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Birnam Wood
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Fiction (2023)Birnam Wood is on the move . . .
Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.
But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker--or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?
A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.
Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.
But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker--or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?
A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published March 2, 2023
About the author
Eleanor Catton
9 books2,240 followersEleanor Catton (born 1985) is a New Zealand author. Catton was born 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.Eleanor Catton holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she also held an adjunct professorship, and an MA in fiction from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. Currently she teaches creative writing at the Manukau Institute of Technology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 6,291 reviews
April 26, 2023
When I started this novel, I thought there is no way this is getting more than 3*, if I finish. At the 1st quarter mark, I thought the same. Then it grew on me. When I began the 2nd half I could not stop listening to the audiobook and i thought it was great. When I finished, I exclaimed, this deserves all the stars. After a few weeks I still believe it should get 5*, especially since I never thought I would enjoy reading an eco-thriller.
Mira is the founder of a collective gardening group who plants their crops on neglected plots or, at times, on other people’s property. They are not doing too well, as expected. When Mira finds a piece of land, which was isolated by a landslide, she thinks their problems are over. The property is an abandoned farm located in the town Thorndike, by the Korowai pass. However, Birnam Wood, the way the group is called, are not the only ones interested in the place. Robert Lemoine, an American drone-building billionaire, is looking to place there his end of the world bunker. He proposes to share the place but isn’t everything too good to be true?
Catton spends a lot of time presenting the characters, their background story and the interactions between them. It was boring at first but I realised it was essential in order to allow the plot to go forward and for us to understand the motivations behind the characters behaviour. The tension builds gradually to an explosive ending, which I did not expect. The prose is not over literary but the novel is sprinkled with philosophical discussions about controversial themes such as collectivism, capitalism, climate change and so on. The caustic tone the Birnam Wood members employ can be annoying as hell but still, it makes one think.
Also read by the same author: The Luminaries
Mira is the founder of a collective gardening group who plants their crops on neglected plots or, at times, on other people’s property. They are not doing too well, as expected. When Mira finds a piece of land, which was isolated by a landslide, she thinks their problems are over. The property is an abandoned farm located in the town Thorndike, by the Korowai pass. However, Birnam Wood, the way the group is called, are not the only ones interested in the place. Robert Lemoine, an American drone-building billionaire, is looking to place there his end of the world bunker. He proposes to share the place but isn’t everything too good to be true?
Catton spends a lot of time presenting the characters, their background story and the interactions between them. It was boring at first but I realised it was essential in order to allow the plot to go forward and for us to understand the motivations behind the characters behaviour. The tension builds gradually to an explosive ending, which I did not expect. The prose is not over literary but the novel is sprinkled with philosophical discussions about controversial themes such as collectivism, capitalism, climate change and so on. The caustic tone the Birnam Wood members employ can be annoying as hell but still, it makes one think.
Also read by the same author: The Luminaries
September 15, 2024
I listened to
Birnam Wood on Audible.
This thriller revolves around a billionaire who devises schemes to get richer by exploiting an activist gardening collective in New Zealand, as well as a recently knighted businessman and his seemingly angelic wife. Add in a journalist, some sex, and drugs, and you've got a modern, multifaceted plot.
The writing style is very contemporary, with pervasive technology and modern political themes woven throughout. However, I couldn’t help but notice that despite all the tech, no one seemed to have a phone charger. The plot took a while to build momentum, but once it did, I was quite intrigued. Unfortunately, the ending was a major letdown.
Audiobook: Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
I struggled to connect with the characters—none were particularly compelling or easy to root for. The villain was indeed a villain, but the other characters were so deeply flawed that they didn't fit the hero mold. On the positive side, the novel explores themes of moral ambiguity, contrasting well-intentioned acts with those driven by greed. It challenges the simplistic black-and-white narratives of good and evil prevalent today.
While the book isn’t perfect, it offers a thought-provoking take on modern issues and is worth a listen for its thematic exploration.
The writing style is very contemporary, with pervasive technology and modern political themes woven throughout. However, I couldn’t help but notice that despite all the tech, no one seemed to have a phone charger. The plot took a while to build momentum, but once it did, I was quite intrigued. Unfortunately, the ending was a major letdown.
Audiobook: Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
I struggled to connect with the characters—none were particularly compelling or easy to root for. The villain was indeed a villain, but the other characters were so deeply flawed that they didn't fit the hero mold. On the positive side, the novel explores themes of moral ambiguity, contrasting well-intentioned acts with those driven by greed. It challenges the simplistic black-and-white narratives of good and evil prevalent today.
While the book isn’t perfect, it offers a thought-provoking take on modern issues and is worth a listen for its thematic exploration.
March 20, 2024
…all the great tragedies are stories ultimately of betrayal. They’re stories where people betrayed the people closest to them but they're also stories where people betray themselves. They kind of betrayed the better person that they could have become. – B&N interview--------------------------------------
Third Apparition –Wanna bet?
Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsiname hill
Shall come against him.
Macbeth –
That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root? - The Scottish
Play
Birnam Wood is a serious, literary novel, a tragedy, cleverly disguised as an eco-thriller. Mira Bunting, 29, a horticulturist, heads an activist collective called Birnam Wood. They grow food in found plots of land, sometimes with permission, sometimes not. What they grow they consume themselves and give away to any in need. She discovered in childhood an interest in horticulture. It drowns out the relentless patter of self-critique that drives her.
Eleanor Catton - image from The Guardian
Shelley Noakes is number two, the sort of efficient workhorse that most organizations need in order to survive. Though she is Mira’s roomie and bff, Shelley has grown tired of being taken for granted, always relegated to second fiddle, and is determined to leave. She struggles, however, with the knowledge that if she leaves, Birnam Wood will not survive Mira’s laughable incapacity for meat and potatoes organizational management.
Tony Gallo has been away for several years, backpacking, teaching English in Mexico, trying to find himself. He wants to become a freelance journalist, despite a thin volume of actual experience. He is idealistic and insufferable, his ideological lines are not only clear, but electrified. He is carrying a torch for Mira and has returned home to see if there are any sparks left. Eager for a journalistic break, he stumbles across a biggie.
Robert Lemoine is an American billionaire, disgustingly rich from his drone business. He is looking for a bug-out retreat in case of global meltdown, and had found just the place. Is Lemoine a well-meaning rich guy, or a Bond villain?
Owen Darvish, recently knighted, is the owner of that place, a considerable swath, cheek by jowl with a national park. Unfortunately, there was a major landslide there recently, which has cut off the town of Thorndike. Will the sale actually go through now?
The landslide has caught Mira’s attention. What if Birnam Wood could set up shop in a place that was effectively cut off from most ongoing enterprise? Might be a great chance to grow her non-profit into a much larger player, and maybe do a fair bit of good? She decides to make the considerable drive and check it out. While there, she encounters Lemoine. This is where the story really gets going.
The novel flows in two parallel streams, often merging, then separating, then merging again. The first is the eco-thriller. What is Lemoine on about? He can certainly come across as charming, and sincere, but is he really? Is the money he offers Mira for Birnam Wood’s work being given sincerely, or is he up to something? Does the devil speak true? That he has a studly appeal adds to the confusion. The other is a deep dive into personality and motivation, with rich literary technique and a host of thematic concerns.
Privacy, or lack thereof, is a frequent focus in the book. Lemoine, for example, is a developer of drone technology, and is a one-percenter as well in terms of knowledge of and facility with surveillance. (…he took his phone out of his pocket, tapped the screen, then turned it around to show her. Under the list of detectable devices nearby was listed ‘mira’s iPhone’.) It permeates down to the ninety-nine-percenters as well. This, for instance, is our introduction to Shelley:
…the yellow circle labelled ‘Mira’ pulled out into the street and began traversing slowly north. Shelley Noakes reduced the scale of the map until her own circle, a gently pulsing blue, appeared at the edge of the screen, and watched the yellow disc advance imperceptibly upon the blue for almost thirty seconds before turning off the phone and throwing it, suddenly and childishly, into the pile of laundry at the end of her bed.Mira has a tracker app on Shelley’s phone as well. Mrs Darvish keeps up on where her husband is by tracking his phone. Tony’s research is of the investigative reporter sort, on line and in-the-field which, of course, entails some significant snooping. And, of course, he is snooped on while he investigates.
Catton uses interior dialogue to let us in on the main characters’ struggles with who they are and what they want. Well, not so much Lemoine, who struggles less with a values dialectic than with figuring out how to get what he wants from the world. Tony sees himself as a progressive, but wrestles with his feminist credentials, and sincerely wonders if he is inauthentic in his desire to make a meaningful career for himself, in presenting himself as someone who has to struggle to get by, who criticizes the very system that makes his life possible. Mira struggles to hide (…a vanity, an appetite, a capacity for manipulation that she would rather other people did not see; she knew, and was ashamed to know). Shelly has to reconcile her seemingly permanent peace-maker role in life with her need to be her own person.
Shelley wanted out. Out of the group; out of the suffocating moral censure, the pretended fellow feeling, the constant obligatory thrift; out of financial peril; out of the flat; out of her relationship with Mira, which was not romantic in any physical sense, but which had somehow come to feel both exclusive and proprietary; and above all, out of her role as the sensible, dependable, predictable sidekick, never quite as rebellious as Mira, never quite as free-thinking, never – even when they acted together – quite as brave.This being a tale not told by an idiot, inspired by a tragedy, there will be familiar tragic elements on display. Tragic flaws for everyone. Come one, come all. But can the mere hoi-polloi really be tragic characters? Isn’t that reserved for the high and mighty? Owen Darvish certainly counts for that, as does Lemoine. But Mira? Shelley? Tony? Or is grandiosity alone sufficient to elevate one to a height sufficient to mark a character as potentially tragic? Catton does make us wonder as we read just who are the tragic characters, and who the schlubs who are guilty of, maybe, a bit of overreach, or garden variety foolishness.
Of course, there is more to them than merely wanting beyond their capacities. There is another element from tragedy to consider. Note the quote that opens this review. Betrayal figures large. There is enough deception in the air here that one might be well advised to don a bee-keeper outfit to fend off the tangled webs that permeate the landscape. Secrets will be kept, some minor, some world-class. Our intro to Mira, for example, shows her using a false identity to research the landslide area. More importantly, is she selling out the collective if she comes to a deal with Lemoine? Shelley tries her best to seduce Tony as a passive-aggressive way of getting Mira to separate from her. Others have their own secrets and betrayals nicely tucked away.
