![]() We see everything through Bit's eyes as he grows up in a pastoral world "too full of terror and beauty". And like the rest of the novel, it takes place in the present tense (a difficult affectation), comes in a great tide of descriptive detail, and sets up the story's perspective, which is one of unrelenting introspection. Films such as White Ribbon and The Village come to mind, but let's first come to grips with the fact that for Bit, the first child born in Arcadia, this is a pre-natal memory. In a bucolic, dream-like opening scene, a boy called Bit observes his mother doing laundry in the river with other women, "hair in a golden loop of braids", while his muscular father Abe watches lovingly on. What we witness first is the day-to-day existence of a thriving 1970s commune in New York State. In Lauren Groff's third work of fiction, Arcadia, it happens later. W e are endlessly fascinated by utopian societies, not least because sooner or later, they go horribly wrong. ![]()
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