This didn't work for me for a number of reasons that I've been trying to articulate about the state of modern literary fiction. And I know it's not fair to hang all of my complaints on this one novel, but this is the novel that helped me finally shape the thought. In the last three years, I've read more novels that I hate than novels that I love and they all have something in common with Birnam Wood. these books are not character focused, or plot driven. Rather, they are social commentary with character and plot hung over them like a hat and a scarf.

This book has a lot to say about the relationship between capitalism and activism and a lot to say about the nature of how ideological purity clashes with practicality. Two philosophical concepts that I am extremely interested in. The problem comes when Catton's narration refuses to let that conflict play out naturally in the character's actions and development. Instead, numerous pages are spent giving the characters space to psychoanalyze themselves internally in a way that doesn't move anything forward. It doesn't feel necessary to spend paragraph after paragraph explaining how Tony feels about being financially well off while crafting an image that says otherwise when we can see that insecurity play out perfectly well through his actions and dialogue.

There is a significant lack of editing here and the end result is a book that feels like the author had character biographies written that accidentally got left in the final draft.

Birnam Wood is a reference to the Scottish forest near Dunsinane Hill, a key element in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Eleanor Catton, in her latest multilayered and thought-provoking literary thriller, skillfully integrates elements of “Macbeth.” The story is set in New Zealand and revolves around an idealistic anti-capitalist guerrilla gardening group called Birnam Wood, led by Mira Bunting. This group often engages in illegal crop cultivation on unused land. When a landslide isolates the town of Thorndike on New Zealand’s South Island, Mira sees an opportunity for her group to expand on an abandoned farm owned by businessman Owen Darvish. However, it turns out that Darvish has sold the farm to American billionaire Robert Lemoine, who plans to build a bunker there.

The story takes unexpected turns and explores uncharted territory, with the clash of strong-willed individuals who don’t see eye to eye resulting in mind-boggling consequences.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Eleanor Catton’s most recent novel, Birnam Wood, seems destined to achieve the same literary and critical acclaim as her first two novels, The Rehearsal and The Luminaries. Since its publication only a few short months ago it has been hailed as a “best book of the year(so far)” and a “must read” by many leading critics and publications and already is a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. This hefty novel, weighing in at over 425 pages (almost half as many as the Man Booker Prize winning The Luminaries) deserves all of the credit it has received thus far.

The book is inventive, compelling, and wonderfully complex, full of twists and turns from beginning to end. It takes its name from a passage in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which one of the witches exhorts Macbeth to “Be lion-mettled, proud . . . and take no care where conspirers are. Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until Great Birnam Wood to High Dunsinane Hill shall come against him.” Macbeth responds that “That will never be! Who can impress the forest, bid the tree unfix his earth-bound root?” Macbeth believes himself invincible because logically a forest cannot be moved and carried to where he, in his castle sits. Yet, that is exactly what happens when an attacking army sent to destroy him is told literally to cut down the boughs of nearby trees and use them to conceal themselves until they reach the castle. Cleverly, this passage portends the plot of Ms. Catton’s novel, though it doesn’t become clear until the novel’s very end. I found this to be absolutely fascinating, and I highly recommend reading this brilliantly executed book.

My sincerest apologies for the late response to the review. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to review this book early and have an eARC, and I also have a signed copy from the author herself. My life got extraordinarily busy around this time.

But on to what you're actually here for. My review of this wild book.

I absolutely loved it.

The author had me in the first half not going to lie to you. It was one of those intricately paced books where everything was being carefully laid out. Mira, Tony, Shelley, Lemoine and even the Darvishes all basically have their life stories and motivations boiled down to their simplest atoms. However, Catton basically uses all of this set up against you and unleashes one of the most chaotic, bait and switch final acts I've ever read in my entire life. I mean this is a novel in which literally every character is hiding something from someone, and everyone motivations and actions are completely slippery. Lemoine views an interaction totally different than Mira and vice versa and they all have such polar opposite goals from each other that it all leads to their spectacular downfall by the end of the book.

