Birnam Wood

“[A]nd his two most treasured possessions, both presents from his father, were his .22 air rifle and his skinning knife, which had a fixed blade and a boxwood handle, and which he’d since had mounted, together with the rifle, in a special presentation case in his front room.”

As a screenwriter, Eleanor Catton often utilizes the language and conventions of drama, one being known as “Chekhov’s gun.” This convention is similar to foreshadowing; playwright Anton Chekhov stated that everything shown to the audience at the beginning must be used at the end. Catton plays a literary joke by following the rule with a literal gun. Sir Owen’s prized rifle is described in depth here. The payoff comes at the end when Lady Darvish shoots Lemoine with the same gun. This is not Catton’s only use of the device, and instances of tongue-in-cheek foreshadowing can be found throughout the book, such as Shelley’s mail reading “Last Chance to Save” (17).

“Shelly had lived for as long as she could remember in perpetual dread of being dislikeable—a fate even more terrible than being disliked, for it encompassed not only her relationships with others, but her private judgements of herself. It was only under Mira’s influence that she learned, if not to overcome this terror, then at least to direct the blame for it elsewhere.”

This moment of characterization clarifies the difference between Mira and Shelley’s morality and why Shelley’s betrayals seem so egregious. Where Mira’s amorality happens as a natural extension of her personality, this moment reveals that Shelley’s betrayal contains an added deception. Her betrayal keeps her “likable,” such as when she takes control of Birnam Wood under the guise of logistical competence. It’s concealed, and yet Evil Hides in Plain Sight, highlighting the fact that Catton named her in reference to Frankenstein.

“And Shelley wanted out. Out of the group; […] 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.”

Catton explain the depths of Shelley’s frustrations early so that she builds toward her betrayals. Shelley’s actions are rooted in inferiority and marginalization and her increasingly nefarious betrayals are foreshadowed when the reader understands early the depths of her anger. When she’s later given the opportunity for money and power it seems natural that she’ll choose them over her supposed best friend.

“A solution had occurred to her, an exit strategy so clean and absolute that it was almost bloodless. She would sleep with Tony.”

Shelley’s leap in logic establishes the extreme tone of the drama early in the novel. That this appears as the clear and obvious choice with no remorse sets Shelley up to be an example of Catton’s thematic idea that Evil Hides in Plain Sight. The short, staccato syntax of the second sentence emphasizes her moment of clarity. Up until this moment Shelley’s sentences had been winding meanderings, but her sudden, short declaration rings out like a bell of revelation.

“[…] his moral conscience had been shaped, from as far back as he could remember, by a vivid sense of his own damnation, and a bitter yearning that punishment, for once, should be made to fit the crime.”

Catton again gives the reader a psychological key to understanding Tony’s righteous indignation and tells us that his desire to be an instrument of justice comes from childhood issues. When he combines this desire with ambition, he overreaches and goes after the biggest target he can imagine: the government. Lemoine later uses Tony’s overzealous indignation against him, making this characterization integral to the rising action.

“[…] and (Mira) wondered, not for the first time, when exactly she had become so technologically dependent that her first instinct in every unpredicted circumstance was to outsource her imagination to her phone.”

The Dangerous Proliferation of Technology in the Modern World is a major theme of this novel. Mira simply states the problem here, but it’s also continually highlighted by the actions of every character until Lemoine dies with his cellphone raised. This quote also establishes the novel as a thriller. Mira’s phone will be hacked and used by Lemoine, and the reader sees that she has a chance to avoid the situation if she listens to her instinct and stops relying on technology——which, of course, she doesn’t.

“It was an accessory that seemed to put strangers instinctively at ease.”

In a novel in which contemporary technology is insidious, older technological objects become weapons against danger. The analog camera (as well as the bicycle and the .22 rifle and knife) requires physical skill that implies virtue in the operator who has taken trouble to learn it. They are symbols of an earlier time but also indicative of the personality of the person who operates or wears such an object. No one suspects Mira with her camera shielding her real objective.

“[Tony] would draw the line at going undercover. These were his friends——at least, they used to be——and he wouldn’t openly deceive them.”

This quote lays bare the fact that Tony has abandoned his self-proclaimed righteousness to gain fame and highlights the theme of Ambition as the Root of All Evil. That he uses the word “openly” as a modifier doesn’t take away the fact that the active verb is still “deceive.” He tries to explain away his betrayal, and even makes himself feel virtuous by pretending his drawn line at “openly” makes a difference.

