Review: ARCADIA by Lauren Groff
Forget your misgivings about hippies, Groff’s passion for her community and characters will make you fall in love with them too.
Patchouli, pot and polygamy. Is this what comes to mind when you hear the words, ‘hippie commune’? Well, Lauren Groff had the same idea when she wrote Arcadia. The clichés stop there, though.
As its name suggests, Arcadia is a utopic commune in upstate New York populated by the Free People, a group of well-educated idealists attempting to go back to a pastoral existence free from capitalism and power hierarchies. Fittingly, their motto is ‘Equality, Love, Work, Openness to the Needs of Others’. Groff’s writing is so detailed that you can see the dilapidated mansion the Free People call their home and taste the soy cheese the predominantly vegan community eats for dinner. Arcadia may recall the same clichés its sunflowered-Volkswagen-bus cover depicts, but Groff’s world is so well-imagined that it both accepts and transcends the stereotypes.
It doesn’t matter whether you smile or scoff at the hippie lifestyle because Groff’s writing is so vivid you will feel like you’re living in Arcadia or at the very least, want to go there.
This is because she takes the community aspect of communes seriously and creates a well-worn cast of characters that you love even when they’re behaving despicably. Groff takes pleasure in the details, so you would know what to serve them for tea and what novels to discuss with them if you ever met them in real life. They are what make Arcadia and help to show just what the commune has to lose.
Our guide through Arcadia is Bit, a laconic little boy growing up in the commune in the 1970s. We meet Bit when he is five years old and still just attempting to understand the world around him. Groff’s prose is steeped in the senses and in the present-tense, so we can experience Bit’s world as he does. The writing is far from simple though, but rather rich with imagery and metaphor. Bit notices his mother’s depression by remarking, ‘But this Hannah is burrowing inside a new one who has let the winter in’. Later, Bit tries to save his mother by remembering his favourite things in a poetic stream of consciousness, ‘A taste of Saucy Sally's Poppyseed Cake, the way Leif can swing Bit by the legs so the world spins deliriously past, the feel of running on the last crust of snow when the others fall through, that softness at the end of a branch that is the whisper of a bud.’ Sensitive protagonists aren’t always the most engaging but through Bit’s eyes, we can see Arcadia’s virtues instead of sceptically dismissing them. Bit’s language grows as he does but never loses its keen perception as the novel progresses.
As Groff admonishes, ‘The world is sometimes too much for Bit, too full of terror and beauty. Every day he finds himself squeezed under a new astonishment. The universe pulses outward at impossible speeds.’ Indeed, all is not perfect under the cloud of pot smoke in Arcadia. Despite its supposed free love free rule policy, Arcadia is run by a folk singer with an ego bigger than his band. The ironically-named Handy disappears off on tour to avoid the real problems of the commune, overcrowding and underfeeding. When Arcadia is eventually disbanded in the worst combination of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, the community is cast off into the concrete wilderness of New York City. The dystopia has only just begun.
The plot is comprised of a series of vignettes and so Groff sets the later scenes in the future, up to 2018. Bit is now a fully realised adult but holding on to the past, both literally, as an analog photographer, and figuratively, as he attempts to keep up friendships from his Arcadia days. A utopia cannot last and neither can a perfect novel. Unfortunately, Arcadia peters out into melancholy in its second half. The strong sensory details that grounded us in the narrative in the first half are discarded for a vague foreboding future full of sci-fi-esque tropes we’ve seen before. Thankfully, the characters carry us through the detour, but we find ourselves missing Arcadia just as much as they do.
Ultimately, Groff does something most writers of her genre never do, she respects her utopia. Her strong characters, equal parts grit and vulnerability, and lyrical prose allow us to respect it too.
Patchouli, pot and polygamy. Is this what comes to mind when you hear the words, ‘hippie commune’? Well, Lauren Groff had the same idea when she wrote Arcadia. The clichés stop there, though.
As its name suggests, Arcadia is a utopic commune in upstate New York populated by the Free People, a group of well-educated idealists attempting to go back to a pastoral existence free from capitalism and power hierarchies. Fittingly, their motto is ‘Equality, Love, Work, Openness to the Needs of Others’. Groff’s writing is so detailed that you can see the dilapidated mansion the Free People call their home and taste the soy cheese the predominantly vegan community eats for dinner. Arcadia may recall the same clichés its sunflowered-Volkswagen-bus cover depicts, but Groff’s world is so well-imagined that it both accepts and transcends the stereotypes.
It doesn’t matter whether you smile or scoff at the hippie lifestyle because Groff’s writing is so vivid you will feel like you’re living in Arcadia or at the very least, want to go there.
This is because she takes the community aspect of communes seriously and creates a well-worn cast of characters that you love even when they’re behaving despicably. Groff takes pleasure in the details, so you would know what to serve them for tea and what novels to discuss with them if you ever met them in real life. They are what make Arcadia and help to show just what the commune has to lose.
Our guide through Arcadia is Bit, a laconic little boy growing up in the commune in the 1970s. We meet Bit when he is five years old and still just attempting to understand the world around him. Groff’s prose is steeped in the senses and in the present-tense, so we can experience Bit’s world as he does. The writing is far from simple though, but rather rich with imagery and metaphor. Bit notices his mother’s depression by remarking, ‘But this Hannah is burrowing inside a new one who has let the winter in’. Later, Bit tries to save his mother by remembering his favourite things in a poetic stream of consciousness, ‘A taste of Saucy Sally's Poppyseed Cake, the way Leif can swing Bit by the legs so the world spins deliriously past, the feel of running on the last crust of snow when the others fall through, that softness at the end of a branch that is the whisper of a bud.’ Sensitive protagonists aren’t always the most engaging but through Bit’s eyes, we can see Arcadia’s virtues instead of sceptically dismissing them. Bit’s language grows as he does but never loses its keen perception as the novel progresses.
As Groff admonishes, ‘The world is sometimes too much for Bit, too full of terror and beauty. Every day he finds himself squeezed under a new astonishment. The universe pulses outward at impossible speeds.’ Indeed, all is not perfect under the cloud of pot smoke in Arcadia. Despite its supposed free love free rule policy, Arcadia is run by a folk singer with an ego bigger than his band. The ironically-named Handy disappears off on tour to avoid the real problems of the commune, overcrowding and underfeeding. When Arcadia is eventually disbanded in the worst combination of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, the community is cast off into the concrete wilderness of New York City. The dystopia has only just begun.
The plot is comprised of a series of vignettes and so Groff sets the later scenes in the future, up to 2018. Bit is now a fully realised adult but holding on to the past, both literally, as an analog photographer, and figuratively, as he attempts to keep up friendships from his Arcadia days. A utopia cannot last and neither can a perfect novel. Unfortunately, Arcadia peters out into melancholy in its second half. The strong sensory details that grounded us in the narrative in the first half are discarded for a vague foreboding future full of sci-fi-esque tropes we’ve seen before. Thankfully, the characters carry us through the detour, but we find ourselves missing Arcadia just as much as they do.
Ultimately, Groff does something most writers of her genre never do, she respects her utopia. Her strong characters, equal parts grit and vulnerability, and lyrical prose allow us to respect it too.
Review by Tess Malone.
©' The Treacle Well 2013