Catton is a genius. This book is incredibly intelligent and so thrilling that by the end of it I was dreading turning pages because there was no way it was going to end well. Everything was sizing up to be a Shakespearean tragedy in terms of the ending and Catton delivered sevenfold.

Thank you to Netgalley and FSG for this ARC. My deepest apologies once again for the incredibly late response.

as a shakespeare lover, i was incredibly excited to read this book from the title alone. the book started off a bit slowly, but catton's writing is easy to get immersed in as the plot moves along. everything felt very careful and deliberately planned—an element i love in mystery books. i do wish lemonie had been a bit more of a nuanced villain. i feel like the plot was so well thought out and as a reader that was great to see, but i wish the same energy had been shared for characters as well.

This book was hard for me to get into at first. Then the story grew on me. Definitely pick this up if you like satire and commentary on modern life.

Overall, I did enjoy this story—it raised some good questions and I was surprised by how tense the final act of the book was—but I found it to be too talky and the ending too abrupt.

3.5/5

Birnam Wood will speak to different generations in different ways. It seems to skewer the establishment and the anti-establishment Left in equal measure, while also moving a plot along at breakneck speed. I sometimes wished for more backstory or just more story, but overall enjoyed the heck out of this book.

I was completely caught up in the buzz around this book, and I'm glad I read it. Catton does such a good job of creating a fully realized world around the guerrilla gardening collective's mission and activities. The characters are complex and interesting, and the shifting points of view create narrative layers that add depth to the story.

Birnam Wood's mission as a collective is such a brilliant creation and by the time Mira finds a space to potentially expand their reach, Catton has fully fleshed out the politics and entangled relationships driving it and tearing it apart. Catton's build up of the story is so good.

Which is why the ending was such a disappointment for me. I won't give anything away, but just say that it felt abrupt and incomplete to me.

Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton may have done it again. What an amazing novel! It starts out with what I term the “good guys” in this New Zealand fiction based novel. They are the members of Birnam Wood, a rogue gardening organization, who work for lasting change. Basically, they plant produce in any space that is not in use without permission. The three main characters in Birnam Wood are Mira, Shelley, and Tony. They all have messed up lives and complicated relationships with each other, Sometimes I found myself laughing out loud with them; other times I was crying inside for one or more of them. Relating to these characters is a plus for the novel.

The antagonist or villain is this story is one American named Robert Lemoine. He’s as sinister as they come. The plot gets a push when Mira and Lemoine meet each other in an unserendipitous way. She’s on his property looking for land on which to grow food. Their accidental bumping into each other turns into something else entirely. Should Mira and Birnam Wood take money from Lemoine to support their cause? Even when they know he’s not head’s up?

I could not more highly recommend this book. It’s got something for everyone,

Catton has created a multi layered and well written homage to the preservation of nature and Macbeth. The characters are all flawed and ambitious in their beliefs. Loved the reference to Macbeth and the parallel to its characters.
This was a literary slow burn with the perfect finale.
Highly recommend.

Thriller. Eco-satire. Psychological drama. Literary fiction. Birnam Wood, by New Zealand writer Eleanor Catton, defies easy genre categorization, yet provides a wonderfully original, inventive, intelligent, and humorous read. Mira Bunting heads an anti-capitalist, environmentalist guerilla gardening group, Birnam Wood, which cultivates crops on public land and abandoned private property. When a landslide in Thorndike prevents development of acreage adjoining a national park, Bunting sees the land as a perfect opportunity for Birnam Wood takeover. However, Robert Lemoine, eccentric and ruthless American technomagnate, also has his sights on the tract as the potential site for his post-Apocalyptic bunker, not to mention its valuable cache of rare earth minerals. Needless to say, Mira and her group’s high-minded ideals are challenged when they enter an unlikely partnership with the calculating California billionaire. In the meantime, Mira’s friend and fellow Birnam member, Shelley, angry at always playing second fiddle to Mira, is secretly plotting to sever her ties with both her friend and the organization. Further complicating matters, Tony, a former Birnam Wood member turned activist, gets wind of the Birnam-billionaire deal, and decides to do a bit of investigative exposé journalism.

