Review 380: Birnam Wood

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book takes place in New Zealand. I haven’t read many books where this is the setting, so that was appealing. The main description was about an activist gardening collective, called Birnam Wood, that plants in unused land, also sounded interesting.

We start out with two of the main Brirnam Wood people, well it seems like they are the only people involved, but that isn’t the case. These two women live together and are fully enmeshed in each other’s lives, but at least one of them is not happy with the current situation. It feels set up that the book is about these two, but it’s more than that.

We get an omniscient point of view that practically tells the entire story. We do switch characters, a limited number at least, and get each of their personal thoughts, but there is less interaction between the characters, and hardly any dialogue.

It is these thick paragraphs that bogged down the reading for me, with hardly any breaks just endless thoughts and ruminations on past or present circumstances and philosophies.

The action comes later, and yet still somewhat slowed. The book was listed as a mystery/thriller but that isn’t quite true. Although there is something a bit unknown. There is practically no tension in the book.

I suppose I took the book too seriously, as it did have a light-hearted type feel to it, despite some of the content. After finishing I realized I didn’t really like, nor connect with, any of the characters. And I thoroughly did not like the ending. Yet I don’t feel it was a waste to have read the book. I found a moment or two where I learned something about New Zealand, the character of the people there.

But the ending...did not like that one bit.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.