The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Hardback:  832 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher:  Granta Publications 2013
Source:  Tywyn Public Library, Wales.
First Sentence: The twelve men congregated in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel gave the impression of a party accidentally met.
Favourite Quote: “Love cannot be reduced to a catalogue of reasons why, and a catalogue of reasons cannot be put together into love.” 
Review Quote: The Luminaries is an impressive novel, captivating, intense and full of surprises. --Times Literary Supplement
Literary Awards:  Man Booker Prize Winner 2013
My Opinion: Complex but engrossing.


At over 800 pages, this was rather long and when I collected the book from the library I was rather shocked not having realised when I ordered this just how massive this novel was. As a friend commented it was a good thing thing I did not fall asleep reading it in bed, dropping this may well have been painful. Joking apart I was at first put off by the sheer size and reading the blurb the number of main characters. This was going to take some concentration, in fact it took me at least 100 pages before I really got into this and my early fears of not being able to read it all were banished as I began to understand the plot.
It is a great achievement for the 28 year old author that she should have won the 2013 Man Booker Prize against 150 other authors whose novels were also submitted this year.

Set in 1866 the story transports us to New Zealand during the gold rush. It is a world of banking, shipping, seances, drugs, sex and lots of mystery. As the novel opens Walter Moody newly arrived in the small gold rush town of Hokitika encounters  a group of twelve men gathered  in secrecy for a meeting in a hotel. A series of unexplained events in the township have drawn these men together, a wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to take her own life and a large fortune has been found in the home of a local drunkard. Walter Moody finds himself drawn into the group as they all take turns to relate their stories and gradually all is revealed as the mystery unfolds in a story of astral influences and fortunes, that is amazingly complex but still a pleasure to read.

As I mentioned earlier it took me a good few pages to feel properly involved in the storyline but once I had become so it was an engrossing tale, which I am glad I have read. In conclusion then a complex and engrossing novel which by the time you have finished the last page will have all fallen into place leaving the reader satisfied.


An interview with Eleanor Catton.

Author Profile

Eleanor Catton was born on September 24th 1985 in Canada while her father, a New Zealand graduate, was completing a doctorate at the University of Western Ontario. She lived in Yorkshire until the age of 13, before her family settled in Canterbury, New Zealand. She studied English at the University of Canterbury, and completed a Master's in Creative Writing at The Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington. She wrote her first novel, The Rehearsal, as her master's thesis.


The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the following websites, where you can also find more information about the author and her writing. 

Goodreads Author Profile  Eleanor Catton - Wikipedia  YouTube  Eleanor Catton on Twitter

The Real Katie Lavender by Erica James

Paperback: 463 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher:  Orion Books UK 2012
Source:  Tywyn Public Library
First Sentence: 'At the age of thirty, Katie Lavender believed she was better equipped than most when it came to receiving bad news.
Review Quote: With marvellous writing, eccentric characters and a great plot, this has it all. (CLOSER 2012-08-11)
My Opinion: Great Escapism

Erica James is an author I have been a long time fan of, since 1996 in fact when I read A Breath of Fresh Air.  The Real Katie Lavender makes the thirteenth novel of hers that I have read. After having not read any of her books for a few years this is the second in the last few months, great escapism just what I have needed recently. Her novels might not be literary but they are always well constructed, this latest one is no exception, with lots of secrets revealed.

The biggest secret of all is revealed to the heroine of the title Katie Lavender by a solicitor a year after the death of her mother.  It is not a spoiler to tell you about this big secret as the reader knows all about it from the start of the novel. Katie is the recipient of a large trust fund that has been built for her by her birth father, a great shock to her that the man she called Dad was not her biological father but a man named Stirling Nightingale. Curiosity gets the better of her and despite her initial reactions to this news she decides she wants to find out more about this man. Her clandestine enquiries lead her to discover that she is part of what from the outsider's view point appears to be a very successful and happy family with a perfect lifestyle! In fact the family turns out to be plagued with problems, some of the characters are very stereotyped and you find yourself sympathising with some and irritated beyond belief by others. Katie becomes embroiled in the life of the Nightingale's and their complicated family relationships as they all seem to lurch from one family crisis to another. A good mix of romance, drama and humour that will keep you reading to find out how all will be resolved.

In conclusion then if  you are looking for contemporary fiction that is pure escapism then Erica James will satisfy your requirements.

 I have reviewed some of her earlier novels on the blog. They are Tell It To The Skies,  It's The Little Things   Hidden Talents. and The Hidden Cottage.

I am having trouble posting videos on the blog but here is the link to Erica James discussing the novel on YouTube. The Real Katie Lavender


Author Profile

Erica James, née Sullivan was born in 1960 in Surrey, England, UK and she grew up on Hayling Island, Hampshire from the age of 4.  Now divorced, with two grown-up sons, Edward and Samuel, she divides her time between Cheshire, UK and Lake Como, Italy

 She began writing after attending a creative writing course at the Arvon Foundation, and published her first novel in 1996. In 2006, her novel Gardens of Delight won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Romantic Novelists' Association. Erica James  is the author of sixteen best selling novels including her most recent, The Real Katie Lavender.