Another tragedic element is that outcomes are the result of actions, not fate or chance. If you look back down the path from end to beginning you will see all the characters’ yesterdays lighting the way to an inescapable end. Although it is not the only influence on the book, Macbeth is clearly the primary one.
[Catton] drew up another intricate masterplan in which each of the main characters could be seen as Macbeth, with a corresponding Lady Macbeth, witches and so on. It sounds tricksier than it is: as the narrative perspective shifts, everybody could be the villain. She wanted to stop readers playing “the polarised blame game we are all used to in contemporary politics,” she explains. “You wouldn’t be able to say: ‘These are my people so they are obviously the good guys. These are the people that I despise so they are obviously the bad guys.’” - from The Guardian interviewYou will have to find out for yourself how much of this structure made it into the final draft.
Other significant sources of inspiration were 20th century crime fiction, Jane Austen’s Emma, (the structure and taut language) and even Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The character Shelley was named for the author, leaving us to wonder whether this Shelley is creature or creator.
While this is a novel in which actions matter, and have consequences, it is also one in which the omniscient narrator will tell you everything you need to know about each of the characters. This ability to look into (monitor remotely? surveil?) everyone’s deepest inner thoughts and feelings resonates with the surveillance elements in the story. One of the precipitating ideas for the book, the Big-Brother-is-watching element certainly, sprung from a 2015 protest in which New Zealand police were taking photos of protesters as they walked past.
Catton is also interested in inter-generational dealings.
It’s something I have thought about a lot…how my generational placement or position has conditioned me. The book is designed generationally. There are three generations represented in terms of the points of view. And I wanted to really explore the generational differences in terms of how they deal with certain contemporary problems that we’re all kind of facing globally. - from The Toronto Public Library interviewBut it is no boomer-bashing party.
“Millennials are quite willing to cosy up to the tech gen Xers,” she says. “We are all personally enriching billionaires like Elon Musk by freely giving away our data…These minerals are in the phones that are around us all the time. I want my iPhone. I want to be able to have the freedoms that it brings. We are all complicit.” - from The Guardian interviewIn addition to its literary and thriller aspects, Birnam Wood is a satire, a caricature of diverse sorts. Most glaring is the Birnam Wood members, whose motivations and desires are often less idealistic than what they show to the world. Darvish comes in for an uncomplimentary look, too, as does Lemoine. It is a tale, also, about expectations.
Macbeth is a play that's all about prophecy. It's animated by prophecy. So I …re-read it with everything that was happening in terms of world events resounding in my head and suddenly saw it in a really different way, as a play that contains very interesting and loud warnings about what happens when you regard the future with too much certainty if you're too convinced about what lies just down the road. Because of course Macbeth makes the ending of Macbeth happen. None of that was written on the wall before before he received those prophecies and I and so I kind of wanted to achieve a similar effect in a novel by writing a book about incremental political actions and moral actions that end up kind of having these enormous effects that were avoidable. - from the Barnes & Noble interviewIn short (too late, I know), Birnam Wood is a multi-layered triumph, building on classic structures and themes to tell a very contemporary story, offering consideration of how people make very human choices, as they contain battles between morality and desire. The tale does not at all creep in a petty pace, but rolls along at a good clip, shifting into turbo as it nears the end, generating an abundance of sound and fury which certainly signifies something.
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.Review posted - 6/9/23
Publication dates
----------Hardcover - 3/7/23
----------Trade Paperback - 3/5/24
I received an ARE of Birnam Wood from FSG in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating, but ever since writing the review, I acquired, and can’t seem to wash off, these bloody spots.
This review will soon be cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi!
=============================EXTRA STUFF
Links to Catton’s Good Reads and Wikipedia pages
Profile - from Wiki
Eleanor Catton MNZM (born 1985) is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize (at age 28) and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.For those looking ahead
…her next work, “a queasy immersion thriller” that will be called Doubtful Sound, after the remote fjord in the south-west of New Zealand where it is set. She has had the title for a long time – “I just think it is so beautiful” – but it was only in the final months of completing Birnam Wood that the story came to her. - from The Guardian interviewInterviews
-----Poured Over: A Barnes & Noble Podcast - Eleanor Catton on Birnam Wood with Miwa Messer
-----Toronto Public Library - Eleanor Catton – Birnam Wood – Mar 6, 2023 - video - 44:50
-----The Guardian - Eleanor Catton: ‘I felt so much doubt after winning the Booker’ by Lisa Allardice
-----NY Times - Eleanor Catton on ‘Birnam Wood’ with Gilbert Cruz – audio – 35:11
-----Stuff - Eleanor Catton on guilty pleasures, being a slow writer, and whether NZ is still home
Songs/Music
-----Rockwell - Somebody’s Watching Me
-----The Police - Every Breath You Take
Item of Interest from the author
-----Waterstones - Eleanor Catton on Birnam Wood and its influences - video – 6:29 - on Emma as inspiration. There is a lot in here.
Item of Interest
-----The New Yorker – March 13, 2023 - Eleanor Catton Wants Plot to Matter Again by B.D. McCloy
November 2, 2022
I didn't read Catton's much-lauded previous novel, THE LUMINARIES. And at first I thought maybe this one would be a little too dense for me to enjoy. It is the kind of book where you spend a good twenty pages getting every single piece of a philosophical argument over a group's principles and one particular person will talk for an entire page without a break. It can be a lot. But it always worked for me, it always rang true, because I have encountered this guy and yeah that is how he talks.
I was intrigued by the characters we start with, idealistic twenty-somethings who run a gardening collective in New Zealand. Their ideals are anti-capitalist and part of their approach is to trespass on people's land to set up their gardens, trying to avoid getting caught but still take advantage of land that they feel is being wasted, hoarded by its rich owners. They are do-gooders, but they have a strong anarchist streak, which makes it an open question of what they should do when they are offered enough money to not just scrape by but to grow.
This scenario never felt dull because we approach it through Mira and Shelley, who have grown close through their work in the collective, but who are not clicking anymore. Their years of working together have created long-festering resentments they have never spoken aloud. I loved that tension as entry point and it had me ready to go pretty much wherever they would take me.
That path led to a billionaire who makes everything extremely complicated. And, of course, the long-winded dude who is all accusations and neverending speeches where he is somehow always right and everyone else just doesn't understand. How they overlap and run into each other and use each other and try to reach their own ends gets more and more complex.
This is a book where you have no idea at the beginning where it will be at the end. It is a real ride. I love a real ride. Especially one that is this confident, that is happy to throw twist after twist at its characters, it is always happy to throw yet another wrench in the works and complicate the story even further and I love it for that.
I get why Catton won prizes. Her prose is full of long sentences and even longer paragraphs. She never seems to come up for air. Her characters are presented from this angle then that, letting us see all kinds of facets of them. It's about political ideals (and the lack thereof) mostly without getting too bogged down in politics. (You will have to just deal with that one very long argument. But I was willing to, it really gives you a full, fascinating picture!) This is very very well plotted with so much to chew on that I couldn't help but classify it as "crime" even though I am not exactly sure if it is, but I think it would appeal to a lot of crime readers.
I was intrigued by the characters we start with, idealistic twenty-somethings who run a gardening collective in New Zealand. Their ideals are anti-capitalist and part of their approach is to trespass on people's land to set up their gardens, trying to avoid getting caught but still take advantage of land that they feel is being wasted, hoarded by its rich owners. They are do-gooders, but they have a strong anarchist streak, which makes it an open question of what they should do when they are offered enough money to not just scrape by but to grow.
This scenario never felt dull because we approach it through Mira and Shelley, who have grown close through their work in the collective, but who are not clicking anymore. Their years of working together have created long-festering resentments they have never spoken aloud. I loved that tension as entry point and it had me ready to go pretty much wherever they would take me.
That path led to a billionaire who makes everything extremely complicated. And, of course, the long-winded dude who is all accusations and neverending speeches where he is somehow always right and everyone else just doesn't understand. How they overlap and run into each other and use each other and try to reach their own ends gets more and more complex.
This is a book where you have no idea at the beginning where it will be at the end. It is a real ride. I love a real ride. Especially one that is this confident, that is happy to throw twist after twist at its characters, it is always happy to throw yet another wrench in the works and complicate the story even further and I love it for that.
I get why Catton won prizes. Her prose is full of long sentences and even longer paragraphs. She never seems to come up for air. Her characters are presented from this angle then that, letting us see all kinds of facets of them. It's about political ideals (and the lack thereof) mostly without getting too bogged down in politics. (You will have to just deal with that one very long argument. But I was willing to, it really gives you a full, fascinating picture!) This is very very well plotted with so much to chew on that I couldn't help but classify it as "crime" even though I am not exactly sure if it is, but I think it would appeal to a lot of crime readers.
February 22, 2023
As her title suggests Eleanor Catton’s novel’s partly inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, although more in terms of its themes than its plot. Although it’s billed as an eco-thriller the story starts out at an extremely leisurely pace, a three-part piece that only gradually builds to a bloody crescendo. It’s set in a fictional version of small-town New Zealand in the moment between the end of John Key's profoundly damaging, neo-liberal government and the early optimism of Jacinda Ardern’s would-be progressive administration. It’s a cynical, broad strokes vision of New Zealand, populated by caricatures rather than fully-fledged characters that explores significant aspects of New Zealand’s social and economic predicaments from massive social inequality and uneasy power dynamics to generational discord and encroaching environmental blight.
At its heart’s an ill-fated encounter between Mira Bunting, leader of guerrilla, environmental activist group Birnam Wood, and American billionaire Robert Lemoines – a stand-in for ultra-wealthy Americans like Peter Thiel who flocked to New Zealand in the days when residency could easily be obtained for the right price. Bunting and Lemoines are brought together by their interest in a former sheep farm now owned by successful businessman Owen Darvish. Lemoines heads a tech company Autonomo that specialises in drones, tech that Darvish wants to utilise for a scheme aimed at preserving endangered birds – a fictionalisation of real-world, greenwashing operations linked to the rapidly-declining fairy tern. But Lemoines has a more sinister, hidden agenda one which former Birnam Wood member and aspiring progressive journalist Tony Gallo becomes intent on exposing, that’s when he’s not caught up in pining over his lost opportunity for a relationship with Mira.
