The Luminaries

Reading The Luminaries by Eleanor Cotten took me a long time. This is one huge book. Much like stories about the gold rush in California in the 1850's, this book is about the gold rush in Hokitika, a settlement on the south island of New Zealand in the 1850's. This story is organized by the 12 signs of the Zodiac. Each Zodiac sign is associated with a man in the story. Capricorn, for instance, is associated with Aubert Gascoigne.  Gascoigne was one of my favorite men in the story because, as a legal clerk for a justice, seemed to be one of the  more genuine and kind men in the story. Like all stories about gold rushes, there are miners and bankers, claims and speculators, bars and opium dens, and whores. The book was entertaining but I would have preferred it to be at least one third shorter than it was.