Reviews and Comments

Virgo: You will find The Luminaries a pleasant enough read. Unfortunately, I was borrowing a Kindle version from the library and felt under immense pressure to read it before the loan period expired. This book wants to be read in an ongoing fashion, not stop-and-start like I did. I wanted to like it more than I did, honest. It just became a slog, and then an endurance contest, to get through it.

Libra: You’ll get a lot out of The Luminaries if you understand astrology. Note: I’m not a Libra and I got nothing out of the complex charting that ostensibly controlled the characters’ interactions.

Scorpio: Heed this quote from The Luminaries: “What a convoluted picture it was—and how difficult to see in its entirety!” (page 343)

Sagittarius: You’ll find it easy to keep track of the sequence of events, since each chapter includes a date. Unfortunately, not being a Sagittarius, I skimmed over the dates and found up somewhat at a loss for when things had been occurring.

Pisces: You’ll like The Luminaries because you’ll have the opportunity to keep track of lots and lots of characters! The first half of the book introduces more than a dozen supporting characters before the story finally closes in on the central four. As for me (not a Pisces), I did not have a good enough memory (or inclination, to be honest) to keep track of all these people. I started keeping a cheat-sheet of names, occupations, and relationships at about page 100. About halfway through the book I gave up trying to map who knew who, when.

Aries: In search of a book with the flavor of the HBO series Deadwood? The Luminaries might be it, but you should keep looking. Like Deadwood, The Luminaries has a strong sense of place (New Zealand), action (gold mining) and timeframe (mid-1800s). However, Deadwood’s characters far surpass those in The Luminaries.

Gemini: You’ll be able to overlook some of the inconsistencies in this plot. Me, though, I’m not a Gemini. I couldn’t help wondering if Moody really did see Staines inside the shipping crate, and why Ah Sook never told anyone that Staines was with him during the time that Staines was supposedly “missing.” I also found it ridiculous that Staines had been shot in Anna’s room, when the bullet seemingly vanished; I think I would have been happier had the "mystical" connection between Anna and Staines had been left just that...mystical. With a Man Booker Prize-winnder over 800 pages, you’d think these loose ends would get covered, or covered in a neater fashion.

After having trouble with Wolf Hall, I was reluctant to continue with the series. I am glad I did! Bring Up the Bodies was much easier to read than its predecessor. Hilary Mantel (or her editors) finally got rid of the "he" problem with the sometimes awkward construction: "He, Cromwell."

I have learned by now that Mantel is telling the story of Cromwell. He (yes, he, Cromwell) is the center of attention; not Henry, not Anne. Cromwell is really stuck in an ugly place; he has no choice but to do the king's bidding. To Mantel's credit, she maintains some suspense even though we know the outcome. Cromwell is portrayed as a subtle, brilliant, vindictive, selfish man, and I mean this in all the best ways.

My favorite quotes from this book:

By Henry: "We cannot help what we do, really. Once you are thundering down at a man, you cannot check." He says this while preparing for jousting, but really, isn't that just Henry in a nutshell?

By Cromwell: "You know I am not a man with whom you can have inconsequential conversations."

I feel churlish giving this collection of essays only 3 stars. Rebecca Solnit's mother has Alzheimer's, and Solnit herself touches on some medical issues she undergoes. These personal issues are addressed eloquently, but then we bounce off to read about Iceland and chess and Frankenstein and river rafting and Buddhism. It was a little like that James Burke series, "Connections," where one thing leads to another and another.

The writing style is lovely, and approaches poetic. As evident by the chapter titles, the book is structured like a set of nesting dolls. Actually, I think it's more of a labyrinth (which is yet another topic Solnit addresses). With a labyrinth, you find your way in, to the center, and then retrace your steps back out. Sadly, I had less of a sense of Solnit's "center." The first half of the book was engrossing, but I found myself skimming through the second half. The connections Solnit makes are interesting, but I would have liked more tie-in to her personal stories.