Lemoines is a stereotypical figure, possibly psychopathic and rich enough to feel confident he can control anyone he wants to. Birnam Wood is a predominantly Pākehā or white New Zealander organisation, and Catton seems to be using it to take aim at idealistic, zealous politicos whose realities are far removed from the people they claim to represent, more taken up with their personal relationships than with the causes they espouse and bogged down in theoretical discussions and ideological clashes. Even Gallo who’s the closest to heroic of Catton’s cast is a fake, his outwardly austere presentation masking his vast amounts of inherited wealth.
Catton apparently spent a lot of time immersed in the work of crime writers like Lee Child in preparation for this, something that only really comes through in the closing sections, elsewhere her style reminded me of Dave Eggers, particularly books like The Circle, although without Eggers’s sense of moral outrage or political conviction. Catton takes her cues from Shakespeare’s play, focusing instead on the fatal flaws of individuals, the overweening ambitions and personal desires that - like Macbeth – will ultimately lead her cast to their downfall. It’s a difficult piece to assess, I found the insights into New Zealand’s cultural landscapes fascinating, but the writing itself could be a little dry at times, and the underlying ideas a little too conventional and/or conservative for my taste. And the deliberately cardboard characters were difficult for me to relate to or, crucially, care about. I also wondered whether the narrative would have more resonance for a reader with a greater understanding of New Zealand society, for example I wondered how far this was also meant as a critique of Key's versus Ardern’s leadership or even a lament over Ardern’s hesitancies and failures in terms of far-reaching environmental, social and economic reform.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Granta for an ARC
At its heart’s an ill-fated encounter between Mira Bunting, leader of guerrilla, environmental activist group Birnam Wood, and American billionaire Robert Lemoines – a stand-in for ultra-wealthy Americans like Peter Thiel who flocked to New Zealand in the days when residency could easily be obtained for the right price. Bunting and Lemoines are brought together by their interest in a former sheep farm now owned by successful businessman Owen Darvish. Lemoines heads a tech company Autonomo that specialises in drones, tech that Darvish wants to utilise for a scheme aimed at preserving endangered birds – a fictionalisation of real-world, greenwashing operations linked to the rapidly-declining fairy tern. But Lemoines has a more sinister, hidden agenda one which former Birnam Wood member and aspiring progressive journalist Tony Gallo becomes intent on exposing, that’s when he’s not caught up in pining over his lost opportunity for a relationship with Mira.
Lemoines is a stereotypical figure, possibly psychopathic and rich enough to feel confident he can control anyone he wants to. Birnam Wood is a predominantly Pākehā or white New Zealander organisation, and Catton seems to be using it to take aim at idealistic, zealous politicos whose realities are far removed from the people they claim to represent, more taken up with their personal relationships than with the causes they espouse and bogged down in theoretical discussions and ideological clashes. Even Gallo who’s the closest to heroic of Catton’s cast is a fake, his outwardly austere presentation masking his vast amounts of inherited wealth.
Catton apparently spent a lot of time immersed in the work of crime writers like Lee Child in preparation for this, something that only really comes through in the closing sections, elsewhere her style reminded me of Dave Eggers, particularly books like The Circle, although without Eggers’s sense of moral outrage or political conviction. Catton takes her cues from Shakespeare’s play, focusing instead on the fatal flaws of individuals, the overweening ambitions and personal desires that - like Macbeth – will ultimately lead her cast to their downfall. It’s a difficult piece to assess, I found the insights into New Zealand’s cultural landscapes fascinating, but the writing itself could be a little dry at times, and the underlying ideas a little too conventional and/or conservative for my taste. And the deliberately cardboard characters were difficult for me to relate to or, crucially, care about. I also wondered whether the narrative would have more resonance for a reader with a greater understanding of New Zealand society, for example I wondered how far this was also meant as a critique of Key's versus Ardern’s leadership or even a lament over Ardern’s hesitancies and failures in terms of far-reaching environmental, social and economic reform.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Granta for an ARC
July 29, 2024
Dud.
A lot of ground work done early on to set the scene and then despite the stakes rising throughout the story it just fizzles to nothing. It's fantastic to read a book set in my home country, to have all the inside knowledge and recognise all the satire but the characters are largely puppets for Catton to stage her desired political debate. Then there's the plot, which somehow manages to feel like a severely overdone cliché.
I really wanted to like this. Eco thriller should be right in my wheelhouse as should the main character running a gardening collective. But Catton somehow sucks all the believability and credibility out of her characters. It might be because they are all such exceptional narcissists. Even the central friendship between Mira and Shelley doesn't really feel like a friendship at all.
The bad guy is just so irredeemably bad. He's not a nuanced psychopath, he's just a dickhead. He doesn't have little peccadillos or some sort of lucifer like appeal, he's just an out and out bad guy and it's hard to see how anyone could be fooled by his façade. Equally the idea that ecowarrior come champagne marxist Tony Macaroni (not his last name) could romp around the woods leading a small private military and a swathe of drones on a wild goose chase is silly. He basically becomes Arnie in Predator as he outwits the mercenaries. On a side note, the bush didn't feel like the NZ bush at all, it should be Barry Crump's kind of bush (Hunt for the Wilderpeople style bush).
I'm thinking maybe the reason the whole thing doesn't work is that the characters are such grotesque caricatures and the things they are saying are such heavy parody that it undermines their credibility. We're not laughing with the characters, we're laughing at them. Catton has set them up as a joke and so we don't take them or what happens to them seriously. The naïve characters are unbelievably naïve, the bad guys unbelievably bad, the progressive eco warriors just so unbelievably dumb, and we don't care about any of them.
Catton's husks, known to some as characters, are often having pseudo philosophical debates that either Catton has imagined while locked out of NZ during the pandemic or has taken from the mouths of her friends or imagined enemies. These debates may be interesting for some but for me they read as the sort of thing that with work could have been a funny sketch and otherwise should have remained off the page. There's a huge amount of telling not showing, all the characters are defined by what the narrator tells us about them, what they think of themselves, and what they say. None of them are defined by their actions (except possibly Tony Macaroni who ultimately transforms into a man of action) and that's partly where the book falls down. Too much tell, not enough show. Which is weird for a book that has been pitched by its author as a plot driven novel. The book is also a satire of NZ politics yet it's supposed to be taken seriously. There's just this weird mismatch and it leaves the whole thing feeling like milk left out in the sun.
I'm trying to think why The Luminaries is a better and more palatable book and I think it's largely based on the time period. The writing style between the two books is quite similar, long passages of description, the exploitation of NZ's resources, and both follow a pretty mundane plot that reaches an inevitable conclusion. But, The Luminaries is pulled from history and Birnam Wood from the present. It seems Catton is capable of writing sincerely only in a historical context and unable to resist the pull of parody in the present. There's also a considerable difference in the political nature of the two works. The Luminaries largely eschews politics, though does observe and comment on social mores and customs. Birnam Wood is made worse for the constant political posturing, even though politics serves as the backbone of the novel, and if you took it out you would be left with a flaccid meatsack of poor characters and plot. Because Catton's political diatribes are delivered almost exclusively through her husky character's mouths, the characters are much weaker in Birnam Wood than The Luminaries.
The major connection to Macbeth is ambition and particularly how it can undo a person. All the characters are cautionary tales in the exercising of ambition. It's pretty much a book full of Macbeths, just all at different stages of their fate ordained journeys. In some ways I would have been interested in some more explicit parallels with Shakespeare's Scottish play.
People claim there's a large twist at the end. I can't say it's much of a twist. A twist for me is when the story takes a turn that is hard to predict. This ending seem entirely inevitable and deeply disappointing. Possibly because everyone loses, including the reader.
p.s. Nothing has been said in the reviews I've read about the truly bizarre way Mira makes milo. I've known people who use hot water instead of milk sure but then to put condensed milk in? It's just wrong. I could have forgiven the stirring it all in and not leaving any little floating islands of malt if she'd used normal milk at some stage in the process. But you've got hot water, milo and condensed milk and you're expecting me to just accept that's how people should have their milo? Of all the behaviour in this book indicating psychopathy this is the most alarming.
p.p.s Orange fronted parakeet. Why didn't Catton just use kākāriki? The use of the name Orange Fronted Parakeet made it sound more like a Monty Python sketch. Every kiwi would know what a kākāriki was and would use that name more than the English term and there could be a quick explanation for the international audience. It's also weird because she uses other Māori words throughout, of particular note "Hui", yet decided to go the parakeet way on this one.
A lot of ground work done early on to set the scene and then despite the stakes rising throughout the story it just fizzles to nothing. It's fantastic to read a book set in my home country, to have all the inside knowledge and recognise all the satire but the characters are largely puppets for Catton to stage her desired political debate. Then there's the plot, which somehow manages to feel like a severely overdone cliché.
I really wanted to like this. Eco thriller should be right in my wheelhouse as should the main character running a gardening collective. But Catton somehow sucks all the believability and credibility out of her characters. It might be because they are all such exceptional narcissists. Even the central friendship between Mira and Shelley doesn't really feel like a friendship at all.
The bad guy is just so irredeemably bad. He's not a nuanced psychopath, he's just a dickhead. He doesn't have little peccadillos or some sort of lucifer like appeal, he's just an out and out bad guy and it's hard to see how anyone could be fooled by his façade. Equally the idea that ecowarrior come champagne marxist Tony Macaroni (not his last name) could romp around the woods leading a small private military and a swathe of drones on a wild goose chase is silly. He basically becomes Arnie in Predator as he outwits the mercenaries. On a side note, the bush didn't feel like the NZ bush at all, it should be Barry Crump's kind of bush (Hunt for the Wilderpeople style bush).
I'm thinking maybe the reason the whole thing doesn't work is that the characters are such grotesque caricatures and the things they are saying are such heavy parody that it undermines their credibility. We're not laughing with the characters, we're laughing at them. Catton has set them up as a joke and so we don't take them or what happens to them seriously. The naïve characters are unbelievably naïve, the bad guys unbelievably bad, the progressive eco warriors just so unbelievably dumb, and we don't care about any of them.