Apparently she has an insatiable appetite for other people's business and will readily strike up a conversation with strangers in the hope of unearthing a useful gem for her writing. She finds it is the best way to write authentic characters for her novels, although her two grown up sons claim they will never recover from a childhood spent in a perpetual state of embarrassment at their mother's compulsion.

The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the author's publicist and following websites, where you can also find more information about the author and her writing. 

Goodreads - Author Profile  Erica James - Official Author Website  Facebook Profile

Amazon - Author Profile

A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks

                                            

Hardback: 294 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Hutchinson 2012
Source: Tywyn Public Library
First Sentence: Geoffrey Talbot was supposed to be a linguist, but spent most of his time at university playing games.
Favourite Quotes: 1. “Sometimes my whole life seems like a dream; occasionally I think that someone else has lived it for me. The events and the sensations, the stories and the things that make me what I am in the eyes of other people, the list of facts that make my life ... They could be mine, they might be yours.” 
2.“If not just the brain but the quirks that made the individual were composed of recycled matter only, it was hard to be sure where the edges of one such being ended and another person began.” 
3. “I don't think you ever understand your life - not till it's finished and probably not then either. The more I live the less I seem to understand.” 
Review Quote: "It does what any good novel should - it unsettles, it moves, and it forces us to question who we are" (Sunday Times)
My Opinion: An extremely profound and thought provoking novel

My introduction to the novels of Sebastian Faulks was in 1999 when I read Charlotte Grey which still remains one of my favourites from this talented author.  Sometimes I read a novel where quotes just seem to jump out of the page at me, another time it is hard to find even one for discussion at the book club I belong to. Sebastian Faulk's novels have usually been in the former category, A Possible Life was no exception and I am going to do something I do not normally do in the body of a review and include three quotes. These quotes are part of the essence of the emotional depth behind the stories.

 “Sometimes my whole life seems like a dream; occasionally I think that someone else has lived it for me. The events and the sensations, the stories and the things that make me what I am in the eyes of other people, the list of facts that make my life ... They could be mine, they might be yours.” 

“If not just the brain but the quirks that made the individual were composed of recycled matter only, it was hard to be sure where the edges of one such being ended and another person began.” 

“I don't think you ever understand your life - not till it's finished and probably not then either. The more I live the less I seem to understand.” 

While I was reading this and immediately afterwards whilst thinking about this review I had very mixed emotions about the whole concept of this novel which the author has called 'a novel in five parts'. Maybe it has something to do with the emotional year I have had in my personal life but I found this to be an extremely profound and thought provoking novel, just read again the quotes above!  If as one of the characters Elena ponders 'our brains are composed of re-cycled matter' it is difficult to be sure where one one human ends and another begins. Maybe this is what the author is trying to show us, how we are all subtly connected through shared encounters, thoughts and impressions.

Crossing continents and times from the 19C to the future this is a story in five parts.  An English teacher, a landlord of London slums, a French servant, an Italian scientist and finally a British record producer in the USA all share the drama of their particular lives and how lives can be shaped by love and opportunity.  There are links across time and place for example the workhouse and French cottage are mentioned in more than one part, plus the character in the future, has dreams about the past we have already read about. 
In conclusion this was an unsettling read but one which will satisfy his many established fans and may well draw in new readers as once again he has shown the breadth of diversity in his writing. 

Link to video on YouTube
Sebastian Faulks introduces 'A Possible Life'

I have read the majority of his novels, four of which I have previously reviewed here, I am including the links to them for those of you that might be interested.

