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.
