Book Review: “Birnam Wood” by Eleanor Catton
A Not-So-Trashy Eco-Thriller
A couple of book reviews ago, I reviewed Among the Living by Tim Lebbon, where I opined that it wasn’t a novel about ecological issues that was well-written — the only enjoyment you could have with it was as a kind of guilty pleasure read. Well, Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood might just be the eco-thriller that I was looking for in Among the Living. Both books have mining for rare earth minerals as their core plot points, but whereas Among the Living felt hastily written, Birnam Wood is more careful and literary. Every word and sentence carry a certain weight, and there is a gravitas here that you won’t find in Lebbon’s book — but that isn’t all surprising as Catton won the Booker Prize for her second novel, The Luminaries. Birnam Wood has almost equally been feted, being shortlisted last year for Canada’s prestigious Giller Prize and having made the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list in 2023 as well. (Catton, it should be noted, was born in Canada, raised in New Zealand, and currently lives in England.) In any event, if you’re looking for a serious book about climate activism that is well-written, this should be your go-to.
I will caution readers, as the cliché goes, that this is one of those books that is best enjoyed by knowing nothing about it before digging in. So, you might want to stop reading here if you want to be surprised by this volume. However, having said that all I knew about the novel before reading it was that its plot could be summarized as young environmental activists tick off the wrong venture capitalist, but even 20 pages from the close of this read I had no idea how it would end. Therefore, jump to the next paragraph or come back and read this later if you don’t want to be spoiled, as any plot outline threatens to tip one’s hand to what should be a more pleasurable experience coming to this book cold. In any event, the book is about a collective in New Zealand named Birnam Wood — the name is taken from Shakespeare’s Macbeth — who go about setting up illegal gardens on private property that they can exploit for their benefit. The group, however, is in debt and some of its members have left or are considering leaving. However, through happenstance, one of the leaders of the group, Mira, comes into contact with an American billionaire who cuts the group a deal: he’ll look the other way on their use of land that is not yet his and provide them with $100,000 if they don’t interfere with his (as it would turn out) nefarious plans. However, faster than you can say “sell out” the whole deal starts to derail, and the novel then begs to ask the question, how far is too far as in “going too far” when it comes to self-preservation?
Birnam Wood is one of those novels that also begs the question: how much can one get away with if you are massively rich? The novel then asks another question, have social justice warriors wound up selling their souls to be able to exist? To both those ends, Birnam Wood plays like a satire, a send-up of the entire environmental movement and it is a theatre of the absurd for the one percent as well. None of the characters are remotely likable, which is the entire point of the novel. In a sense, the book asks who is the more self-righteous: the environmentalists or the venture capitalists? If you were to pit Greta Thunberg against Elon Musk, the result would be this novel. That provides for some rich social commentary here and Catton flexes her wordsmithing skills by combining literary fiction with a fast-paced thriller. At its heart, Birnam Wood is a book about two sides of the climate crisis and a sort of apathy one side of the political spectrum has to be other when it comes to offering real solutions that require diverse people to work together, and not for purely selfish reasons. However, I may be missing the point here because, when the sun has set on the day, this is just a crackling good read.
That’s not to say that it isn’t flawed in some ways. I found the midsection to have its lulls as the book meanders a little bit. I also found the ending to be wrapped up a little too quickly, not showing the reader precisely what has happened to some of its main characters. Still, that ending is chilling and unnerving — and a bit on the downer side — which will either make Birnam Wood either one of your favourite reads of the year for its audacity or one that will ultimately depress the heck out of you. Either way, though, one can’t deny the fact that Birnam Wood is creative, elegant, and majestic — and an important book about environmentalism. In short, this was the book I wanted Among the Living to be: a serious meditation on a crisis that is unfolding right before our eyes. This is not a work for the faint of heart, but that’s kind of the point. This is a novel about what is one of the most crucial crises facing humanity currently, and how human limitations have evolved to have it spiral out of control. This is also a book about morality and remaining true to one’s beliefs in the face of adversity. There are a lot of things that could be said about this monster of a novel, which should be all the impetus you need to buy it, sit down with it, and read it. At the end of the day, this is one barnstormer of a book that couldn’t be more different from Among the Living.
Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood will be published in trade paperback by Picador on March 5, 2024.
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