“[Mira was] pushing down the knowledge that what really scared her more than anything was that when Tony came home, if he ever did, he would finally see her for what she feared she was, an ordinary fish in a small and rather stagnant pond.”

This is one of the few times that Mira admits anything other than superhuman confidence. Seeing Mira’s insecurity helps the reader understand how she can be open to Lemoine’s deceptions. He plays on aspects of her character that she’d like to believe about herself. It also builds suspense, since the reader now understands that Mira is vulnerable in a way that seemed improbable for such a confident person before this revelation.

“‘I don’t know,’ Mira said. ‘I guess you seem like the kind of person who’d have a secret agenda.’

‘Because of what I am? Or are you taking a stab at who I am now?’”

Catton’s theme of Evil Hides in Plain Sight is plainly presented to the reader continually throughout the book, and this quote is an example of Mira making it clear. Because of her ambition and willingness to go along with Lemoine’s offer, she doesn’t acknowledge the fact that he sidesteps this question. It’s a trick that Lemoine uses multiple times with Mira, whom he can verbally manipulate, as opposed to Shelley with whom he speaks in straight declarations.

“[E]ver since they’d met Lemoine——Sir Owen had talked incessantly about ‘deserving,’ and it seemed to her that the more he’d dwelled upon the subject, the more his sense of satisfaction in his life had ebbed away.”

Lady Darvish is beginning to catch onto Lemoine’s treachery, and small moments of foreshadowing like this make her final revelation more tragic. Catton makes this moment of understanding a small fraction of a long paragraph to imitate the small size of Lady Darvish’s thought that will begin to build into longer ideas as the book goes on. The quote also highlights Lemoine’s infecting nature. That Darvish was content before meeting Lemoine emphasizes Lemoine’s similarity to a computer virus.

“‘So in other words,’ he said, ‘you want to be a god as well.’

Mira scowled. ‘Hey, I’m not the one trying to live forever here,’ she said. ‘I’m not a survivalist.’”

Mira exposes the extent to which she has been infected by Lemoine and makes obvious Ambition as the Root of All Evil, ambition being a trait that results in betrayal and disaster in the novel. Instead of denying what he’s said, Mira uses Lemoine’s own rhetorical technique and sidesteps the question, making known her feelings on the subject and allowing herself not to say what would otherwise be an ugly truth.

“I was just going to remark that being a cliche can be very useful. You ought to consider it sometime.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It means people underestimate you. They think they’ve seen all there is to see. They drop their guard. They get lazy. They reveal themselves.’”

Lemoine doesn’t try to hide his intention from Mira, emphasizing the thematic point that Evil Hides in Plain Sight and creating suspense for the reader who knows that he is telling the truth. He warns her, and yet she underestimates him to the point that she does exactly what he says. She doesn’t pay attention to her phone’s odd behavior and “reveal[s]” herself to him through her internet searches.

“No: he couldn’t risk Jill Darvish finding out the truth——which meant the truth was going to have to change.”

Catton develops Lemoine’s characterization while Lemoine tries to shift truth, which for him has no value. She portrays his psychology since this explains his lack of guilt; if there’s no truth, there can be no blame. The deaths of strangers in a landslide or even someone he knows doesn’t bother him, as the truth of his involvement can be changed.

“[A]nd it all starts coming out of the woodwork, how you guys have been doing this for years, creeping round behind people’s backs, stealing, lying, cheating the taxman, breaking the law. This is the end of Birnam Wood, Mira. You’re done. Shelley’s fucking done. She’s more than done. She’s going to jail, no question. And she’s got you to thank for it.”

Lemoine’s speech highlights two things. The first is an outsider perspective on what Mira has made of Birnam Wood: It’s an ugly but real assessment by someone outside Mira’s glowing circumference. The second is that this quote exposes Mira’s weakness. She can be made to feel guilty when other people are involved. This contributes to Mira’s character development as it explores her weakness and presents a new perspective on her cause.

“Mira’s ambition had a limit. She wanted to suffer for the things that she’d done wrong, not to get away with them, and bury them, and profit from them, and triumph over them, and shame the world by her success like him——and like Shelley. Shelley had seen a chance to capitulate, and she had seized it.”

