Eleanor Catton

My legs, arms, back and neck hurt. With fame comes responsibility. I have to keep a secret diary. To maintain my reputation, the diary should be big, with more pages than my 832-page novel. Since I am small-built, I have to climb a chair to reach the desk where the diary is kept next to The Luminaries (hence the aches) which fetched me The Man Booker Prize and £50,000 in prize money. Of course, all kinds of queries were raised when the prize was announced. At 28, how could one write such a weighty book? What special facilities were provided to the judges so that they could read this longest-ever novel? Was it true that The Luminaries was an entry for the 2012 Man Booker which could be considered only for 2013 because most of the judges could not finish the book last year. How on earth could you create characters for this 832-page behemoth?

Well, my secret diary answers all these queries. I grew up in New Zealand where small size is ridiculed everywhere. The country is supposed to have more sheep than humans. Because of our size, no one took us seriously. I had to do something that would highlight the existence of New Zealand. So came the Giant Novel. Who else had written a novel of 832 pages? Not even Tolstoy, Proust or James Joyce. Even Finnegan’s Wake did not go beyond 500 pages, I think. Once I was sure about the size, the contents flowed freely. Luminaries is a classic mystery, 12 characters come together and narrate incident after incident. I owe a lot to Dame Agatha and her Murder in the Orient Express where 12 people, one after another, stabbed the victim, making sure he died. Our own Kiwi Ngaio Marsh wrote brilliant crime thrillers of around 200 pages but now I have produced a thriller which is the equivalent of 4-5 Ngaio Marsh thrillers. But I have had no need for Scotland Yard experts or gentle spinsters like Jane Marple. My 12 characters are tough men, their lives revolve around a missing rich man, a dead hermit, a hoard of gold and a beaten-up whore. Why do I need ridiculous Belgian detectives with egg-shaped heads and enormous moustaches who will not last a single day in the cold, rugged climate of Hokitika.

To be young is great. To be young and to have authored an 832-page book is great. Thank you, thank you, chairman of judges Robert Macfarlane for calling the book “a dazzling work, luminous, vast”. He added that length never poses a problem for great books. With new challenges all around, I must plan a sequel, ‘Luminaries II’ which will have 1,600-plus pages.

The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com