Of the three novels written by Kiwi author Eleanor Catton, no two are alike, and her doorstopper, THE LUMINARIES, won the Booker prize in 2013. I’ve had a “reader’s crush” on Catton since her first novel, The Rehearsal—about the nexus of theatre and reality. BIRNAM WOOD reinforces my adoration of her writing. She doesn’t use her narrative as a mouthpiece for her stance or posture. Her characters are precise and complex; the pace and tempo are immaculate and powerful, and the plot is exciting, exacting, intrepid, and compelling. And satirical!
It’s an ensemble cast, with arguably Mira Bunting as the main protagonist, a 30-something woman who began a volunteer collective gardening group, Birnam Wood, planting sustainable crops in neglected spaces (usually without owners’ permission). It hasn’t evolved much in the five years it has been around; money is tight and it’s a lot of work for people who have other jobs and considerations. But what would happen if an enigmatic billionaire businessman offered to lift them out of their idle state and into a thriving enterprise? How would the power dynamics play out, what are the stakes?
Mira’s friend and Birnam partner, Shelley, has one foot out the door—she’s weary of being taken for granted. And adventurer Anthony Gallo has romantic designs on Mira, even though he’s been overseas for four years, and has returned with his own rigid ideology, and is suspicious of the deal blooming with the billionaire, Robert Lemoine, and Birnam Wood. Lemoine is the surveilling shapeshifter,, piloting a plane when he wants to look in on his assets. He’s also building a Doomsday bunker, a luxe underground dominion.
Then there is recently knighted Sir Owen Darvish and his wife, Lady Darvish, who own the land near Korowai National Park and Korowai Pass, in Thorndike, where there was a deadly landslide, and near where Birnam Wood would plant. Sir Owen had other designs until the landslide happened, and now Lemoine wants to buy it, and they are at the tip of making agreements. Dark deals and secret agendas simmer, and you’ll be admitted to the furtive world of drones, surveillance, and other murky activities afforded the obscenely rich.
I admit to my preference for the third person pov. The plot opens up, is more expansive, and you can get behind all the characters. We know the stakes, most of the veiled plans and covert motivations. Our insight into the cast is uninhibited. The pages will burn as they turn, never a dull moment or a pretentious passage, the characters drive the satire of the story. It all builds to a riveting denouement—I uttered a few loud expletives along the way. The first sixty or so pages ride the runway and shape select characters-- plot ready at the gate, and then it's wheels up, liftoff, and you realize—anything can happen, and you know you don’t have control. You just have to be there.
I honestly did not want this unputdownable book to end, I wasn't ready to say goodbye.
Be ready! And the ending----
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Popular Highlights in this book
Like all self-mythologising rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and often turned her rivals into enemies, the better to disdain them as secret agents of the status quo.Highlighted by 1,024 Kindle readers- Shelley had lived for as long as she could remember in perpetual dread of being dislikeable – a fate even more terrible than being disliked, for it encompassed not only her relationships with others, but her private judgments of herself.Highlighted by 767 Kindle readers
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Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
Very intriguing book. Well written. A Booker prize winner.
Reviewed in Canada on March 30, 2024