Since Part 1, Catton suggests that Shelley has a quality that leads her to try betraying Mira with Tony and to feel no guilt over Darvish’s death. Lemoine recognizes it in this quote as a vast, dangerous ambition. This quote works to both crystalize her character but also adds to the suspense of the novel, as Catton suggests that he is going to use Shelley against the others.

“Aloud he said, ‘Jesus Christ,’ and then again, ‘Jesus Christ,’ and then hushed, in wonderment, he said, ‘I am going to be so fucking famous.’”

Tony undermines his righteous cause with his fantasies about how it will benefit him, and this quote is the moment in which the depths of his ambition is displayed. It comes at the end of a two-page rant against the evils of government that potentially casts Tony as an instrument of justice. It’s full of elegant phrases and long, philosophical words. This bluntly worded, profane finish, however, cuts his virtue dead and exposes him as yet another character who lets their ambitions rule.

“Mira may have sold her soul, but at least she had a soul to offer up, Tony thought. She didn’t know what was happening in Korowai.”

While Lemoine sees Mira’s guilt as her motivating character trait, Tony thinks that it’s the truth. This reveals more about Tony’s values than Mira’s, as Mira’s point of view makes clear that she has no problems avoiding truth. Tony chooses to believe what he wants rather than what’s clear, providing just one of Catton’s portrayals of a character misinterpreting open-source information. Just as he leaps to the government being the source of the mining, he wants to believe his love interest is more virtuous than she is.

“[O]n the screen was a photo of a courier bag, addressed to 1606 Korowai Pass Road, attention Shelley Noakes.

‘It arrived this morning,’ Shelley said. ‘Katrina said they opened it just in case it was important. It’s all the paperwork for Birnam Wood.’

‘What paperwork?’

‘I guess like the incorporation papers and stuff.’

‘Oh right.’”

This small interchange is pivotal in that it shows the change of power between the leaders of Birnam Wood and Shelley’s new dominance over Mira. Lemoine’s version of handing over the crown is to send paperwork to Shelley, the doer, and use Mira’s visionary strength against her. The women’s meager dialogue emphasizes the enormity of the situation, as neither feels comfortable acknowledging what has just happened.

“Most plants are actually pretty hard to kill. They’re living things. They want to live.”

In a novel centered around the environment, there are few actual references to nature. This makes obvious that the characters’ true concerns aren’t for the environment but their own ambitions which the earth will help them to achieve. Even the idea put forward in this quote, which shows sympathy to nature, is Tony’s memory of a different time beyond the book’s temporal limits, and it’s used by Tony as a motivation to get out of nature rather than to understand it.

“She [Mira] felt as though her chest was about to burst. For this would mean there really was a villain; there really was someone more monstrous and more despicable than her. This would mean that she was safe. She could tell the world the truth. She could say she’d been coerced into doing what she did. And people would believe her. People would forgive her.”

Little acts of deception and betrayal have characterized Mira up to this point. This, however, is the larger betrayal toward which Catton has been building and the moment that seals Mira’s fate. Her redeeming quality has been her ability to feel guilt, but it vanishes in the face of her desperation. She intends to betray everyone in Birnam Wood. Her eagerness to betray causes her to ignore Tony’s directions, resulting in their capture and death.

“[B]ut so long as there was a phone in everybody’s pocket, so long as there was a screen in front of every face, so long as there were batteries and satellites and cameras and GPS, so long as there was avarice, so long as there was loneliness and envy and ambition and boredom and addiction, he, Lemoine would be untouchable.”

Through Lemoine, Catton sums up the theme of The Dangerous Proliferation of Technology in the Modern World in a style reminiscent of a soliloquy, referencing the destruction of the earth and the ugly human characteristics on which modern devices prey. By listing the traits one needs to overcome if they intend to remedy reliance on technology, Catton’s words extend beyond the characters and are a direct challenge to the reader.

“Lemoine had done it. Lemoine was capable of evil. Now she knew. And she had always known. That was the sad thing.”

This quotation explicitly addresses the idea that Evil Hides in Plain Sight yet flourishes because of willful ignorance. Lady Darvish suspected Lemoine’s true nature throughout, but her ambition dominated her concern. Here at the end, she can’t ignore the tragic outcome of her actions. Out of all the characters, she’s the only one who sees and repents in time to act. Her late revelation doesn’t save her husband or herself, but it enables her to feel regret and kill Lemoine.