Eleanor Catton is the author of the international bestseller The Luminaries, winner of the Man Booker Prize and a Governor General's Literary Award. Her debut novel, The Rehearsal, won the Betty Trask Award, was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was long-listed for the Orange Prize. She is also the screenwriter of Emma, a 2020 feature film adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. Born in Canada and raised in New Zealand, she now lives in Cambridge, England.
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand's South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place: he has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker, or so he tells Birnam's founder, Mira, when he catches her on the property. He's intrigued by Mira, and by Birnam Wood; although they're poles apart politically, it seems Lemoine and the group might have enemies in common. But can Birnam trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another? A gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. A brilliantly constructed study of intentions, actions, and consequences, it is a mesmerizing, unflinching consideration of the human impulse to ensure our own survival.
I was initially intimidated by this book, and worried that it would be too smart for me. That was entirely incorrect—while the novel does have its moments of deep political/philosophical argument, there never once was a moment where I felt lost in the writing, except for when I was so deep into the story that I didn't want to put the book down. This book is compulsively readable, and I found myself very quickly invested in what the characters were scheming. I couldn't guess the end, and was shocked by it, despite knowing the Macbeth inspiration. The novel comments on a lot—including surveillance, activism, and more—but it was also enjoyable to read this book as thriller. I was shocked by the details hidden up and revealed and by questions we never quite got answers to. All-in-all, I definitely recommend this one to my literary-loving and thriller-seeking friends!
Catton, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, came to Iowa City and spoke about Birnam Wood at Prairie Lights. I was so honored to attend, and to hear about the crafting of Birnam Wood in her own words. One of the things that truly stuck with me is how each character, to themselves, is Macbeth—which means that for each character, they view any of the other characters as Macduff, or Lady Macbeth, or the Birnam Woods. I thought this was a truly brilliant way to write a Macbeth retelling, and it puts into perspective all of the choices each character makes in order to get to the end. It's also very fun to be reading one character's perspective and try and figure out who everyone else embodies for that character. I personally never really did quite figure it out (there's so much happening on the page that I wanted to focus on that, first!) but the fact that I probably could have sat down and drawn a flow chart truly impresses me, and makes me want to talk about this book at a book club with others who enjoyed the novel.
I've read a lot of Shakespeare for school, and all of Jane Austen's works for fun. I felt that Birnam Wood combined the best elements of both of those authors' styles. Catton kept Shakespeare's penchant for a wide cast of characters but focusing on the main characters. I never once felt like I couldn't balance the point of view shifts, or the ensemble themselves. There is also plenty of drama that keeps the page turning, and the general structure of Macbeth is indeed adhered to, all the way down to separating the book into three parts. Despite that, I was still shocked by the ending. As far as Austen's influence, it's clear to me that Catton uses elements of her writing style. Catton uses what I like to think of as Austen's ability to write long-winded-looking paragraphs full of interesting detail. I'm sure there's a more literary term for it, but I just felt while reading that Catton drew on Austen's writing style of hiding secrets in the long paragraphs and focusing just as much on showing through description as through dialogue in order to tell the story. I just thought this was a brilliant structure, and it made me enjoy and appreciate the story itself so much more.
This book was an incredible read, something that I was intimidated by at first but honestly found accessible and literary at the same time. I will definitely be keeping my eyes on future work from Eleanor Catton!
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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