Arcadia
Iain Pears, 2016
KnopfDoubleday
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101946824
Summary
Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. But who controls the future—or the past?
In 1960s Oxford, Professor Henry Lytten is attempting to write a fantasy novel that forgoes the magic of his predecessors, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He finds an unlikely confidante in his quick-witted, inquisitive young neighbor Rosie.
One day, while chasing Lytten’s cat, Rosie encounters a doorway in his cellar. She steps through and finds herself in an idyllic, pastoral land where Storytellers are revered above all others. There she meets a young man who is about to embark on a quest of his own—and may be the one chance Rosie has of returning home.
These breathtaking adventures ultimately intertwine with the story of an eccentric psychomathematician whose breakthrough discovery will affect all of these different lives and worlds.
Dazzlingly inventive and deeply satisfying, Arcadia tests the boundaries of storytelling and asks: If the past can change the future, then might the future also indelibly alter the past? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 1, 1955
• Where—Coventry, England, UK
• Education—Ph.D., Oxford University
• Awards—Martin Beck Award (Sweden)
• Currently—lives in Oxford, England
Iain Pears is an English art historian, novelist, and journalist. He was educated at Warwick School, Warwick, Wadham College and Wolfson College, Oxford.
Before writing, he worked as a reporter for the BBC, Channel 4 (UK) and ZDF (Germany) and correspondent for Reuters from 1982 to 1990 in Italy, France, UK, and US. In 1987 he became a Getty Fellow in the Arts and Humanities at Yale University.
Pears first came to international prominence with his best selling book An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997), which was translated into several languages. All told, he has published some dozen books—seven in the Jonathan Argyll series (1991-2000) featuring detective art historian Argyll who works with the (fictitious) Italian Art Squad.
In his stand alone novels, Pears is known for experimenting with different narrative structures, presenting four consecutive versions of the same events in An Instance of the Fingerpost, three stories interleaved in The Dream of Scipio (2002), three stories told in reverse chronological order in Stone's Fall (2009), and allowing the reader to switch between multiple narratives in the electronic book version of Arcadia (2015).
Pears currently lives with his wife and children in Oxford. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/22/2016.)
Book Reviews
Every so often you read a novel to which the best critical response is simply "Wow!," followed by a sigh of pleasure. Eighteen years ago I felt this way about Iain Pears’s intricate historical mystery An Instance of the Fingerpost. The book dazzled for many of the usual reasons—fascinating characters, a richly presented fictive world, polished writing, lively dialogue, a serious engagement with ideas about life and morality—but, more unusually, it was also a masterpiece of plot construction. All this is again true, and then some, of Mr. Pears’s Arcadia.
Michael Dirda - Wall Street Journal
[Pears] is a master at creating structurally intricate novels.... As Pears steadily builds his multiplicity of stories, his orchestrations become something far more ambitious, a calculated and at times quite droll assault on the very nature of narrative itself.
Steve Donoghue - Washington Post
A complex romp through time and genres...that intertwines 10 major characters over several centuries, with allusions abounding to Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare, and a raft of others.... [It’s] fun to puzzle out how all the strands fit together.
Patricia Hagen - Minneapolis Star Tribune
A fantastical extravaganza.... A complex time-travelling, world-hopping caper with insistently epic stakes.
Steven Poole - Guardian (UK)
Pears’s prose is a pleasure to read.... A dream of perfection in beautiful language.... A compelling narrative; switching from one [storyline] to another means we are constantly in a state of suspense.... I was entirely captured.
Marion Halligan - Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
A many-layered narrative in which real and imagined worlds continually collide.... Aficionados of fantasy fiction will find plenty here to relish.
Max Davidson - Mail on Sunday (UK)
The most striking thing about Pears’s writing—his plots and ideas are complex, but his style is simple and clear.... Fantastic fun and, in spite of its complexity, a swift read.
Bryan Applebaum - Sunday Times (UK)
Not so much a novel as a cornucopia of narratives.... As a novelist, Iain Pears doesn’t repeat himself, and he gives with a generous hand.
Andrew Taylor - Spectator (UK)
Extremely clever but, better than that, immensely entertaining.... Pears almost seamlessly merges genres of fantasy, sci-fi, spy thriller, romance, and more.
