Birnam Wood

A Novel

By: Eleanor Catton

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

“Birnam Wood is terrific. As a multilayered, character-driven thriller, it’s as good as it gets. Ruth Rendell would have loved it. A beautifully textured work—what a treat.” (Stephen King)

“One of the finest writers of our time.” (Jonathan Ruppin, The Independent)

The Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries brings us Birnam Wood, a gripping thriller of high drama and kaleidoscopic insight into what drives us to survive.

Birnam Wood is on the move....

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.

©2023 Eleanor Catton (P)2023 Audible, Inc.

Wait, what??

Fabulous story with believable characters and perfect play on life and incremental psychopathy. BUT WHAT happened to the ending??
It’s like Catton had to catch a plane and finishing the story had to happen before she boarded. Very disappointing. No nuance, no analysis no sloppy gray execution of planned vs actual behavior. The book needed 90 more minutes. Disappointing.

Great idea, pacing issues

I loved the premise of the book: three types of people who want to affect change in the world are met with someone presenting opportunity but with sinister motives. I think it could have been executed better, however. I think those three characters could have been fleshed out a bit more, and perhaps less time given to the villain. More time to develop the idea of compromising your ideals, or even re-examining them, would have been worth less characterization for the villain.

Great character development

It took me a minute to really invest in this book, but I couldn't put it down once I was hooked. The unraveling character development is well written. Very smart commentary on tech, wealth, and the environment. I give it four stars because I still can't decide if it was the perfect ending or an easy way to wrap it all up.

Banal

Banal story. Unsatisfying. Too much words describing charachters rather than letting it happen through dialogue etc.

Disappointed.

Good audio performance and writing was pretty good. The story was just not that interesting to me unfortunately.

Frustrating

Okay story, although it took its sweet time getting to the point. No resolution whatsoever, so if you like an actual ending please skip this one.

Great until the disappointing end

An interesting thriller with great character build that all falls apart in the end as the author goes for a quick ending that jettisons all the hard work she did to create the characters in the first place. Rather than tragic, the final scene feels abrupt and doesn’t hold together logically. None of the main characters, who we’ve been following closely, get any voice at all in this last part. The story just falls off a cliff. A seriously disappointing ending to what could have been an engaging novel.

So much potential…

This book had so much potential to be great but fell short for me. A little tough to get into at first and then sped up nicely only to slam into a wall at the end. I can see the metaphorical potential for discussion though. Some readers may enjoy that.

Picks Up Steam

I found the beginning to be a little slow but once the story started to unfold I was captured by it. Didn’t see it unfolding like it did which is always nice.

Riveting

I listened a second time a few days after I finished, and heard so many foreshadowing clues. Excellent capture of the New Zealand frame of mind and environment.