A review by mmcloe
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

adventurous challenging dark funny informative mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A lot of fun to read in the moment! Haven't read a book this quickly in a while which testifies to the ease and rapidity of its prose and story structure (not inherently a good thing though). 

A few thoughts for such a expressly political novel: 
  • Lemoine was simultaneously too interesting and too bland for a billionaire. Insanely wealthy people are, from what I've gathered, not straightforward James Bond villains but weirdo losers surrounded by way too many yes-men. I think this novel made the billionaire out to be a badass when, in reality, he would just be a libertarian doofus with like a collection of anime girl figures or something. 
  • I think the novel smartly approached the tension between white settler "radicals," their efforts to shape and cultivate land, their drive for individual success, and the inherent problems with all of these things. I'm thinking through whether if the massive lack of Maori perspectives was an intentional exclusion to highlight the narrow-mindedness of the group or an illustration of the author's own blind spots. Much to consider! I definitely need to look into more Maori literature in general. 
  • I think this would be better served as like an HBO series? I didn't get a major sense of this being expressly literary and many of the characters internal monologues were rather surface-level. The plotting and pacing and cliffhangers would be perfect for an episodic structure. The TV-ification of middlebrow literary fiction? 

I'm excited to discuss with my students! 
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