The idealist vs the entrepreneur: Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton, reviewed

I always feel an element of trepidation when approaching a new book by an author whose previous work I have admired. When the novelist in question won the Booker prize in 2013, and I was on the judging panel, the static crackle of anxiety is even more intense. And so the fearful question: is Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood a stinker? No, it isn’t. But will it ‘pull a Mantel’ and win the Booker again? I doubt it, though I would not rule out its appearance on other prize shortlists.

It is a subtle, sometimes acerbically comic and ultimately tragic novel of great sensitivity. It is also engaged, taking in topics such as climate change, cancelling and free speech, cultural appropriation, our relationship with new technologies, intersectionalism, sustainability, New Zealand’s self-image and hyper-charged capitalism. But it is fundamentally about morality.

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