7/8/2023 0 Comments Arcadia lauren groff review![]() The story didn’t seem to have direction or momentum, and I was overwhelmed by the surfeit of supporting characters. I did a lot of harrumphing and eye-rolling, and couldn’t figure out at first whether Groff was quietly approving of this outlandish lifestyle or seeking to condemn it from the inside. My aversion to this opening had everything to do with my dislike of the utopian language and ideology that characterizes commune life. Hannah’s unpredictability is nicely counter-balanced by Abe, Bit’s stalwart and ever-resourceful father. Bit’s development is buffeted by the emotional vicissitudes of his mother, Hannah, whose manic depressive behavior syncs with the seasons. Embedded in a community of irresponsible and impoverished but well-meaning adults, Bit and his ingenuous friends experience the awestruck cognition of post-1960s American consciousness alongside the terrors of instability and routine privation. Groff focuses tightly on Bit––the eldest and most diminutive member of Arcadia’s youth. ![]() ![]() It begins on an eponymous commune in western New York State during the 1970s, hitting all the tiresome notes one expects from a narrative about people trying to “beat the system” with hard work and “fuck the Man” sentiments. For the first hundred pages or so, Lauren Groff’s Arcadiafooled me into thinking it was something less than a spectacular novel. ![]()
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