Catton, almost like a 21st century Austen, possesses wry, ironic humor and social commentary, making this novel a fun, yet also thought-provoking read. Her intriguing cast of characters, all flawed and wonderfully complicated, because their outward, public idealism and values often clash with their secret personal desires, self-aggrandizement, and ambitions. The title’s allusion to Shakespeare’s Macbeth seems particularly apt, in that none of the characters are who they seem on the surface: “fair is foul, and foul is fair.” Highly recommended!

Catton's Luminaries was one of my favorite books of the past several years. I was so looking forward to reading this new book from her. The topic seemed right up my alley. However, as I started reading it, I found the level of detail and the pacing cumbersome. The real action of the story did not pick up until the last 20% or so of the novel. I feel like this would have been a far more entertaining novel if at least 30% (or more) of it were edited out. Overall, a fine--if ponderous--read.

"all the great tragedies are stories ultimately of betrayal. They’re stories where people betrayed the people closest to them but they’re also stories where people betray themselves. They kind of betrayed the better person that they could have become". – B&N interview

"Third Apparition –
Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsiname hill
Shall come against him.

Macbeth –
That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root?" – The Scottish
Play

Wanna bet?

Birnam Wood is a serious, literary novel, a tragedy, cleverly disguised as an eco-thriller. Mira Bunting, 29, a horticulturist, heads an activist collective called Birnam Wood. They grow food in found plots of land, sometimes with permission, sometimes not. What they grow they consume themselves and give away to any in need. She discovered in childhood an interest in horticulture. It drowns out the relentless patter of self-critique that drives her.

Shelley Noakes is number two, the sort of efficient workhorse that most organizations need in order to survive. Though she is Mira’s roomie and bff, Shelley has grown tired of being taken for granted, always relegated to second fiddle, and is determined to leave. She struggles, however, with the knowledge that if she leaves, Birnam Wood will not survive Mira’s laughable incapacity for meat and potatoes organizational management.

Tony Gallo has been away for several years, backpacking, teaching English in Mexico, trying to find himself. He wants to become a freelance journalist, despite a thin volume of actual experience. He is idealistic and insufferable, his ideological lines are not only clear, but electrified. He is carrying a torch for Mira and has returned home to see if there are any sparks left. Eager for a journalistic break, he stumbles across a biggie.

Robert Lemoine is an American billionaire, disgustingly rich from his drone business. He is looking for a bug-out retreat in case of global meltdown, and had found just the place. Is Lemoine a well-meaning rich guy, or a Bond villain?

Owen Darvish, recently knighted, is the owner of that place, a considerable swath, cheek by jowl with a national park. Unfortunately, there was a major landslide there recently, which has cut off the town of Thorndike. Will the sale actually go through now?

The landslide has caught Mira’s attention. What if Birnam Wood could set up shop in a place that was effectively cut off from most ongoing enterprise? Might be a great chance to grow her non-profit into a much larger player, and maybe do a fair bit of good? She decides to make the considerable drive and check it out. While there, she encounters Lemoine. This is where the story really gets going.

The novel flows in two parallel streams, often merging, then separating, then merging again. The first is the eco-thriller. What is Lemoine on about? He can certainly come across as charming, and sincere, but is he really? Is the money he offers Mira for Birnam Wood’s work being given sincerely, or is he up to something? Does the devil speak true? That he has a studly appeal adds to the confusion. The other is a deep dive into personality and motivation, with rich literary technique and a host of thematic concerns.

