I could not finish The Luminaries…

  This week-end, I tried one more time to finish The Luminaries. The winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2013, Eleanor Catton’s  novel has received wide  acclaim for its sophisticated narrative, its  richly evoking descriptions and its beautiful writing. I must admit that I was initially delighted by its Victorian style and the promises that I could sense in the book. Yet, after a while, I was ploughing through the plot with increased difficulty, and in the end I just dropped it after 400 pages. I just was not interested in this murder mystery story set in New Zealand during the 19th-century gold rush, and I completely missed the meaning of the astrological symbolism that underpins its narrative structure. I still think it’s a good book, and it probably deserves its praise. But it’s just not for me.