The Luminaries

Man Booker prize.  That sounds like a male modeling agency award.  It turns out it is the literary award for the best book written in the English language from the Commonwealth of Nations.  Eleanor Catton is pretty young to win such a prestigious award. I think of Eleanor as an older person's name but no, she's so young it's like hot again.  I heard some kids playing last week yelling at Edith.  I'm like Edith is a kid's name now? What the hell?  I'm waiting for Ethel to make a comeback.  Or Betty. 

Anyway, The Luminaries is a muscular sized book, set in New Zealand, during the 1860's gold rush; it's like a classier Deadwood.  The book uses the old convention, like in Cloud Atlas, of writing curse words like this "D--n."  If Deadwood had been written like that, the dialog would look like Morse code.  "G-d d--n, c--------r."

This book has more characters than a Newport Kentucky Arby's.  It's mostly men, so I think it's easier to just categorize them into two categories.  Younger characters, in my mind, are Jude Law from the Sherlock Holmes movie.  Older characters are Wilford Brimley with a waxed mustache.  French guy--French Jude Law, Jewish guy--Jewish Wilford Brimley.  Of the two Chinese guys, I just made one tall.  Two girls? One's a blonde and one's a redhead.  Piece of cake.  Hey, I've read five Game of Thrones books.  I've got this.

I liked this book.  It's a complicated mystery and money scheming type plot.  I feel like not all the questions were resolved to my satisfaction but it did hold my interest.  But then, with that many Jude Laws running around in the rain no wonder it won the male model prize.  And I wonder why I'm disappointed with the movie adaptations of books.

Drinks:  They didn't have cocktails back in the 1860's they had c---------rs.  No, they drink stout or dry sherry, which is fine I suppose but I'm really feeling a cocktail these days.  This book has a men's club feel so why not drink with a Pegu Club?  2 ounces of gin, 3/4 ounce Cointreau, 1/2 ounce lime juice, 1 dash aromatic bitters and 1 dash orange bitters. Shake in a cocktail shaker, serve straight up with a lime wedge.