Catton's husks, known to some as characters, are often having pseudo philosophical debates that either Catton has imagined while locked out of NZ during the pandemic or has taken from the mouths of her friends or imagined enemies. These debates may be interesting for some but for me they read as the sort of thing that with work could have been a funny sketch and otherwise should have remained off the page. There's a huge amount of telling not showing, all the characters are defined by what the narrator tells us about them, what they think of themselves, and what they say. None of them are defined by their actions (except possibly Tony Macaroni who ultimately transforms into a man of action) and that's partly where the book falls down. Too much tell, not enough show. Which is weird for a book that has been pitched by its author as a plot driven novel. The book is also a satire of NZ politics yet it's supposed to be taken seriously. There's just this weird mismatch and it leaves the whole thing feeling like milk left out in the sun.
I'm trying to think why The Luminaries is a better and more palatable book and I think it's largely based on the time period. The writing style between the two books is quite similar, long passages of description, the exploitation of NZ's resources, and both follow a pretty mundane plot that reaches an inevitable conclusion. But, The Luminaries is pulled from history and Birnam Wood from the present. It seems Catton is capable of writing sincerely only in a historical context and unable to resist the pull of parody in the present. There's also a considerable difference in the political nature of the two works. The Luminaries largely eschews politics, though does observe and comment on social mores and customs. Birnam Wood is made worse for the constant political posturing, even though politics serves as the backbone of the novel, and if you took it out you would be left with a flaccid meatsack of poor characters and plot. Because Catton's political diatribes are delivered almost exclusively through her husky character's mouths, the characters are much weaker in Birnam Wood than The Luminaries.
The major connection to Macbeth is ambition and particularly how it can undo a person. All the characters are cautionary tales in the exercising of ambition. It's pretty much a book full of Macbeths, just all at different stages of their fate ordained journeys. In some ways I would have been interested in some more explicit parallels with Shakespeare's Scottish play.
People claim there's a large twist at the end. I can't say it's much of a twist. A twist for me is when the story takes a turn that is hard to predict. This ending seem entirely inevitable and deeply disappointing. Possibly because everyone loses, including the reader.
p.s. Nothing has been said in the reviews I've read about the truly bizarre way Mira makes milo. I've known people who use hot water instead of milk sure but then to put condensed milk in? It's just wrong. I could have forgiven the stirring it all in and not leaving any little floating islands of malt if she'd used normal milk at some stage in the process. But you've got hot water, milo and condensed milk and you're expecting me to just accept that's how people should have their milo? Of all the behaviour in this book indicating psychopathy this is the most alarming.
p.p.s Orange fronted parakeet. Why didn't Catton just use kākāriki? The use of the name Orange Fronted Parakeet made it sound more like a Monty Python sketch. Every kiwi would know what a kākāriki was and would use that name more than the English term and there could be a quick explanation for the international audience. It's also weird because she uses other Māori words throughout, of particular note "Hui", yet decided to go the parakeet way on this one.
March 3, 2023
Thank you to FSG for the advanced reader's copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Part social satire, part literary fiction, part thriller, Birnam Wood sees the return of the Booker Prize-winning author, Eleanor Catton, with a compulsively readable and compelling story about activism, the climate crisis, and deception.
Mira Bunting is a late twenty-something in charge of a 'guerilla gardening group'—the eponymous Birnam Wood. They surreptitiously plant gardens across their city, on private property, working as a sort of co-op to improve their community and impact the planet. But when an offer to go bigger means they may be in bed with an American billionaire who represents everything their anti-capitalist group stands for, the members question how far will they go to make ends meet.
This book is *full* of characters—not just literally, but each one serving as a sort of hero/anti-hero to their own story, with their own (hidden) agendas, and ever-changing perspectives depending on what serves the circumstances. It leaves the reader wondering, who am I rooting for? Who should I be rooting for? And will keep you turning the pages until you find out.
Catton is a masterful writer; this isn't a surprise. I've loved every single one of her novels, and this was no exception. I eat her writing up. It's both dense and full of meaning but also incredibly readable. She can describe a character so fully in two sentences, penetrating to the heart of their psyche, painting a compelling portrait of flawed individuals who also serve as stand-ins for very real life 'characters.'
I flew through this book; I couldn't put it down. I wanted not only to find out what happened but also enjoyed the many different conversations characters had about big themes like purpose, activism, social responsibility, economics, privilege, etc. She writes these diatribes so well they may go on for pages but you can't stop reading. You will flip who you are siding with from section to section. And it all ends with a memorable ending that will definitely create lots of discussion (this would be *great* for a book club).
The book comes out on Tuesday, March 7th, and I expect to hear a lot of buzz about it. Not only because of Catton's reputation, but also this will be a conversation-starting novel that speaks to our times while also standing on its own as an exciting, I daresay, 'fun' novel. Go read it!
Part social satire, part literary fiction, part thriller, Birnam Wood sees the return of the Booker Prize-winning author, Eleanor Catton, with a compulsively readable and compelling story about activism, the climate crisis, and deception.
Mira Bunting is a late twenty-something in charge of a 'guerilla gardening group'—the eponymous Birnam Wood. They surreptitiously plant gardens across their city, on private property, working as a sort of co-op to improve their community and impact the planet. But when an offer to go bigger means they may be in bed with an American billionaire who represents everything their anti-capitalist group stands for, the members question how far will they go to make ends meet.
This book is *full* of characters—not just literally, but each one serving as a sort of hero/anti-hero to their own story, with their own (hidden) agendas, and ever-changing perspectives depending on what serves the circumstances. It leaves the reader wondering, who am I rooting for? Who should I be rooting for? And will keep you turning the pages until you find out.
Catton is a masterful writer; this isn't a surprise. I've loved every single one of her novels, and this was no exception. I eat her writing up. It's both dense and full of meaning but also incredibly readable. She can describe a character so fully in two sentences, penetrating to the heart of their psyche, painting a compelling portrait of flawed individuals who also serve as stand-ins for very real life 'characters.'
I flew through this book; I couldn't put it down. I wanted not only to find out what happened but also enjoyed the many different conversations characters had about big themes like purpose, activism, social responsibility, economics, privilege, etc. She writes these diatribes so well they may go on for pages but you can't stop reading. You will flip who you are siding with from section to section. And it all ends with a memorable ending that will definitely create lots of discussion (this would be *great* for a book club).
The book comes out on Tuesday, March 7th, and I expect to hear a lot of buzz about it. Not only because of Catton's reputation, but also this will be a conversation-starting novel that speaks to our times while also standing on its own as an exciting, I daresay, 'fun' novel. Go read it!
April 10, 2023
I mean it made for an excellent book club discussion.
That ending ..... crazy black satire brilliance that mirrors the likely demise of us all due to our environmental ambivalence OR ... the literary equivalent of The Fonz on waterskis... you decide ;)
Catton does have an ear for great dialogue and a good grasp of the NZ political zeitgeist.
He was long accustomed to regarding his country as an automatic underdog, as a plucky, decent, good natured contender, unfairly disadvantaged, in any instance of unflattering international comparison, by its small population, it’s short history, and it’s geographical remoteness from the great power centres of the world. A habit of defensive self-exception masked a deep anxiety that at the end of the day poetic justice might not in fact be served …
She captures us as a nation so well that I probably did find it marginally offensive - which is probably a good thing. But it did risk becoming a sort of point-scoring exercise / political lecture in parts ( which is maybe not immediately obvious to those not closely following NZ politics of circa 2015-17 ).
As a novel, I found it uneven, the ending when it comes seems like Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy swung over to guest edit. Which would be fine if it wasn't sitting up against pages like this about opening a jigsaw..
The image on the box was of three golden retriever puppies playing in a wicker basket, and the pieces inside were still sealed in plastic, together with a flyer that advertised the dozen other puzzles in the product range. She ripped open the bag and tipped the pieces out over the coffee table, turning them over one by one, dusting off the fine grey powder left by the machine that had cut the interlocking tabs and sockets ( and on it goes for several more lines )
Unnessicary detail is something that always grates and was also the reason I couldn't finish The Luminaries . This obviously says something about me as a reader and also suggests that with the best will in the world, I may never really get on with this writer.
On the plus side, I was left with a craving for Pad Thai and I might have been convinced to plant some carrots.
That ending ..... crazy black satire brilliance that mirrors the likely demise of us all due to our environmental ambivalence OR ... the literary equivalent of The Fonz on waterskis... you decide ;)
Catton does have an ear for great dialogue and a good grasp of the NZ political zeitgeist.
He was long accustomed to regarding his country as an automatic underdog, as a plucky, decent, good natured contender, unfairly disadvantaged, in any instance of unflattering international comparison, by its small population, it’s short history, and it’s geographical remoteness from the great power centres of the world. A habit of defensive self-exception masked a deep anxiety that at the end of the day poetic justice might not in fact be served …
She captures us as a nation so well that I probably did find it marginally offensive - which is probably a good thing. But it did risk becoming a sort of point-scoring exercise / political lecture in parts ( which is maybe not immediately obvious to those not closely following NZ politics of circa 2015-17 ).
As a novel, I found it uneven, the ending when it comes seems like Michael Crichton or Tom Clancy swung over to guest edit. Which would be fine if it wasn't sitting up against pages like this about opening a jigsaw..
The image on the box was of three golden retriever puppies playing in a wicker basket, and the pieces inside were still sealed in plastic, together with a flyer that advertised the dozen other puzzles in the product range. She ripped open the bag and tipped the pieces out over the coffee table, turning them over one by one, dusting off the fine grey powder left by the machine that had cut the interlocking tabs and sockets ( and on it goes for several more lines )
Unnessicary detail is something that always grates and was also the reason I couldn't finish The Luminaries . This obviously says something about me as a reader and also suggests that with the best will in the world, I may never really get on with this writer.
On the plus side, I was left with a craving for Pad Thai and I might have been convinced to plant some carrots.
