The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton

the possibility of suicide ought not to be ruled out. When

Omg what a farce

she had lived in great fear of her husband, for he abused her daily,

The goldsmith held a prospector’s dish in both hands, and he was shaking the dish rhythmically, flicking out his wrists in the confident motion of a man long-practiced in a single skill.

he then refilled his dish with earth and stones, and repeated the procedure, with no variation whatsoever, until the sun sank below the treetops to the west.

There must be some satisfaction in the work

tailrace

Water wheel

This one was black, with iron straps, and a long square hasp through which a horizontal bar had been thrust to keep it closed; its lid was domed, and slatted like a barrel that had been laid upon its side.

"This one was black" - very unexpected in nature, ominous. Looks like a coffin

I took a gig to your father’s house but sir I could not ring the bell.

The lack of punctuation gives this passage a hsty, confessional quality

Sir I write with a request a prayer.

I beseech you for your charity believing you a good & Christian man & because I will remain always Your brother

am nothing more than Your grateful friend,

Omg so sad, especiallt aftrr ending of last letter "your brother" Crosbie Wells just became most sympathetic character in book

Moody

Moody was estranged from his own father and brother and is probably sympathetic

We have creeping damp and frost in-doors I wake most mornings with a rime of ice across my legs.

They only build well in the old country

But in my youth I was taught that charity is a primary virtue & one to be practiced most especially when that virtue is not due.

if you were in need sir I should turn my pockets out to help you as your brother.

The heart breaks

My mother warned me never to touch a pen when in a temper

I have been told that prostitution is a social ill composed of male licentiousness on the one hand & female depravity on the other

How odd it is that I should find myself on the contrary face of the world. I believe that I am as far from England as any man could be.

The frontier I think makes brothers of us all

Crosbie Wells wise in his humble way

I should have liked a brother to admire.

wonder if you walk about & think of me & if you search for fragments of my features in other people’s faces or their bodies when they pass you by. That is what I did every day while I was young & dreaming always of my father & trying to piece him from all the faces I had known.

Crosbie is saying that he loves Lauderback

I have never become used to Christmas in the summertime & feel the tradition as a whole is suited best to the colder months. Perhaps I blaspheme to talk of Christmas so but I esteem that there is much that does not retain its meaning here in New Zealand seeming instead like a faded relic from another time.

Lauderback

Compartmentaliser

ascension,

Like celestial body

must have forgotten to wind it this

Im pretty sure watxhes dont speed up

“How grand that must have felt,” said Mrs. Wells presently.

Shes clever

“Here’s a fact,” Mannering said. “The color black is invisible to spirits. I’ll make a bet that you didn’t know that—did you, now! It’s why we wear black at funerals: if we dressed in color we’d attract the attention of the dead. Wearing black, they can’t make us out.”

The only songs they knew were jigs and hornpipes, but Mrs. Wells had lit upon the idea that they might play their repertoire at a quarter time, or as slowly as their breath and co-ordination would permit, in order to be more in keeping with the tenor of the evening. Played slowly, the jigs turned sinister, and the hornpipes became sad;

“Sixpenny Money” was sounding at an aching drawl—putting one in mind not of dancing and celebration, but of funerals, sickness, and very bad news.

“And three shillings,” said Balfour. “That’s a price! We’ll be drinking our money’s worth—won’t we?” He looked into his glass.

Everyone is going to get very drunk

I’ll wager we’ll all come out of this business looking for a man to lean on. Looking for a man to trust.

Nilsson least trustworthy person ever

Charlie, he said to wait for either a deceased estate or a subdivision: either the one or the other, he said, for the sake of staying clean.

Frost is so clculating

“Who is this woman?” said Tauwhare slyly.

Lol

“Mr. Gascoigne says that you have come to Hokitika to make your fortune.” “Yes: so I hope.” “And how will you make it?” “By dint of hard work and good planning, I expect.” “Of course, there are many rich men who work little, and plan nothing at all.” “Those men are lucky,” Moody said. “Do you not wish to be lucky also?” “I wish to be able to call myself deserving of my lot,” Moody said carefully. “Luck is by nature undeserved.”

“Do you feel that you could ever truly ‘know’ your friend Mr. Gascoigne, for example? Can you see him from all sides?”

We as readers are presented with different sides of all these characters

subterfuge that Pritchard had predicted.

Pritchard the psychopath

He was making what the diggers called “pay dirt,” meaning that the sum total of his weekly income was more or less equal to the sum total of his weekly expenditure, but it was a holding pattern he could not sustain.

His manner was alternating between bluff cheer and clumsy condescension, as it might if he were speaking to someone else’s child.

This is me when i talk to someone elses child

Devlin sighed. “It would be a different class of falsehood,” he said, “only if the minister was using the authority of his office for ill. So long as the falsehood did not pertain to his office, there would be no difference. We are equal in the eyes of God.”

He has a very ready answer for.which terms he is comfortable lying under

played the serpent

“Well, there you have it: they must be related.”

this seems naive - i think moody is a common name

“Francis!

Is this man the supposedly dead crosbie wells? It did not mention recognising carvers voice again

The gaoler had been too modest: the whiskey was more than tolerable.

Maybe shepherd needs devlin as an ally

Devlin sipped at his whiskey. The taste was smoky and slightly musty; it put him in mind of cured meats, and new books, and barnyards, and cloves.

She was a barmaid.

Why did she save sook after he was beaten , if sook killed her husbaand?

“If I have learned one thing from experience, it is this: never underestimate how extraordinarily difficult it is to understand a situation from another person’s point of view.”

I will thank you both to restrict your interrogations of Miss Wetherell, and of all her associates, to appropriate themes. In describing Miss Wetherell’s former employment, you may choose from the terms ‘streetwalker,’ ‘lady of the night,’ or ‘member of the old profession.’ Do I make myself clear upon this point?”

Lol

but they’re all on the wiser side of forty, I would say.

Wetherell,” said

Weather-all : destined to weather everything awful

Long Toms.”

sank

Apt choice of word for this boat