna and Emery are astral twins and wondering what would happen should they meet. I pegged that section as important and even then didn’t take the next step.</p>
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<p>Moody obviously coached Emery so I can totally agree with you. Awareness on Emery’s part … I’d like to think so. Anna feels the connection with Emery; she can’t explain it but it comforts her. She knows the extraordinary is happening to her.</p>
<p>I don’t feel cheated by the magical realism … it was there for me to figure out … not Catton’s fault I didn’t. Maybe she thought all readers are like Mary. Ultimately it’s what made me love the book - a puzzle to solve and the insertion of magical realism to connect the unlucky soul mates. Makes me happy. (I will read this book again at some point.)</p>
<p>That would mostly be me too. I’ve tried to read One Hundred Years of Solitude several times, and just can’t do it. But I’ve been okay with some others (Allende’s House of the Spirits) and LeGuin’s *Unlocking the Air *. This one didn’t bother me in the end, because I’d already been sucked into the story - and I guess there’s enough of the astrological stuff to suggest that this isn’t quite this world. Or maybe that it is, and there’s just more magic in it than I think. :)</p>
<p>Or maybe it’s not me. I’m perfectly fine with straight fantasy, though I like sci-fi better.</p>
<p>The population of Hokitika really gave me a sense of the place. It reminded me of an Old West town: rough men on horses, a prostitute with a heart of gold, one bank, one hotel, one newspaper, and a token Indian (“a noble savage of the first degree” [p. 478]).</p>
<p>Families and children are virtually nonexistent, yet there is a feeling that change is coming, that civilization will find the place and be welcomed. Pritchard weeps when he hears about Anna’s baby, thinking:</p>
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<p>(a sobering aside: think of all the problems Anna’s poor baby might have had if it had lived, given Anna’s opium addiction.)</p>
<p>If you go to google maps you can use street view to walk around Hokitka. While it doesn’t have that many of the old buildings I was surprised by how much it looks like the American west. </p>
<p>That’s right – I think Moody just chose the Crown because he was too rattled by his trip on the Godspeed to spend time looking for better digs. So scratch my “one hotel” comment. </p>
<p>The aspect of the novel that most interested me were the parallels to the frontier US West (except for the rain). Reminded me a good deal of David Milch’s DEADWOOD, where a major theme is the coming of civilization to a frontier region. </p>
<p>This is a quote from Rose Tremain’s novel The Colour, another novel about the New Zealand gold rush:</p>
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Hokitika town was still busy…The Bank of New Zealand had a new, much larger sign, and other, smaller, private banks had come clustering into tilting shanties, to proclaim their ‘advantageous offers for the meanest find of gold dust.’</p>
<p>Now that you mention it, the rain is almost a character unto itself in The Luminaries. Just glancing through the book, it’s practically a constant: “clattering,” “lashing,” “driving,” “drumming” rain, sometimes for weeks at a time. Definitely a mood-setter.</p>
<p>Great pictures of Hokitika! It looks similar to how I envisioned it. Maybe a little more dense, but similar. It did always seem like it was raining or had just rained. Everybody was always wet. It made me think about the women wearing long dresses and the bottoms constantly being muddy. I wouldn’t like that at all.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about some of those non-puzzles aspects, particularly characterizations. One of the things that Catton has a tendency to do is give a long summary of a person’s character, rather than just let that character reveal itself through action or dialogue. For an example, see the description of Ah Sook on p. 326, beginning with,”He was not surly by temperament…”</p>
<p>Another example (of many) would be the description of Charlie Frost on p. 171, beginning, “Charlie Frost was a man of scant reputation…” </p>
<p>I imagine that Catton’s goal was to have each of the 12 men stand out more clearly by providing so much descriptive detail, but it didn’t help me connect with the characters in any meaningful way. I preferred her more subtle revelations of character. </p>
<p>For example, for the most part, Lydia is entirely self-serving, but there is one scene where she shows a glimmer of compassion: When she and Carver are working out the final details of their con, she says twice–and apparently sincerely–“Poor Mr. Lauderback.”</p>
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<p>She goes on to say that she pities Lauderback, adding: “He is so ashamed, Francis. Of Crosbie, of his father, of himself. I cannot help but feel pity for a man who is ashamed.”</p>
<p>I liked her in that brief scene—it allowed us to see another facet of her character.</p>
<p>Since I like the humor in the book, I thought I’d mention something that amused me: Nilssen unwillingly funding the new jail and having others thank him for his generosity and civic mindedness.</p>
(I will read this book again at some point.)</p>
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