Arcadia
Ratings20
Average rating4
15
Ratings20
Average rating4
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Timeless and vast... The raw beauty of Ms. Groff's prose is one of the best things about Arcadia. But it is by no means this book's only kind of splendor."---Janet Maslin, The New York Times "Even the most incidental details vibrate with life Arcadia wends a harrowing path back to a fragile, lovely place you can believe in."---Ron Charles, The Washington Post In the fields of western New York State in the 1970s, a few dozen idealists set out to live off the land, founding a commune centered on the grounds of a decaying mansion called Arcadia House. Arcadia follows this romantic utopian dream from its hopeful start through its heyday. Arcadia's inhabitants include Handy, the charismatic leader; his wife, Astrid, a midwife; Abe, a master carpenter; Hannah, a baker and historian; and Abe and Hannah's only child, Bit. While Arcadia rises and falls, Bit, too, ages and changes. He falls in love with Helle, Handy's lovely, troubled daughter. And eventually he must face the world beyond Arcadia. In Arcadia, Groff displays her literary gifts to stunning effect. "Fascinating."---People (****) "It's not possible to write any better without showing off."---Richard Russo, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Empire Falls "Dazzling."---Vogue
Reviews with the most likes.
It took me a couple tries to get into it but so glad I did. A beautiful story about what makes us human - love, loss, community, etc. Bit is a fantastic character, and Groff has a beautiful writing style.
Because I don't love stories narrated by children, I had some difficulty with the first half of this book, set in the Arcadia commune. But when time passes and the narrator, Bit, has grown up, it really soared for me. The last section of the book was a bit of a leap, but I went with it and it really worked.
Lauren Groff has incredible intuition. She knows how to get at the ambivalence that underlies every decision we make, the ways we can doubt every emotion we feel. At its core, Arcadia is about a relationship between a son and his mother, but it let me down when the son falls in love with another. We miss the true impact of the life-changing decisions he makes, especially in light of his relationships with his mother and other women. Still, I look forward to reading more of what Groff has written.