Privacy, or lack thereof, is a frequent focus in the book. Lemoine, for example, is a developer of drone technology, and is a one-percenter as well in terms of knowledge of and facility with surveillance. (…he took his phone out of his pocket, tapped the screen, then turned it around to show her. Under the list of detectable devices nearby was listed ‘mira’s iPhone’.) It permeates down to the ninety-nine-percenters as well. This, for instance, is our introduction to Shelley:

"…the yellow circle labelled ‘Mira’ pulled out into the street and began traversing slowly north. Shelley Noakes reduced the scale of the map until her own circle, a gently pulsing blue, appeared at the edge of the screen, and watched the yellow disc advance imperceptibly upon the blue for almost thirty seconds before turning off the phone and throwing it, suddenly and childishly, into the pile of laundry at the end of her bed."

Mira has a tracker app on Shelley’s phone as well. Mrs Darvish keeps up on where her husband is by tracking his phone. Tony’s research is of the investigative reporter sort, on line and in-the-field which, of course, entails some significant snooping. And, of course, he is snooped on while he investigates.

Catton uses interior dialogue to let us in on the main characters’ struggles with who they are and what they want. Well, not so much Lemoine, who struggles less with a values dialectic than with figuring out how to get what he wants from the world. Tony sees himself as a progressive, but wrestles with his feminist credentials, and sincerely wonders if he is inauthentic in his desire to make a meaningful career for himself, in presenting himself as someone who has to struggle to get by, who criticizes the very system that makes his life possible. Mira struggles to hide (…a vanity, an appetite, a capacity for manipulation that she would rather other people did not see; she knew, and was ashamed to know). Shelly has to reconcile her seemingly permanent peace-maker role in life with her need to be her own person.

"Shelley wanted out. Out of the group; out of the suffocating moral censure, the pretended fellow feeling, the constant obligatory thrift; out of financial peril; out of the flat; out of her relationship with Mira, which was not romantic in any physical sense, but which had somehow come to feel both exclusive and proprietary; and above all, out of her role as the sensible, dependable, predictable sidekick, never quite as rebellious as Mira, never quite as free-thinking, never – even when they acted together – quite as brave."

This being a tale not told by an idiot, inspired by a tragedy, there will be familiar tragic elements on display. Tragic flaws for everyone. Come one, come all. But can the mere hoi-polloi really be tragic characters? Isn’t that reserved for the high and mighty? Owen Darvish certainly counts for that, as does Lemoine. But Mira? Shelley? Tony? Or is grandiosity alone sufficient to elevate one to a height sufficient to mark a character as potentially tragic? Catton does make us wonder as we read just who are the tragic characters, and who the schlubs who are guilty of, maybe, a bit of overreach, or garden variety foolishness.

Of course, there is more to them than merely wanting beyond their capacities. There is another element from tragedy to consider. Note the quote that opens this review. Betrayal figures large. There is enough deception in the air here that one might be well advised to don a bee-keeper outfit to fend off the tangled webs that permeate the landscape. Secrets will be kept, some minor, some world-class. Our intro to Mira, for example, shows her using a false identity to research the landslide area. More importantly, is she selling out the collective if she comes to a deal with Lemoine? Shelley tries her best to seduce Tony as a passive-aggressive way of getting Mira to separate from her. Others have their own secrets and betrayals nicely tucked away.

Another tragedic element is that outcomes are the result of actions, not fate or chance. If you look back down the path from end to beginning you will see all the characters’ yesterdays lighting the way to an inescapable end. Although it is not the only influence on the book, Macbeth is clearly the primary one.

"[Catton] drew up another intricate masterplan in which each of the main characters could be seen as Macbeth, with a corresponding Lady Macbeth, witches and so on. It sounds tricksier than it is: as the narrative perspective shifts, everybody could be the villain. She wanted to stop readers playing “the polarised blame game we are all used to in contemporary politics,” she explains. “You wouldn’t be able to say: ‘These are my people so they are obviously the good guys. These are the people that I despise so they are obviously the bad guys.’”"– from The Guardian interview

You will have to find out for yourself how much of this structure made it into the final draft.

