![Arcadia | [Lauren Groff]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VeWGlopVL._SL175_.jpg "Arcadia | [Lauren Groff]")
Arcadia
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- Regular Price :$27.99Special Offer: Learn how to get this for $7.49 !
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Average Customer Rating
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LENGTH11 hrs and 8 mins
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RELEASE DATE03-13-12
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AUDIO FORMATS
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Program TypeAudiobook
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PUBLISHER
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Publisher's Summary
Lauren Groff’s acclaimed debut novel The Monsters of Templeton was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways.
©2012 Lauren Groff (P)2012 Recorded Books, LLC
What the Critics Say
“Richly peopled and ambitious… is one of the most moving and satisfying novels I’ve read in a long time.” (Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author)
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What Members Say
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"Luscious prose, intimate and realistic"
With luscious prose Lauren Groff tells the story of Bit, a boy born in the late 1960’s on a VW bus in a snowstorm in Wyoming, as his parents and their communal caravan drive across the U.S. to settle in upstate New York. The community they found soon after his birth, Arcadia, is Bit’s complete world for his first 15 years. Bit’s experiences of poverty, hunger, cold and isolation are presented with intimacy and unsparing realism. But so too are his experiences of love, acceptance, joy in nature and discovery.
“Arcadia” movingly presents the emotional and physical experiences of Bit and his friends, as well as those of the adults of the community, when the inevitable “crisis” occurs that leads to the disintegration of the group and the exodus of most of its members, including Bit and the other children. The story of Bit’s radically different adult life is the second half of the novel. Groff does an excellent job portraying him in his later years in a way that is wholly consistent, and utterly believable, given the child we have come to know so intimately in the earlier part of the book.
I found the reading by Andrew Garman a bit flat at first. However, his understated and undramatic way of reading allowed the beautiful writing to shine through on its own. I never tired of listening to this book, and found that his voice slipped quietly into the background, so that I might have been reading it on the written page rather than listening to it.7 of 7 people found this review helpful -
Jessica Emeryville, CA, United States 04-20-12 Member Since 2008
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"Wonderful novel"
I thought this was a terrific novel--a clear story line with layers of tales under the surface. It spans decades, from the '60s to the not too distant future, and left me contemplating my own future in a new light.
The novel is really beautifully written, the language rich enough to drown in. The characters, with their inevitable flaws, are developed sympathetically. Arcadia is the story of a boy who grows up away from the "real world," in a gigantic commune, where pot, poverty, and extravagant dreams and hopes are constants, and what happens when, inevitably, he must join the rest of the human race.
My criterion for narration is simple: a clear, modulated voice that doesn't overpower the music of the words themselves, as the author wrote them. I had no complaints with this novel.
I wish I had it to read over again--and of course I do, and I will!4 of 4 people found this review helpful -
SomervilleWhereElse Somerville, MA 04-20-12 Member Since 2007
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"Wonderful book!"
I thought this book was amazing. It was a beautiful evocation of a time and of politics that are gone. I thought the characters were well drawn and brought to life with the great narration of Andrew Garman. Lauren Groff's writing is so terrific to listen to. I recommend this wholeheartedly.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful -
"I Just Couldn't Get Into It"
Would you try another book from Lauren Groff and/or Andrew Garman?No, I don't think I would. I had a really hard time getting into this book. It jumped around and just felt slow to me. I tried and got almost half way through, but then just gave up.
What could Lauren Groff have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?I don't know - it just never really got going for me and I wasn't ever looking forward to turning it back on and listening to it.
What do you think the narrator could have done better?Nothing, overall I thought it was good.
What character would you cut from Arcadia?None, really...
1 of 1 people found this review helpful -
"Didn't dive it as I did with Monsters of Templeton"
Any additional comments?I just couldn't get into this book. I read almost half of it and kept wishing that I was at the end. I loved her other book--The Monsters of Templeton--but the subject of the book, a hippy commune, just didn't keep me interested. And the very small boy who is the main character kept making me think of Owen Meany. So I set this book aside.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful