Arcadia–Growing up in a commune
I had a boyfriend in college with strong ties to a commune overlooking Puget Sound on a beautiful island mid- point between Seattle and Canada. We spent long summer weekends there enjoying the quiet off-the-grid beauty of the natural world. I’ve often wondered what became of the community– especially two young children, Heron and Critter.
Finally someone has addressed this intriguing part of American history. Arcadia is a novel that explores life for Bit (the oddball name sounds authentic), who was born and raised in the fictional commune. Arcadia is founded by intelligent, well-meaning and committed people. Then, as is often the case, success attracted a different crowd contributing to its demise.
The first part of the novel is brilliantly told from Bit Stone’s childhood point of view. Arcadia is a large commune with a lot of activity. Sights, sounds and particularly smells are lavishly described—often in lyrical language. Bit is a sensitive child who although he suffers from his mother’s depression, a lack of food, the cold, and a general lack of creature comforts, has no interest is leaving the only home he’s ever known.
This part of the book is packed with thought-provoking details. Except for the author’s irritating decision not to use punctuation to indicate speech, the book has its strengths. Lauren Groff did a great job on commune life. For example, the commune is led by a charismatic musician, Handy, who becomes predictably corrupt. The powerful effect of popular music on the counter-culture of the time was accurate and believable. However, 1) such a commune would have thrived slightly earlier in time, not after Jonestown, or Ronald Reagan’s election and 2) a raison d’êtrefor the commune (the draft for the war in Vietnam) would have been more prominent in everyone’s consciousness. On the real-life commune I knew, people dodging the draft on their way to Canada were often drop-ins. Their unexpected stays often depleted the resources of the generous community.
The last part of the novel was weak. There is very little plot and what there is seems silly (a pandemic named ‘SARI’). It’s as if Groff ran out of juice after her strong start. I wanted to learn how Bit handled the transition to life beyond Arcadia, but that was skipped over. As with the lives of Heron and Critter, I still wonder.