Other significant sources of inspiration were 20th century crime fiction, Jane Austen’s Emma, (the structure and taut language) and even Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The character Shelley was named for the author, leaving us to wonder whether this Shelley is creature or creator.

While this is a novel in which actions matter, and have consequences, it is also one in which the omniscient narrator will tell you everything you need to know about each of the characters. This ability to look into (monitor remotely? surveil?) everyone’s deepest inner thoughts and feelings resonates with the surveillance elements in the story. One of the precipitating ideas for the book, the Big-Brother-is-watching element certainly, sprung from a 2015 protest in which New Zealand police were taking photos of protesters as they walked past.

Catton is also interested in inter-generational dealings.

"It’s something I have thought about a lot…how my generational placement or position has conditioned me. The book is designed generationally. There are three generations represented in terms of the points of view. And I wanted to really explore the generational differences in terms of how they deal with certain contemporary problems that we’re all kind of facing globally." – from The Toronto Public Library interview

But it is no boomer-bashing party.

“Millennials are quite willing to cosy up to the tech gen Xers,” she says. “We are all personally enriching billionaires like Elon Musk by freely giving away our data…These minerals are in the phones that are around us all the time. I want my iPhone. I want to be able to have the freedoms that it brings. We are all complicit.” – from The Guardian interview

In addition to its literary and thriller aspects, Birnam Wood is a satire, a caricature of diverse sorts. Most glaring is the Birnam Wood members, whose motivations and desires are often less idealistic than what they show to the world. Darvish comes in for an uncomplimentary look, too, as does Lemoine. It is a tale, also, about expectations.

"Macbeth is a play that’s all about prophecy. It’s animated by prophecy. So I …re-read it with everything that was happening in terms of world events resounding in my head and suddenly saw it in a really different way, as a play that contains very interesting and loud warnings about what happens when you regard the future with too much certainty if you’re too convinced about what lies just down the road. Because of course Macbeth makes the ending of Macbeth happen. None of that was written on the wall before before he received those prophecies and I and so I kind of wanted to achieve a similar effect in a novel by writing a book about incremental political actions and moral actions that end up kind of having these enormous effects that were avoidable." – from the Barnes & Noble interview

In short (too late, I know), Birnam Wood is a multi-layered triumph, building on classic structures and themes to tell a very contemporary story, offering consideration of how people make very human choices, as they contain battles between morality and desire. The tale does not at all creep in a petty pace, but rolls along at a good clip, shifting into turbo as it nears the end, generating an abundance of sound and fury which certainly signifies something.

"Like all self-mythologising rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and often turned her rivals into enemies, the better to disdain them as secret agents of the status quo."

Review posted – 6/9/23

Publication date – 3/7/23

I received an ARE of Birnam Wood from FSG in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks, and thanks to NetGalley for facilitating, but ever since writing the review, I acquired, and can’t seem to wash off, these bloody spots.

To anyone who is looking for a highly literate read for their next book group meeting this is the one! My favorite book of 2023, Birnam Wood is a multi-layered suspenseful novel that calls into question every opinion formed on multiple topics. Capitalism vs socialism, the rights of the sovereign individual vs foreign investment, what constitutes friendships just to mention a few. This highly anticipated book draws the reader in, and provides a continually surprising read. Intellectual and thoughtful, this book will be one of the classics for our times.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book.

This is my first book by Eleanor Catton, and I was very much looking forward to getting into this one. The book is maybe mystery and maybe eco-thriller and many several other sub genres, but overall it's very much "literary fiction." Catton is clearly a skilled writer and one who delves into character development in an effort to make her characters well rounded and dynamic.

Having said all of that, this didn't totally gel for me. As others have noted, the first third or so of the book includes loads of character development and exposition, which left me unsure of where the narrative was really trying to go. And, oddly, the deep characterization still left me feeling that most of the characters were rather flat--stereotypes of what we see as "others" in today's divided and contrary political climate. (Maybe that was intentional? I'm not sure.) There were parts that started to take off towards the middle, places where the story telling started to erupt, but then that too seemed to putter in fits and starts. And while I appreciated the ending, I don't know that I felt a sense of satisfaction when turning the final page.

