Posted March 9, 2015
As we referenced earlier, our latest Lit with a Twist video pairs The Luminaries with the Corpse Reviver cocktail. Watch the video, read the review and prep your cocktail shaker!
As a refresher, The Luminaries is written by Eleanor Catton and published by Little, Brown and Company (October 2013).
The synopsis:
It is 1866, and young Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner.
As stated in the video, I wouldn’t necessarily call this book a “page turner”, and it’s a little misleading to call it a ghost story as well. However, there is one word I wholeheartedly agree with. The Luminaries is indeed a brilliant book. In broad strokes, the book begins with the mystery summarized earlier. Then the book seemingly eavesdrops on each character involved in the story – their viewpoint, history and motives. All of this leads to the climax of the court scene – a scene that could have lasted most of the book but took up a mere handful of pages because the background was already divulged to the reader up front. It’s pretty awesome.
The luminaries were what traditional astrologers called the two astrological “planets” which were the brightest and most important objects in the heavens, that is, the Sun and the Moon. Luminary means, source of light. The sun and moon, being the most abundant sources of light to the inhabitants of Earth are known as luminaries.
The book, The Luminaries, is structured according to strict astrological principles. Each of the primary characters is aligned with a star sign or a planetary body. A prefatory “Character Chart” lays this out for you and each of the novel’s 12 parts opens with an astrological chart illustrating the influences on some of these characters. Individual chapters have titles such as “Mercury in Capricorn” or “Saturn in Libra” – indications of the influences and relationships that will be featured. The astrological scheme also controls the novel’s chronology. The Luminaries is divided into 12 dated parts, spaced at almost monthly intervals. We begin on 27 January 1866, but in Part Four, dated 27 April 1866, we also go back to the events of a year earlier, and the remaining eight parts replay the events of 1865, moving phase by phase through the pattern of the zodiac. Also, as you read, the chapters decrease in length. This is not an accident my fellow readers. The decreasing lengths mimic the waning moon, each part being half the length of the one before it. (Side note, when watching this scene in the video, our video editor had each of the book cover’s moons reveal themselves in half the time as the previous moon. We take our visual effects very seriously.)
Speaking of math, in the court case, the value of the gold is exactly 4096 pounds. 4096 is 2 to the power of 12 and there are – again – the 12 chapters. As each chapter halves in length, it gives the impression that the story is advancing more quickly. To that, I thank you Ms. Catton. Let’s just say that this book took up residence on my footstool and nightstand for so long that it almost became a piece of furniture itself. And it could pass as such, boasting a total of 848 pages. And these are some dense pages ladies and gentlemen.
I almost wish that I was assigned this book in a college course so I could write term papers on it and debate its meaning with classmates. Almost. Pick up The Luminaries and prepare to be transported to the gold mines and opium dens of New Zealand.
The booze:
The Corpse Reviver
This Corpse Reviver recipe is just one of the many drinks to have taken the name since the first notation in 1871. This is the most common classic recipe and uses both brandy and apple brandy along with sweet vermouth. The story of the Corpse Reviver is that of a drink “taken before 11 a.m., or whenever steam and energy are needed,” according to The Savoy Cocktail Book (Harry Craddock, 1930).
The Luminaries takes place just a few years before the invention of this drink, and its primary ingredient is brandy. People in New Zealand during that time usually only consumed brandy or rum when drinking alcohol. Plus the name itself nods toward the spiritual illusions that are sprinkled throughout the book.
On your trek through the tome that is The Luminaries
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 ounce brandy
3/4 ounce Calvados or other apple brandy
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth
Prep Time: 3 minutes
Total Time: 3 minutes
Yield: 1 Cocktail
PREPARATION
Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice.
Stir well.
Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