December 8, 2023
Disappointing! The writing is very literary (No chapters, really long sentences and paragraphs) it felt ranty and smug. We are given so much background for the characters, pages and pages, yet they’re still stereotypes (the evil billionaire, the idealist eco youngster, money grabbing baby boomers). The set up and some of the plot is interesting but then there’s too much tomfoolery and I hate endings that happen off screen.
March 14, 2023
“Birnam Wood” opens with “a spate of shallow earthquakes” in a remote part of New Zealand, but by the end those tremors will reverberate across the planet. The title, aside from being a prophetic allusion to “Macbeth,” is the name of an obscure environmental group. The members of Birnam Wood are guerrilla gardeners, who raise vegetables on public land and unattended private property, sometimes with permission, sometimes without. While they might think of themselves as fearless revolutionaries, their antics rarely extend much beyond stealing a hoe from a wealthy neighbor’s garden shed.
Nevertheless, Mira, the de facto leader of this supposedly leaderless collective, dreams of “nothing less than radical, widespread, and lasting social change, which would be entirely achievable, she was convinced, if only people could be made to see how much fertile land was going begging, all around them, every day.” In the words of Mao, “Let a hundred flowers bloom,” but make sure they’re peas, tomatoes and cucumbers.
As the novel opens, Mira spies a potentially rich new target. A landslide has buried a stretch of highway, almost completely cutting off the town of Thorndike and canceling development of a 375-acre plot abutting a national park. What better place for Mira’s merry band of subversive farmers to till the soil in relative secrecy! If they get arrested, even better: The publicity will amplify their cause.
The only problem is that this land has already caught the attention of Robert Lemoine, an American billionaire. He plans to construct a luxurious bunker here where he can, when the moment arrives, wait out the apocalypse. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
Nevertheless, Mira, the de facto leader of this supposedly leaderless collective, dreams of “nothing less than radical, widespread, and lasting social change, which would be entirely achievable, she was convinced, if only people could be made to see how much fertile land was going begging, all around them, every day.” In the words of Mao, “Let a hundred flowers bloom,” but make sure they’re peas, tomatoes and cucumbers.
As the novel opens, Mira spies a potentially rich new target. A landslide has buried a stretch of highway, almost completely cutting off the town of Thorndike and canceling development of a 375-acre plot abutting a national park. What better place for Mira’s merry band of subversive farmers to till the soil in relative secrecy! If they get arrested, even better: The publicity will amplify their cause.
The only problem is that this land has already caught the attention of Robert Lemoine, an American billionaire. He plans to construct a luxurious bunker here where he can, when the moment arrives, wait out the apocalypse. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
August 4, 2024
Who would have thought, after her first two novels (both of which I also unabashedly gave 5-star reviews), that youngest Booker-winner Catton would suddenly go all Tarantino on our asses? But after a 10-year bout of writer's block, Catton has come roaring back to life with what MIGHT be her best novel yet. I had a bit of unease in the first 10% of this, since I found it hard to retain much of the exposition - but soon afterwards, the novel shifted into 1st gear and didn't let up till the unexpected and bloody great conclusion.
My only other minor quibble is that delicious arch villain Robert Lemoine so dominates the novel that the other three major characters - Mira, Tony and Shelley - collectively don't even hold a candle to his commanding presence. Still, this novel does everything I want literary fiction to do ... and does it effortlessly. I fully expect to see this on the 2023 Booker longlist - and wouldn't be surprised if Catton became the youngest double winner in Booker history.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/bo....
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
My only other minor quibble is that delicious arch villain Robert Lemoine so dominates the novel that the other three major characters - Mira, Tony and Shelley - collectively don't even hold a candle to his commanding presence. Still, this novel does everything I want literary fiction to do ... and does it effortlessly. I fully expect to see this on the 2023 Booker longlist - and wouldn't be surprised if Catton became the youngest double winner in Booker history.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/bo....
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
March 8, 2024
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.
I honestly did not want this unputdownable book to end, I wasn't ready to say goodbye. (This would make a great series, also. I'm making my comment parenthetical in case some folks think 'make a good series' is a euphemism for "mediocre book.")
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.
Be ready! And the ending----
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.
I honestly did not want this unputdownable book to end, I wasn't ready to say goodbye. (This would make a great series, also. I'm making my comment parenthetical in case some folks think 'make a good series' is a euphemism for "mediocre book.")
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.
Be ready! And the ending----
March 26, 2023
So SO good, but you’ve got to stick with it. It starts slowly, but accelerates in a rush. Very hard to put down once it gets going.
Like Catton’s “The Luminaries,” the writing requires concentration and thought. This is not an easy, breezy read but it will reward you for your perseverance.
One of my favorites so far this year.
Like Catton’s “The Luminaries,” the writing requires concentration and thought. This is not an easy, breezy read but it will reward you for your perseverance.
One of my favorites so far this year.
February 24, 2024
A political novel about the rich and the activists who befriend them when they don't oppose them, 'Birnam Wood' starts as great literature but transforms into something like genre fiction. Compelling characters, promising conflicts, and nuanced political discourse are slowly reduced to clichés. The ending wasn't as bad as it could have been. That's the only good thing I can say about the second half. 'The luminaries' is postponed after this dissapoinment.
March 22, 2023
I was extremely disappointed in this novel for quite a few reasons.
First, I like a story to be told in concise chapters that advance the storyline. This book rambles and has no chapters at all. The book which is in excess of 400 pages is divided into 3 sections. It is virtually impossible to follow the rambling endless narrative.
Second, the plot if you ca call it that basically is that the good altruistic people are naive and clueless and easily taken in and bamboozled by the billionaires of this world who are always up to no good and who always have everything at their disposal to get their way and ruin society and our planet. Frankly, I'm not sure I needed 400+ pages of prose to tell me that.
Third, the story could have been better told if pruned to about 100 pages.
Perhaps I was expecting too much from this book since it came highly hyped (I mean compared to MacBeth?) but I don't think it was "me" I actually believe this book was the disappointment. Of course there are elements that made it a difficult read for an American reading a story set in New Zealand and written by a native author, but that was only a minor element in my disappointment.
And lastly, the book didn't really END...it just rambled off into the sunset.
First, I like a story to be told in concise chapters that advance the storyline. This book rambles and has no chapters at all. The book which is in excess of 400 pages is divided into 3 sections. It is virtually impossible to follow the rambling endless narrative.
Second, the plot if you ca call it that basically is that the good altruistic people are naive and clueless and easily taken in and bamboozled by the billionaires of this world who are always up to no good and who always have everything at their disposal to get their way and ruin society and our planet. Frankly, I'm not sure I needed 400+ pages of prose to tell me that.
Third, the story could have been better told if pruned to about 100 pages.
Perhaps I was expecting too much from this book since it came highly hyped (I mean compared to MacBeth?) but I don't think it was "me" I actually believe this book was the disappointment. Of course there are elements that made it a difficult read for an American reading a story set in New Zealand and written by a native author, but that was only a minor element in my disappointment.
And lastly, the book didn't really END...it just rambled off into the sunset.
April 15, 2023
I stayed up to 2am reading the book to see how it ended. It wasn’t worth it.
March 4, 2023
I think this is one of those ones where I'll either praise it or trash it entirely depending on the day
March 25, 2023
In less than 24 hours I have changed my mind, this is a VERY good book (for this reader). One of the things I love about Catton, is that she writes the book she wants to write with no care for fitting in with a trend. I found Birnam Wood a challenging read, in all the right ways. This story demanded a lot from my headspace. It is littered with philiosophical discussions about complex, challenging ideas. All of these are interesting, even in episodic ways, and this book has sparked lots of interesting conversations for me this week. I can see how the caustic tone might be alienating to some readers, but for me, the way this narrative was pitched really enhanced my engagement with the ideas Catton grapples with. She is holding a challenging mirror up to all of us, and this is something important that books and stories can do for us all.
March 3, 2023
A new vocabulary had come into force: Birnam Wood was now a start-up, a pop-up, the brainchild of “creatives”; it was organic, it was local; it was a bit like Uber; it was a bit like Airbnb. In this new, perpetually unsettled climate, Shelley’s defection from the conventional economy had gained, she knew, a kind of retroactive valour, and even Mira — seditious, independent-minded Mira — suddenly seemed to be just the sort of trendy big-talking renegade one could imagine being contracted by the government as a black-ops adviser, writing inflammatory blogs and newspaper columns that defended unorthodox opinions and debated the right to free speech. Agitation had lost its juvenile cast: it had been made urgent again, righteous again, necessary again. An aura of prescience now permeated Birnam Wood.
I was one of those readers who was make impatient by Eleanor Catton’s widely-praised last novel, The Luminaries — mostly because I found it to be too esoteric; too full of literary tricks and authorial fingers in the plot for my taste — yet I still recognised Catton as a wonderfully talented writer and I looked forward to whatever she came out with next. As a follow-up, Birnam Wood does not disappoint: a thrilling bit of political ecofiction with compelling characters, an immersive setting, and timely commentary on modern social ills, I gobbled this up (aided by the fact that it’s half as long as her last novel). I can see a complaint that this might be a bit potboilery — and especially when compared to the literary fireworks of Catton’s last work — but I personally loved everything about this and am rounding up to five stars. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Between the press coverage of the knighthood and the reporting on the landslide on the pass, Thorndike had been much in the public consciousness in recent months, and if Birnam Wood could stage a demonstration on the Darvish property, Mira thought — if they could arrange to be caught in the act of trespassing — if they could invite prosecution, even, for the alleged crime of planting a sustainable organic garden on an empty tract of land — and if they could then present to the media exactly what they’d planted, and explain their mission, and enumerate their goals, and prove themselves to be serious and good-hearted professionals whose work was tidy, and efficient, and fruitful, and thoughtful, and respectful of the land — would that not be a form of breaking good? They would risk criminal charges, of course, but at least they’d get their message out. And since Owen Darvish was to be knighted for services to conservation, at the very least they might provoke an interesting debate.