I DID like the parallels to Macbeth. Not too heavy-handed nor is it necessary to know the play well to appreciate this novel. Overall, I can see why some people are raving about this--I get it. But I also can see why some others are divided over the book's ability to engage its readers. While this wasn't a hit for me, it still has loads of interesting stuff going on and I think it's worth a try. And I am intrigued enough that I plan to pick up The Luminaries and give it a try as well.

First, thank you to the publishers and to NetGalley for an eArc in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Second, I really REALLY wanted to like this one, and I tried really hard to enjoy it. It hit the notes it should, the writing was great, but it all felt a little flat to me. I didn't really connect with the characters in the way that I wanted, and many of them just weren't all that compelling to me. I was expecting more, I guess, than what was there. Of course reviews are highly subjective, and I'm sure other people would absolutely love this book. I think this was a case where I had high expectations and hopes, but they were never really realized especially as I kept on reading. It isn't a bad book, but it was a bad book -for me- as a reader.

3.5/5 rounded up

Catton's prose is excellent, as always. Unfortunately Birnam Wood is full of dull tropes, both in characters and plot, and fails to entertain.

After hearing about a devastating landslide on New Zealand’s South Island, Mira decides to assess the now cut-off and abandoned land as a potential location for a new outpost of Birnam Wood, the guerrilla gardening group that she leads. Birnam Wood’s mission is to plant crops, sometimes by permission and other times through trespass, on abandoned, underused, or unnoticed stretches of land throughout New Zealand to send a message about our capitalist society’s waste and inefficiency. The group is struggling as the book opens to make ends meet financially and to retain its membership. The landslide has created a massive opportunity for growth and publicity, which Mira is determined to take advantage of. When she arrives, she is surprised to find the quirky American billionaire Robert Lemoine already there, who offers the land and a sizable quantity of startup money to Birnam Wood. Lemoine is the CEO of a large company that specializes in surveillance drones, and it is almost immediately obvious to the reader that Lemoine has darker motivations attached to his gift, which are largely unknown to Mira and the group.

This book is gripping from start to finish and is probably best described as a slow burn with a fantastic structure. The book is told in alternating perspectives and as a result, readers know about the idiosyncrasies and motivations of each of the main characters (add in Birnam Wood’s second-in-command, a disgruntled former member, and the true owner of the land to the mix), as the book unfolds. The catch is that these internal plottings are not known to the other characters, leading to intrigue and peril. Things are not as they seem in this unique, psychological story set in the beauty of the New Zealand wilderness by a Booker Prize winning author with immense, glorious talent.

I do not normally give reviews on a book that I did not finish but in this case I felt the need to.

I barely dragged myself through part one of Birnam Wood, so this will be only about part one. This book is stream of consciousness writing and there are multiple story lines and POV characters that bleed into one another. So try to know immediately from one paragraph the next whose story you are on is difficult, you also have no idea how much is left of that segment. There are no chapters so it makes it hard to know where a stopping point is in the story.

Now that structure is out of the way, the story is boring and the characters are annoying. The bulk of the characters are Gen Z eco-fighters who go an "borrow" other peoples property so they can plant plants on public or other people's properties without their knowledge or consent. The story revolves around the leader of Birnam Wood (the eco group), Mira. When a natural disaster occurs several hours away she decides that this would be the best place to guerilla garden since all of the residents have left. While trespassing on a rich man's property she meets a billionaire tech designer who is there for is own, non-legal reasons.

Like I said, I found this characters so annoying that I did not want to read on but the worst part of part one is the meeting of Birnam Wood during which there is a very long discussion amongst a bunch of middle class white people discussing social injustices. It is a scene of the worst types of allies. I just could not go on after this. Not sure if the rest of the novel is better but at that point I did not care. None of these characters are heroes and I hoped they all failed.