Devil May Care  Engleby   Human Traces  A Week In December

Author Profile

Sebastian Charles Faulks CBE was born in Donnington, England on April 20th 1953  He is a novelist, journalist, and broadcaster who is best known for his historical novels set in France — The Girl at the Lion D'Or, Birdsong, and Charlotte Grey. He comes from an interesting family background as can be read in this biographical profile. 
He is the son of Pamela (Lawless) and Peter Ronald Faulks, a Berkshire solicitor who later became a judge. He grew up in Newbury. His mother was both cultured and highly strung. She introduced him to reading and music at a young age. Her own mother, from whom she was estranged, had been an actress in repertory. His father was a company commander in the Duke of Wellington's Regiment, in which he served from 1939 to 1946. He saw action in Holland, France, Tunisia, Italy (at the Anzio landings), Syria and Palestine. He was wounded three times and awarded an immediate MC after an action against the Hermann Goering Parachute Troops in North Africa in 1942.
His maternal grandfather, Philip Henry Lawless, enlisted in the 1st Battalion, 28th county of London Regiment, otherwise known as The Artists' Rifles in 1914, and served in trench warfare on the Western Front until 1917, when he moved to the 26th Battalion Middlesex Regiment and finished the war in Salonika. He was decorated several times and received the Military Cross in 1918, the standard Victory Medal, the British War Medal and the 1914 Star. He eventually left the Army and returned to work as a wine merchant - his father's original occupation.
His paternal grandfather, Major James Faulks (Major was his name, not a military rank) was an accountant who had previously worked as a schoolmaster at a private boarding school in Tunbridge Wells, while Major's provisions merchant father, William Robert Faulks, supplied dairy products in late Victorian Paddington.
Faulks' father wanted him to become a diplomat. He claims his first ambition was to be a taxi driver until at the age of fifteen, while reading George Orwell, he decided to become a novelist instead. In fact, he is the only member of his paternal family not to be a lawyer; his father and uncle were judges and his brother Edward is a QC specialising in medical negligence.
Faulks was educated at the fee-charging Wellington College and studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he won an open exhibition and to which he was elected an honorary fellow in 2007. He took a teaching job at the Dwight-Franklin International School after university while also moving into journalism, becoming a features writer for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and was recruited by the Independent as Literary Editor in 1986. He became the Deputy Editor of the Independent on Sunday before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. He has been a columnist forThe Guardian (1992-8) and The Evening Standard (1997-9).
He continues to contribute articles and reviews to a number of newspapers and magazines and to broadcast regularly. He wrote and presented the Channel 4 series Churchill's Secret Army, about the wartime Special Operations Executive (SOE), screened in 1999. Faulks is a team captain on BBC Radio 4's literary quiz The Write Stuff.
Faulks lives with his wife, Veronica (formerly his assistant at The Independent), and their three children William, Holly and Arthur . He works from his study in a top floor flat of a house near Holland Park Avenue, ten minutes from his home, starting work at 10am and finishing at 6pm, regardless of whether he is writing a book or not.
He was appointed a CBE in the Birthday Honours List 2002 for "services to Literature" and he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1994.
Faulks supports West Ham United. He writes about this in "Upton and Other Parks," a contribution to the 1990 football book Saturday's Boys.


The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the following websites, where you can also find more information about the author and his writing.

Goodreads Author Profile    Sebastian Faulks - Biography  Amazon Author Profile  

Sebastian Faulks - Facebook   Author's Official Website

The Great 1953 Trek by Dulcie Beak and Diane Stuckey

Kindle Edition: File Size 150KB 
Genre: Travel Memoir
Publisher:  Self Published by Author.
Source: Purchased from Amazon.
First Sentences: It all started in March 1952. we had read in an English daily newspaper of a man called Hinchliff, who had just broken the Cape Town to London overland record in a Vauxhall car.
My Opinion:  A delightful narrative.

I do not read or review many factual books but I made an exception for this one and purchased for my Kindle as I am a reader of the author Diane Stuckey's blogs, which I do not believe I am allowed to mention in an Amazon review, so those reading this review there will have to do some research if they are interested.

It is a delightful narrative of a family's overland trip from Bath in the UK to Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia in a Land Rover converted especially for this pioneering trip which took place in 1952 when the second author was just a little girl. She has edited her mothers diaries of their adventures crossing Europe, The Sahara, West and Central Africa to reach their destination. What an amazing experience it was for this intrepid family consisting of Dulcie and Don the parents and their two children, Diane who was just 7 years old and her brother David 15 years old to complete a trek of over 7,000 miles in just a few eventful months.

I will not reveal any of their adventures here but just recommend this quick read to all that think they enjoy travel. To read what it was like to undertake this trip in the fifties when only the privileged few ventured abroad on holiday let alone undertook such a journey, is an eye opener.  Also included in this Kindle edition are some interesting photos from the adventure which add interest to the narrative.

I would like to see this taken further with a sequel about the families life in Rhodesia, having edited her mother's diary I believe Diane would make a good job of turning her own diaries into a book.


Author Profile.

Diane Stuckey

I have taken the liberty of copying Diane's own explanation about this book from her website, which she wrote I believe soon after her mother Dulcie's death if I understand this profile correctly.

Dulcie Beak (10 June 1915 - 17 June 2002)

Introduction by Diane Stuckey (Dulcie's daughter)

For years my mother Dulcie Beak had been saying that she would write a book on our trip in 1953 from Bath, England to Salisbury, Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia.   I have her diary, photos, my (then very young) memory and copy of a rough rewrite of the trip which she did two years ago, still meaning to write her book.   I now hope to put this all together in her sudden absence and in her own words as far as possible.  I am the only surviving member of the journey, my brother David being killed in a car accident in 1959 and my father (Don)  passed away after a very short illness in 1993.  It is a trip that I would love to repeat , being older  and more able now to appreciate it so much more, but with all the political problems that are now involved in Africa, I know it is a trip that would be very difficult, if nigh impossible to do now.    I have kept all the names of countries and towns as they were at the time of the trip and this is how I intend to keep the narrative, so it is as close as possible to the situation prevailing at the time of the original diary.  No disrespect whatever is intended to the countries and peoples involved.  For those interested, I am sure that a current map of Africa would  provide the reader with a good idea of the route and the new names of countries and towns.  

The biographical information and photo used in this post are with thanks to the following websites, where you can also find more information about the authors and their writing. I mentioned in my review that it would be great if Diane Stuckey were to follow this up by writing a book of her memories of growing up in Rhodesia. Well she has in fact already started by writing it up in a fascinating on-line blog about her childhood. She also writes a blog about her ex-pat life in France. I have included links to both these sites in the list that follows.

The Great 1953 Trek - Website    My Life Before Charente     My Life in the Charente