Jaine Blackman - Oxford Times (UK)
[A] clever, well-constructed story. Living in an environmentally ravaged future governed by a technocratic so-called Scientific Government, the "psychomathematician" Angela Meerson builds a machine that could in theory access the resources of a parallel universe.... A fun, immersive, genre-bending ride.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This complex, entertaining tale...involves time travel, British spies betraying one another, and apocalyptic scenarios.... [A] diverse group of characters and multiple worlds...[creates] an impressive and quite enjoyable mystery fantasy. —James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.
Library Journal
Pears darts from one [alternate future] to the other...[with] plenty of metacommentary on the art of storytelling, science fiction...the destruction wrought by greed, and other weighty matters. A head-scratcher but an ambitious pleasure. When puzzled, press on: Pears' yarn is worth the effort.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Where does the title of the book come from? What is Arcadia, and why do you think the author chose this title for the novel? How might the title serve as a clue that suggests or otherwise echoes the major themes of the text?
2. What is Anterwold? Why does Henry Lytten write about this place, and what characteristics does he give it? What are some of his major influences in the creation of this world?
3. Consider what the book has to say about the subject of history and our past. Angela is trying to find out how easy—or difficult—it is to change the course of history. What does she determine? What does the book suggest about the relationship between the past and the future?
4. How many points of view are represented in the book? Who are the narrators of the stories contained within the novel, and how does the shifting perspective affect your interpretation of the story? Does any one point of view seem to stand out from all the rest?
5. Consider the theme of morality. Can readers easily identify who is "good" and who is "bad"? What do the intentions and motives of certain characters—Oldmanter, or Angela, or Alex Chang, for instance—reveal to us about their nature? Does the book present a particular vision of morality? Discuss.
6. Evaluate setting. What settings does Pears employ in Arcadia? Does any one setting stand out from all the rest? What themes does each setting help to reveal or reinforce?
7. Consider utopia and dystopia as a motif in the book. How would the various characters in Arcadia define utopia? Would their definitions be consistent with one another? Which character or group of characters do you think is correct about creating a society that "works," as Henry Lytten would say?
8. Evaluate the theme of time. How is time represented or defined within the book, and what does this indicate about the relationship between past and present as well as cause and effect? Why does Angela believe that elderly people with dementia or Alzheimer’s are more in tune with the true nature of time?
9. Consider representations of status or social class in the book. How is status or class determined amongst the different groups of characters? What allows a character to achieve a high rank in each time and place? Does there seem to be social mobility in any of these places? If so, what allows or causes characters to shift positions?
10. Examine the theme of loyalty in the book. What examples of loyalty or disloyalty are depicted therein? To what are the characters faithful? Does the loyalty of the characters shift or remain consistent? Does Pears’s overall treatment of loyalty propose anything about human nature?
11. What does the novel suggest about identity? Are the characters easily identified in the various storylines? Is the identity of any particular character surprising, and if so, why? Does the book suggest whether identity is a static or fluid state? What seems to determine or shape the identity of the characters?
12. How does Arcadia uphold or otherwise defy traditional notions of genre? Is the book easily categorized? Explain. What genres are represented therein?
13. Evaluate the theme of storytelling. What is the role of the storyteller within the novel, and how are the storytellers treated in each time and place? What might this suggest about the purpose of storytelling?
14. How many stories does Arcadia contain? What stories influence Henry Lytten’s tale, and what stories influence Arcadia as a whole? What do these influences indicate about literary discourse and the relationships amongst texts?
15. In Arcadia, minor characters are revealed as major characters and major characters become minor ones, depending on which storyline a reader focuses on. What are some examples of this, and what might this convey about our own relationships to one another?
16. What is the Devil’s Handwriting? Who wants to find it and what do they want to do with it? Why is it significant to those who want to get their hands on it? Is it recovered? What does it ultimately reveal?
17. Consider the treatment of colonization and the treatment of indigenous peoples as a theme of the book. What does the novel suggest about this topic? How does Pears tackle the idea of the foreign in the novel?
18. Who are the Renegades, and what are some of their beliefs? Why do the elite scientists hope to contain them? Which group do you identify with more, in terms of what they wish to uphold and accomplish?
19. The author has revealed in interviews that Arcadia was conceived and written with the help of software. Discuss the role of technology in the formation and arrangement of the book. Do you think that the use of technology in the creation of this book was a success? Why or why not?
20. Evaluate the final chapter of the novel. Were you surprised at the conclusion? Explain. How does the conclusion relate to the overall structure of the book and the major themes of Arcadia?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)