The plot of Birnam Wood involves the intersection of three groups of people: the “Birnam Wood” of the title is a collective of guerilla gardeners who plant crops on abandoned and underused urban land, and although they claim a “horizontal” power structure, it is essentially led by two young women, Mira (the dreamer) and Shelley (the doer). When a landslide closes the only passage through the (fictional) Korowai range in New Zealand’s South Island, Mira plots to expand her group’s activities by secretly cultivating a former sheep farm in the area that had been recently for sale, and now pulled from the market because of the landslide. This farm is owned by the second group: Sir Owen Darvish (a pest control entrepreneur who had recently received a knighthood, to his surprise and delight) and his wife, Jill, the newly minted Lady Darvish. Although the Darvishes had long been well off, they have just become multi-millionaires by privately selling the majority of their land to the third party: American tech-billionaire Robert Lemoine, who told the Darvishes he was interested in their farm in order to build himself a remote luxury doomsday bunker, but who actually has a secret plan that will see him become the world’s first trillionaire. When Mira runs into Lemoine while scouting the farm — and he offers her a lot of money to make a legitimate nonprofit out of Birnam Wood, for secretive reasons of his own — Mira will need to decide whether or not to compromise her core values in order to finally make a success out of her passion project. Each of these three groups are not entirely honest with one another, deceptions and misunderstandings abound, and much like the tragedy referenced by the book’s title, there’s definitely something Shakespearean about the way that self-interested power grabs tend to lead to a fall.
Forget the bunker, forget everything he’d planned to write about survivalism, and growth hacking, and techno-futurism, and imperial-stage-capitalist decline, and New Zealand’s pathetically obsequious courting of the superrich. Forget all of that. This was his story. He couldn’t quite see the whole picture yet — but a picture was undoubtedly forming. Whatever was going on in Korowai was going on in secret, and he, Tony Gallo, Anthony Gallo, was going to be the one to flush it out.
Intersecting with and tying the three groups together is Tony Gallo: One of the founding members of Birnam Wood, Tony is newly returned from four years of teaching English in Mexico; and although he would be devastated if anyone learned he actually lives off a trust fund, he intends to make his mark as a leftist eat-the-rich investigative journalist. Between having debates with the other members of Birnam Wood about the morality of accepting money from a drone-building tech-billionaire and misunderstanding the link between Lemoine and the Darvishes, Tony serves as both a believable, vocal critic of late-stage capitalism and as a loose cannon interfering with the others’ well-laid plans.
“So anyway,” Shelley went on, “this is what I was thinking: that, like, the real choices that you make in your life, the really difficult, defining choices, are never between what’s right and what’s easy. They’re between what’s wrong and what’s hard.”
The above quote seems to be the central theme of Birnam Wood, and throughout, Catton shows people — from the most dippyish of hippies to supposedly democratic governments (to Macbeth himself, for that matter) — knowingly choosing what’s wrong, because it’s what they want to do; it’s self-serving lies and manufactured personas that lead to misunderstandings that lead to tragedy. Throughout — from the characters to the political debates to the thrilling action — this was just so readable and timely. I may have complained that I found The Luminaries to be all sizzle no steak, but here we have the steak and I leave entirely satisfied. (However, I’ll understand if others want a bit more sizzle.)
March 27, 2023
One star reviews are a rarity for me, but I cannot write this review without a gigantic spoiler re: a denouement that changed my rating from a lukewarm three to a one. I was so disappointed after reading a great deal of media hype about this book as well as a number of glowing reviews. The elements of a good, thought-provoking plot are there, though the first half drags almost intolerably at times. The characters were, for me, largely illogically and inconsistently motivated; I could not relate to or empathize with any of the major players (with the exception of Tony, the would-be reporter).
April 5, 2024
There is an Austen-esque quality to the first half of Birnam Wood that endeared me to the novel, a chatty interiority that delves deep into the characters' thoughts and motivations, that lingers in their pontifications. Pages pass with scarcely a paragraph break, thick hunks of prose like a monster club sandwich you can't get your mouth around without it falling apart.
It also meant I could read this only a few pages at a time before my attention began to wander, waiting and wondering where the promised "thriller" bits of this purported thriller would surface. When they do, it's a rush to a finish that is too replete with coincidence and cinematic flair to maintain the resonance of the novel's earlier thematic seriousness.
And yet. There is something deliciously satisfying about this odd social satire, a mannered consideration of young white leftists mired in their sanctimony and social justice jargon married to a bustling Le Carré thriller with a billionaire villain who can alter text messages on other people's phones and cause earthquakes with his greed. Eleanor Catton spares no one as she offers several characters their full turn on her stage, shifting points of view from chapter to chapter to give us the full 360° of this drama.
The premise is relatively simple: Birnam Wood is a gardening collective in Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island that reclaims unused land, without permission, to grow vegetables. It's meant to have a "horizontal" governing structure, but its leader is clear: one Mira Bunting, a charismatic, self-absorbed but dedicated young woman who knows how to charm or intimidate to get her way. Her foil is best friend Shelley Noakes, a self-deprecating but highly efficient worker bee who is mulling over the prospect of walking away from an endeavor she's patiently devoted years of her life to. Mira learns of a large farm several hours’ drive south that's been abandoned by its owners after a massive landslide has cut it and the neighboring town off from the rest of the region. She figures she can install a growing operation there before anyone is the wiser. What she doesn't count on is an American billionaire who also has his eye on the property to set up his apocalyptic bolthole. But he takes a shine to Mira and decides he'll underwrite Birnam Wood, presenting the guerrilla gardeners with a keen dilemma: the enemy, an American capitalist who made his fortune from surveillance technology, is giving this struggling little collective the opportunity to go legit and become a sustainable non-profit.
That's all you'll get for the plot from me. Catton goes on to turn this into a stylized thriller that is both laugh-out-loud silly and heartbreakingly tragic. Damn masterful, really. It's a swervy, deliberately inconsistent novel made up of parts that tumble together until they click into place with maddening inevitability, like her Booker Prize winning The Luminaries, which I adored to the stars and back. Birnam Wood captured less of my imagination than it did my admiration because its parts don't snap together quite as firmly into a cogent whole, but it is still a wow of a read.
It also meant I could read this only a few pages at a time before my attention began to wander, waiting and wondering where the promised "thriller" bits of this purported thriller would surface. When they do, it's a rush to a finish that is too replete with coincidence and cinematic flair to maintain the resonance of the novel's earlier thematic seriousness.
And yet. There is something deliciously satisfying about this odd social satire, a mannered consideration of young white leftists mired in their sanctimony and social justice jargon married to a bustling Le Carré thriller with a billionaire villain who can alter text messages on other people's phones and cause earthquakes with his greed. Eleanor Catton spares no one as she offers several characters their full turn on her stage, shifting points of view from chapter to chapter to give us the full 360° of this drama.
The premise is relatively simple: Birnam Wood is a gardening collective in Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island that reclaims unused land, without permission, to grow vegetables. It's meant to have a "horizontal" governing structure, but its leader is clear: one Mira Bunting, a charismatic, self-absorbed but dedicated young woman who knows how to charm or intimidate to get her way. Her foil is best friend Shelley Noakes, a self-deprecating but highly efficient worker bee who is mulling over the prospect of walking away from an endeavor she's patiently devoted years of her life to. Mira learns of a large farm several hours’ drive south that's been abandoned by its owners after a massive landslide has cut it and the neighboring town off from the rest of the region. She figures she can install a growing operation there before anyone is the wiser. What she doesn't count on is an American billionaire who also has his eye on the property to set up his apocalyptic bolthole. But he takes a shine to Mira and decides he'll underwrite Birnam Wood, presenting the guerrilla gardeners with a keen dilemma: the enemy, an American capitalist who made his fortune from surveillance technology, is giving this struggling little collective the opportunity to go legit and become a sustainable non-profit.
That's all you'll get for the plot from me. Catton goes on to turn this into a stylized thriller that is both laugh-out-loud silly and heartbreakingly tragic. Damn masterful, really. It's a swervy, deliberately inconsistent novel made up of parts that tumble together until they click into place with maddening inevitability, like her Booker Prize winning The Luminaries, which I adored to the stars and back. Birnam Wood captured less of my imagination than it did my admiration because its parts don't snap together quite as firmly into a cogent whole, but it is still a wow of a read.
September 30, 2024
THIRD APPARITION MACBETH
Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Macbeth shall never be vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.
That will never be,
Who can impress the forest, bid the trees
Unfix his earth-bound root?
And so begins the latest psychological thriller by Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, set in a remote area of New Zealand. In this intricately plotted eco-thriller we are faced with the overarching dilemmas being confronted throughout the world and precipitated primarily by climate change and its devastating effects as well as the ethics of societal and economic structures. One is witness to all of these disparate threads as they come to an explosive conclusion in these pages making this book impossible to put down for long. One must ponder the significance of this group of environmental activists to have chosen Birnam Wood for their name evoking the Birnam Wood in Macbeth moving to the forest of Dunsinane Hill, foreshadowing the fall of Macbeth.
At the heart of this tale is Mira Bunting, a twenty-nine year old horticulturist by training, and the founder of collective of environmental activists dedicated to the planting and cultivation of crops on wasted land wherever it may be found involving varying degrees of trespass. Her latest area of interest was in the remote town of Thorndike, located just north of the Korowai Pass in the foothills of the Korowai ranges. Catching Mira's attention was the fact that the Korowai Pass had been closed since the end of the summer presenting this ragtag group of leftists a perfect opportunity. But complicating this plan may be that the area had just been sold by New Zealand businessman and recently knighted Sir Owen Darvish and his wife, Lady Darvish. Another complication is American billionaire Robert Lemoine with his own plans for the land in question as his aerial drones surveil the property. And then to add further to the mystery, there is an aspiring journalist, Anthony Gallo. Having recently been shunned by Birnam Wood, he strikes out on his own to see where the truth may lie in all of this confusion and subterfuge, not to mention the moral dilemmas at issue. All of these various threads add a lot of interest and suspense to the story as it unfolds in startling fashion and a stunning conclusion. Well done Ms. Catton, once again!
December 13, 2022
I sincerely apologize to NetGalley and the publisher for my inability to finish reading this book. I was excited to obtain the ARC copy to read, having notices that Eleanor Catton was a Booker Prize winner.
Like Shelley, the author writes like an English major. (So am I.) However, the run-on sentences and long, long parenthetical phrases threw me off balance. And I simply could not get interested in the plot. Sorry.
Like Shelley, the author writes like an English major. (So am I.) However, the run-on sentences and long, long parenthetical phrases threw me off balance. And I simply could not get interested in the plot. Sorry.
