Vivid ... It makes for an epic of extraordinary abundance, one that occupies an uncharted border region of history and supernatural invention. The cast of characters is drawn with an eye to multiplicity ... Johnson is keenly alert to the dynamic, and often dangerous, potency of these stories ... Such awareness lends a subtle metafictional framework to the novel, a hint of cautionary skepticism about its releases into fantasy and brushes with exoticism ... Modern and mythological. It is good enough, wondrous enough, to endure.
Hugely ambitious ... Though Johnson’s recent fiction is determinedly, even extravagantly, eclectic in setting and subject matter, it nonetheless displays a consistent style and tone. His writing is lavishly detailed and sharply intelligent, nuanced and lyrical but also funny and sometimes surreal. Although he often addresses extreme violence and suffering, his work is rarely somber or morbid, treating even the worst atrocities with a brisk, leavening wit ... A thoroughly surprising and enjoyable read ... After 700 pages, which go past at a clip, one wonders if the book is perhaps a little less than the sum of its many impressive parts. Certainly when placed next to The Orphan Master’s Son,The Wayfinder feels like a less weighty and urgent novel, but it is, nevertheless, quite clearly the work of an enormously talented and admirably adventurous writer.
Johnson’s long-awaited new novel is expansive in scope, historically detailed, and totally enthralling ... Part bildungsroman, part historical exploration, this novel is a study of the many islands in the South Pacific, their power struggles, abuses of power, and the perseverance to survive.
Magnificent ... A novel rich in narrative and emotional depth. Johnson adopts a different style of storytelling—often serious, sometimes exaggerated and comic—that is perhaps inspired by the oral traditions central to the lives of his characters.
Johnson has established a reputation for spinning complex, colorful, and plausibly rococo yarns from civilizations remote from and mysterious to outsiders. Here, his audacious, unruly imagination roams with confidence through the island kingdom of Tonga as it undergoes societal uncertainty and the potential of war with other islands ... Enchanted touches are deftly threaded into the rangy storyline by Johnson’s richly lyrical prose, which is also capable of handling the social dynamics of the Tongans along with the background stories of royalty and their rivals. At times, the saga can get so discursive that it risks leaving the reader on some reef or capsized by an unexpected surge from another time.