Status
Available
Genres
Description
A group of angry and ill-assorted people accept an invitation to make a journey. Inspired by a painting and financed by a mysterious benefactor, they set off to discover the real Arcadia. Or what remains of it. Their journey begins in ignorance and chaos at Waterloo station and takes them through superstition and myth to harmony. In the Louvre, in front of Poussin's masterpiece, they begin to understand. 'In Arcadia takes that staple Shakespearean theme of appearance versus reality and uses it to explore the notion of paradise' Scotsman
User reviews
LibraryThing member fieldnotes
Every page I turn to of "In Arcadia" justifies my decision to spare myself a close reading of the last 160 pages. All of my forays into the later parts and books and chapters lead me smack into the exhausting, uninvested, list-making and cranky ranting that this too self-involved novel obsessively
Okri can't seem to tell a story anymore--his threadbare shrug towards narrative is only a convenient vehicle for his reflections on modern life, on meaning, on art, on film--anything mentioned in the text is then discoursed upon, tiresomely or sometimes with anger that is neither sharp nor important.
What is this staccato rubbish: "Strangest creature I ever saw. Don’t quite know how to describe her. Small, wiry, full of a mad quirrel-like ampheteamine-driven panic-charged vaguely neurotic energy. Nice eyes. I hate to admit it, but nice eyes. I like them. I adore them. Charming, sweet, pretty eyes. Can’t make out how a weirdo gets to have such nice eyes."
What sort of hip, chatty tone is Okri hoping to approximate? Is it supposed to soften us up for passages like:
"They gained in menace, in untrustworthiness, in depth. These were thorough failures, desperate media people, haunted by the marvelous and crushing contempt that the great goddess of fame had heaped on them, haunted by their complete inability to make any sort of mark on the vile fabric of their age. They were, therefore, willing accomplices of the corporation of the devil, desperadoes of fame and urban fortune. I had no reason to think them incapable of anything." Or . . .
"Jim sensed their journey was an arcane voyage, the interviewsw and places forming an inner script, a sacred script even. He felt that they were all unwitting parts of a sublime riddle, a mystican conundrum, a travelling cryptograph."?
The novel changes its narrative perspective and form and still manages not to evolve: "I live in a permanent existential condition: most things conspire to deny me existence and historical validity. Sometimes I wonder if I exist or whether I am not an invention, a nightmare invention, a regrettable invention, in the mind of society . . . Don’t dehumanize me or insult my intelligence by trying to make up for the vile invisible laws that try to fuck up my pleasant existence."
"Death spoke from the design, from the attempt to create Acrcadia according to one’s image and command. Death spoke through the geometry of it. Death spoke through the excess of symbolism. Death spoke through the labyrinths. Death spoke through the mathematics."
It's sad that Okri's fiction has become an overwritten, underproven, conceptual pageantry. There's not a lick of authenticity anywhere. I think it may be time for me to give up on this man.
Show More
churns out.Okri can't seem to tell a story anymore--his threadbare shrug towards narrative is only a convenient vehicle for his reflections on modern life, on meaning, on art, on film--anything mentioned in the text is then discoursed upon, tiresomely or sometimes with anger that is neither sharp nor important.
What is this staccato rubbish: "Strangest creature I ever saw. Don’t quite know how to describe her. Small, wiry, full of a mad quirrel-like ampheteamine-driven panic-charged vaguely neurotic energy. Nice eyes. I hate to admit it, but nice eyes. I like them. I adore them. Charming, sweet, pretty eyes. Can’t make out how a weirdo gets to have such nice eyes."
What sort of hip, chatty tone is Okri hoping to approximate? Is it supposed to soften us up for passages like:
"They gained in menace, in untrustworthiness, in depth. These were thorough failures, desperate media people, haunted by the marvelous and crushing contempt that the great goddess of fame had heaped on them, haunted by their complete inability to make any sort of mark on the vile fabric of their age. They were, therefore, willing accomplices of the corporation of the devil, desperadoes of fame and urban fortune. I had no reason to think them incapable of anything." Or . . .
"Jim sensed their journey was an arcane voyage, the interviewsw and places forming an inner script, a sacred script even. He felt that they were all unwitting parts of a sublime riddle, a mystican conundrum, a travelling cryptograph."?
The novel changes its narrative perspective and form and still manages not to evolve: "I live in a permanent existential condition: most things conspire to deny me existence and historical validity. Sometimes I wonder if I exist or whether I am not an invention, a nightmare invention, a regrettable invention, in the mind of society . . . Don’t dehumanize me or insult my intelligence by trying to make up for the vile invisible laws that try to fuck up my pleasant existence."
"Death spoke from the design, from the attempt to create Acrcadia according to one’s image and command. Death spoke through the geometry of it. Death spoke through the excess of symbolism. Death spoke through the labyrinths. Death spoke through the mathematics."
It's sad that Okri's fiction has become an overwritten, underproven, conceptual pageantry. There's not a lick of authenticity anywhere. I think it may be time for me to give up on this man.
Show Less