April 1, 2023
I have trouble remembering why I was so excited about Catton’s third novel that I put it on my Most Anticipated list for 2023, especially given my decidedly mixed feelings about The Luminaries (my most popular Goodreads review of all time!). I’d read a lot about Birnam Wood so its plot held no surprises for me. An American tech billionaire is up to no good on a New Zealand nature reserve; though the members of a guerrilla gardening group summon courage to fight back, his drones see all.
From early on I had little interest in the cast and their doings, especially the buzzword-filled dialogues, and skimmed the rest. Literary fiction usually distinguishes itself from commercial genre fiction by its focus on character depth (and prose quality), but in Catton’s case that was achieved through endless backstory. Her attempt at edginess entails adding at least one F-word to each spoken sentence. I’d heard that the ending was a knockout, so I skipped ahead and did find the last 40 pages gripping and the gruesome final tableau worthy of the Shakespearean allusions, but there’s a lot of blah to wade through before that.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
From early on I had little interest in the cast and their doings, especially the buzzword-filled dialogues, and skimmed the rest. Literary fiction usually distinguishes itself from commercial genre fiction by its focus on character depth (and prose quality), but in Catton’s case that was achieved through endless backstory. Her attempt at edginess entails adding at least one F-word to each spoken sentence. I’d heard that the ending was a knockout, so I skipped ahead and did find the last 40 pages gripping and the gruesome final tableau worthy of the Shakespearean allusions, but there’s a lot of blah to wade through before that.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Read
July 17, 2023Reviewed in the July 2023 edition of Quick Lit on Modern Mrs Darcy:
Eco-thriller meets Shakespearean tragedy in this new release from Booker winner Catton. I think my husband Will would love it and I wish you could have heard me describing it to him over morning coffee! Birnam Wood is the Shakespeare-inspired name of an idealistic activist group focused on guerilla gardening efforts. When their pragmatic leader crosses paths with a powerful American billionaire, he persuades her to enter into an unlikely but perhaps mutually beneficial partnership pertaining to land adjoining a national park. But neither party is willing to acknowledge its true aims, and the consequences could be deadly. This high-stakes, action-packed tale features environmental rights, big egos, privacy concerns, politics, and more. Fans of compulsively readable literary fiction: this one's for you. The jaw-dropping ending also makes this an excellent pick for book clubs: there's so much to talk about!
Eco-thriller meets Shakespearean tragedy in this new release from Booker winner Catton. I think my husband Will would love it and I wish you could have heard me describing it to him over morning coffee! Birnam Wood is the Shakespeare-inspired name of an idealistic activist group focused on guerilla gardening efforts. When their pragmatic leader crosses paths with a powerful American billionaire, he persuades her to enter into an unlikely but perhaps mutually beneficial partnership pertaining to land adjoining a national park. But neither party is willing to acknowledge its true aims, and the consequences could be deadly. This high-stakes, action-packed tale features environmental rights, big egos, privacy concerns, politics, and more. Fans of compulsively readable literary fiction: this one's for you. The jaw-dropping ending also makes this an excellent pick for book clubs: there's so much to talk about!
May 2, 2023
Update: NYT Book Review weekly podcast has a great interview with Catton in which she discusses her motivation in writing this book and a lot of the considerations that went into it.
=====================================================================
It's difficult to decide where to begin with this review, since author Eleanor Catton gives us plenty to consider. The book features a half dozen well-drawn characters, a plot that builds slowly but at the same time seems inevitable, and acute observations about political and environmental issues. And a setting that is lovingly described: a remote area of the South Island of New Zealand.
Birnam Wood is a grass-roots organization raising crops on unused land, with or without the owners' permission. ("Birnam Wood" is a location in Macbeth: "Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him." The significance of this seeming prediction of invincibility echoes through the book in multiple ways.)
Three individuals associated with Birnam Wood are key to the story: Mira, the trained horticulturist and passionate founder; Shelley, the detail person, an administrator of sorts; and Tony, an intellectual who left the group years ago but has returned with an updated take on their worldview.
The plot kicks off when an earthquake blocks Korowai Pass, the primary access to the community of Thorndike, a large adjacent farm, and a national park. The plans of the owners of the farm, Sir Owen and Lady Darvish, to sell off a significant portion for development were sidelined by this event. In steps Lemoine, an American billionaire, with an offer to purchase the property; he wants to build a bunker as a personal bolthole when global catastrophe hits.
Unaware of this, Mira has her own plan. Since Sir Owen and Lady Darvish won't be on site for an extended period, Birnam Wood will use the space to grow crops on a far greater scale than anything they have attempted before. When she travels to Thorndike to assess the situation, she encounters Lemoine and things turn interesting, building to a climax worthy of any thriller.
There is a certain coolness in Catton's descriptions of the characters that initially kept me from connecting with them. But as the chapters rolled on and they were revealed in increasing detail (often through self-reflection), I became more and more attached to them, Lady Darvish in particular.
The complexities of the plot also emerge slowly, particularly as nothing related to Lemoine can be accepted at face value. Points of view alternate among the six principals, and their awareness, or the lack thereof, of each other's motivations triggers much of the forward momentum.
As I think about the book while writing this I am struck by Catton's skill at interweaving the characters' stories and the greater theme of personal responsibility in the face of pending global ecological and political disaster. I keep getting an image of a giant cat's cradle of delicately interwoven strings - can any of them be plucked to resolve the puzzle?
After reading this, I'm not surprised that Catton received a Booker for her earlier book The Luminaries, which I haven't read. She is an impressive author.
=====================================================================
It's difficult to decide where to begin with this review, since author Eleanor Catton gives us plenty to consider. The book features a half dozen well-drawn characters, a plot that builds slowly but at the same time seems inevitable, and acute observations about political and environmental issues. And a setting that is lovingly described: a remote area of the South Island of New Zealand.
Birnam Wood is a grass-roots organization raising crops on unused land, with or without the owners' permission. ("Birnam Wood" is a location in Macbeth: "Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him." The significance of this seeming prediction of invincibility echoes through the book in multiple ways.)
Three individuals associated with Birnam Wood are key to the story: Mira, the trained horticulturist and passionate founder; Shelley, the detail person, an administrator of sorts; and Tony, an intellectual who left the group years ago but has returned with an updated take on their worldview.
The plot kicks off when an earthquake blocks Korowai Pass, the primary access to the community of Thorndike, a large adjacent farm, and a national park. The plans of the owners of the farm, Sir Owen and Lady Darvish, to sell off a significant portion for development were sidelined by this event. In steps Lemoine, an American billionaire, with an offer to purchase the property; he wants to build a bunker as a personal bolthole when global catastrophe hits.
Unaware of this, Mira has her own plan. Since Sir Owen and Lady Darvish won't be on site for an extended period, Birnam Wood will use the space to grow crops on a far greater scale than anything they have attempted before. When she travels to Thorndike to assess the situation, she encounters Lemoine and things turn interesting, building to a climax worthy of any thriller.
There is a certain coolness in Catton's descriptions of the characters that initially kept me from connecting with them. But as the chapters rolled on and they were revealed in increasing detail (often through self-reflection), I became more and more attached to them, Lady Darvish in particular.
The complexities of the plot also emerge slowly, particularly as nothing related to Lemoine can be accepted at face value. Points of view alternate among the six principals, and their awareness, or the lack thereof, of each other's motivations triggers much of the forward momentum.
As I think about the book while writing this I am struck by Catton's skill at interweaving the characters' stories and the greater theme of personal responsibility in the face of pending global ecological and political disaster. I keep getting an image of a giant cat's cradle of delicately interwoven strings - can any of them be plucked to resolve the puzzle?
After reading this, I'm not surprised that Catton received a Booker for her earlier book The Luminaries, which I haven't read. She is an impressive author.
January 19, 2023
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, a thriller mystery novel set in Thorndike, New Zealand and is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.
Honestly speaking, I was very excited to read this book since it felt very different and of course the authors previous book is a Booker Prize winner. But this one did not match with my reading tastes, what I mean here is the fact that the writing style is very different and felt like I was reading a textbook.
The plot is at the same time catchy which kept me going through the book, the book is divided into three different parts, and the first part is almost 120 pages of the book which is the world and culture setting of the entire plot and very very boring.
The book two kept me going and was read quite quickly as compared to the first one. Overall, all I would say is it's a good book but just not my preferred choice of read. The suspense between the two main characters was excellent.
Honestly speaking, I was very excited to read this book since it felt very different and of course the authors previous book is a Booker Prize winner. But this one did not match with my reading tastes, what I mean here is the fact that the writing style is very different and felt like I was reading a textbook.
The plot is at the same time catchy which kept me going through the book, the book is divided into three different parts, and the first part is almost 120 pages of the book which is the world and culture setting of the entire plot and very very boring.
The book two kept me going and was read quite quickly as compared to the first one. Overall, all I would say is it's a good book but just not my preferred choice of read. The suspense between the two main characters was excellent.
February 23, 2024
While the generous references to New Zealand culture, fauna and flora made me perk up on several occasions, I remained grumpy from a lengthy, explanatory beginning that lasted a good third of the book. Couldn’t shake an ambiguous first impression, even as I enjoyed the prose throughout the novel: in smaller chunks, the book charmed me, especially in the second half, but as a whole, my feelings remained mixed, at best.
February 12, 2023
Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunisnane hill
Shall come against him
This quote is from, obviously, Macbeth, and is part of one of the prophecies given by the witches that drive the plot of that play forward. It is also part of the epigraph to Eleanor Catton’s new novel. The shadow of Macbeth looms over this novel although definitely not a simple modern re-telling. There is a very helpful interview at thebookseller.com which I will probably quote a few times. Like this:
Birnam Wood transports the ideas of “Macbeth” to New Zealand in 2017, but it’s far from a direct retelling, which Catton often finds tedious (and she does not believe in boring her readers). Instead, every lead character is a plausible contender for the role of Macbeth, with a Lady Macbeth figure beside them. Noticing in 2016 that everyone around her (including herself) had become adept at diagnosing Macbeth-like qualities in others but not in themselves, she set out to play with the notion that nobody thinks they are the bad guy.
Then there’s this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...
This Guardian article talks about the surge of billionaires building bunkers in New Zealand. One of the reasons they choose New Zealand, at least as it appears reading this book, is that the country doesn’t seem to bother with things like residency and permissions should a non-New Zealander want to build, preferring instead to sort it out with a generous amount of cash. Of course, a lot of billionaires are not short of cash.
This is quite a political novel. As thebookseller.com has it political but not partisan.
Finally there’s the Birnam Wood of the novel. Here, Birnam Wood is not an actual forest but is the name adopted by a “guerrilla gardening” collective, idealistic people who plant crops on spare land, with or without permission.
This is where the novel starts. It is 2017 in New Zealand. Mira Bunting is a leader within the Birnam Wood organisation. Robert Lemoine is a billionaire building a bolt hole just down the road. The two meet and the story sets off.
To return to thebookseller.com:
In a literary landscape where intricate, 19th century-style plotting has fallen from vogue, the New Zealand writer, currently based in Cambridge in the UK, stands out as its loyal defender. “The moral development of people in plotted novels where people make choices is fascinating and important. I’d like to see more books like that.” In Birnam Wood, a social novel born of the political upheavals of 2016—the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump—she looks to that master architect of plot: Shakespeare.
This is a plot-driven novel.
Except it isn’t for the first part, which is 100-odd pages long and almost made me want to stop reading the book. It includes numerous diversions to establish the backstories of the main players in the novel, which I guess we need to know at least part of, but it feels way, way longer than it needs to be.
To be fair to the novel, if you get through that first part, the pace picks up considerably. I don’t normally read novels for their plot, so you might think I would view this book the other way round: an interesting, introspective, starting point and then a plot-driven main body. But I found myself struggling in that first part and the fast-paced story that comes through in the remaining parts of the book is a bit of a relief.
The ending is intriguing, too. No spoilers. I am not sure what I make of it. Some people will hate it, but I think it makes for an intriguing place to stop reading the book.
This is a book a bit about our surveillance culture, a bit about corruption at high levels, a bit about the limits of individuals in standing up for their beliefs. Since The Luminaries, Catton has worked on screen plays (e.g. for The Luminaries) and this book has the feel of a big screen movie. After the first 100 pages or so, I enjoyed reading it even though it feels quite different to the kind of book I would normally read. It’s long (too long, I feel), but it flies by quickly.
It’s a 3.5 star book for me. I’m rounding up and will see how I feel when the book has had time to settle a bit and as other reviewers pass comment. Edit: now rounded down instead of up.
My thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.
Great Birnam wood to high Dunisnane hill
Shall come against him
This quote is from, obviously, Macbeth, and is part of one of the prophecies given by the witches that drive the plot of that play forward. It is also part of the epigraph to Eleanor Catton’s new novel. The shadow of Macbeth looms over this novel although definitely not a simple modern re-telling. There is a very helpful interview at thebookseller.com which I will probably quote a few times. Like this:
Birnam Wood transports the ideas of “Macbeth” to New Zealand in 2017, but it’s far from a direct retelling, which Catton often finds tedious (and she does not believe in boring her readers). Instead, every lead character is a plausible contender for the role of Macbeth, with a Lady Macbeth figure beside them. Noticing in 2016 that everyone around her (including herself) had become adept at diagnosing Macbeth-like qualities in others but not in themselves, she set out to play with the notion that nobody thinks they are the bad guy.
Then there’s this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...
This Guardian article talks about the surge of billionaires building bunkers in New Zealand. One of the reasons they choose New Zealand, at least as it appears reading this book, is that the country doesn’t seem to bother with things like residency and permissions should a non-New Zealander want to build, preferring instead to sort it out with a generous amount of cash. Of course, a lot of billionaires are not short of cash.
This is quite a political novel. As thebookseller.com has it political but not partisan.
Finally there’s the Birnam Wood of the novel. Here, Birnam Wood is not an actual forest but is the name adopted by a “guerrilla gardening” collective, idealistic people who plant crops on spare land, with or without permission.
This is where the novel starts. It is 2017 in New Zealand. Mira Bunting is a leader within the Birnam Wood organisation. Robert Lemoine is a billionaire building a bolt hole just down the road. The two meet and the story sets off.
To return to thebookseller.com:
In a literary landscape where intricate, 19th century-style plotting has fallen from vogue, the New Zealand writer, currently based in Cambridge in the UK, stands out as its loyal defender. “The moral development of people in plotted novels where people make choices is fascinating and important. I’d like to see more books like that.” In Birnam Wood, a social novel born of the political upheavals of 2016—the Brexit vote, the election of Donald Trump—she looks to that master architect of plot: Shakespeare.
This is a plot-driven novel.
Except it isn’t for the first part, which is 100-odd pages long and almost made me want to stop reading the book. It includes numerous diversions to establish the backstories of the main players in the novel, which I guess we need to know at least part of, but it feels way, way longer than it needs to be.
To be fair to the novel, if you get through that first part, the pace picks up considerably. I don’t normally read novels for their plot, so you might think I would view this book the other way round: an interesting, introspective, starting point and then a plot-driven main body. But I found myself struggling in that first part and the fast-paced story that comes through in the remaining parts of the book is a bit of a relief.
The ending is intriguing, too. No spoilers. I am not sure what I make of it. Some people will hate it, but I think it makes for an intriguing place to stop reading the book.
This is a book a bit about our surveillance culture, a bit about corruption at high levels, a bit about the limits of individuals in standing up for their beliefs. Since The Luminaries, Catton has worked on screen plays (e.g. for The Luminaries) and this book has the feel of a big screen movie. After the first 100 pages or so, I enjoyed reading it even though it feels quite different to the kind of book I would normally read. It’s long (too long, I feel), but it flies by quickly.
It’s a 3.5 star book for me. I’m rounding up and will see how I feel when the book has had time to settle a bit and as other reviewers pass comment. Edit: now rounded down instead of up.
My thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.
March 31, 2023
TLDR; The most stupid ending I've ever read from something so acclaimed. Also, every character is defined mostly by their political stance and who they have slept with.
I like books with a slow start, but the start of this one was a huge tangent about who everyone's parents are and how they are such boomers and don't understand anything remotely socialist. There are several other irrelevant meanderings in the story that simply feel like filler. The prose is quite simplistic, so at least it's easy to skim.
My major problem with this book was the billionaire character. I read this book last month, and I already can't remember his name. Anyway, evil billionaire man is evil. I hate billionaires too, but this guy was the most plastic caricature I've ever read. Everything about him is completely empty, besides the fact that he is, indeed, a psychopath - but not the same frantic, crazed psychopath that is iconic for being well-written and tearing wide open the festering monsters of capitalism in the modern day (i.e. Patrick Bateman); Lemon (his name was something like that) is simply a guy who uses his brain and wants money, and that's literally it.
This makes the ending the most bizarre, garbage conclusion ever. Things start to get very messy and complicated, and Lemon doesn't like messy and complicated, so he decides to stage a mass murder of the activist group and frame some other guy for it.
So we've got this "crazy smart" guy who essentially boils down to "I have so much money that I can kill everyone and get away with it".
Also, I liked the female characters Mira and Shelley, but their actions in the novel feel absolutely inconsequential. All that happens is that they go along with Lemon's whims (whilst thirsting for him) and get killed.
Tony definitely had the most dimension to his character, with his egotism, his soreness regarding rejection, and his political stance that can be described as "man too outraged to die." I appreciated Tony, he was a good character, and also the only character that felt like he had any real impact on the plot (besides Lemon, though I treat him more as a device of pure evil that we had to occassionally suffer through the boring as hell POV of, instead of a character).
Overall, it's a really disappointing read. I don't really understand what the purpose of this book was. To be a political message about how shit the world is right now? Yeah, I totally get it, and I agree - but the thing is, anyone who reads this book will already agree anyway. Anyone who doesn't already agree with the political messaging would put down this book quickly because it reads more like a rant than a narrative (although I suppose maybe that's the point). It's a real shame because the messages are most certainly important and encompass a huge amount of problems with our world today, but it just feels too much like the reader is just being told what to think, instead of being able to come to any conclusions on their own.
I like books with a slow start, but the start of this one was a huge tangent about who everyone's parents are and how they are such boomers and don't understand anything remotely socialist. There are several other irrelevant meanderings in the story that simply feel like filler. The prose is quite simplistic, so at least it's easy to skim.
My major problem with this book was the billionaire character. I read this book last month, and I already can't remember his name. Anyway, evil billionaire man is evil. I hate billionaires too, but this guy was the most plastic caricature I've ever read. Everything about him is completely empty, besides the fact that he is, indeed, a psychopath - but not the same frantic, crazed psychopath that is iconic for being well-written and tearing wide open the festering monsters of capitalism in the modern day (i.e. Patrick Bateman); Lemon (his name was something like that) is simply a guy who uses his brain and wants money, and that's literally it.
This makes the ending the most bizarre, garbage conclusion ever. Things start to get very messy and complicated, and Lemon doesn't like messy and complicated, so he decides to stage a mass murder of the activist group and frame some other guy for it.
So we've got this "crazy smart" guy who essentially boils down to "I have so much money that I can kill everyone and get away with it".
Also, I liked the female characters Mira and Shelley, but their actions in the novel feel absolutely inconsequential. All that happens is that they go along with Lemon's whims (whilst thirsting for him) and get killed.
Tony definitely had the most dimension to his character, with his egotism, his soreness regarding rejection, and his political stance that can be described as "man too outraged to die." I appreciated Tony, he was a good character, and also the only character that felt like he had any real impact on the plot (besides Lemon, though I treat him more as a device of pure evil that we had to occassionally suffer through the boring as hell POV of, instead of a character).
Overall, it's a really disappointing read. I don't really understand what the purpose of this book was. To be a political message about how shit the world is right now? Yeah, I totally get it, and I agree - but the thing is, anyone who reads this book will already agree anyway. Anyone who doesn't already agree with the political messaging would put down this book quickly because it reads more like a rant than a narrative (although I suppose maybe that's the point). It's a real shame because the messages are most certainly important and encompass a huge amount of problems with our world today, but it just feels too much like the reader is just being told what to think, instead of being able to come to any conclusions on their own.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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