Arcadia, Iain Pears, Alfred A Knopf, 2016, 510 pp
Summary from Goodreads: Henry Lytten - a spy turned academic and writer - sits at his desk in Oxford in 1962, dreaming of other worlds.
He embarks on the story of Jay, an eleven-year-old boy who has grown up within the embrace of his family in a rural, peaceful world - a kind of Arcadia. But when a supernatural vision causes Jay to question the rules of his world, he is launched on a life-changing journey.
Lytten also imagines a different society, highly regulated and dominated by technology, which is trying to master the science of time travel.
Meanwhile - in the real world - one of Lytten's former intelligence colleagues tracks him down for one last assignment.
As he and his characters struggle with questions of free will, love, duty and the power of the imagination, Lytten discovers he is not sure how he wants his stories to end, nor even who is imaginary...
He embarks on the story of Jay, an eleven-year-old boy who has grown up within the embrace of his family in a rural, peaceful world - a kind of Arcadia. But when a supernatural vision causes Jay to question the rules of his world, he is launched on a life-changing journey.
Lytten also imagines a different society, highly regulated and dominated by technology, which is trying to master the science of time travel.
Meanwhile - in the real world - one of Lytten's former intelligence colleagues tracks him down for one last assignment.
As he and his characters struggle with questions of free will, love, duty and the power of the imagination, Lytten discovers he is not sure how he wants his stories to end, nor even who is imaginary...
My Review:
Reading this novel was pure fun for me.
An Oxford professor in 1962, who was a spy in WWII, turns his hand to writing a fantasy novel that contains no magic. His teenage neighbor Rosie, who feeds his cat, stumbles through a portal into another world that turns out to be the world the professor imagined for his novel. A rebellious psychomathematician from the 24th century uses her own invention to escape from her boss, returns to 1939 and becomes a temporary spy herself.
Many time periods; real and fantasy and futuristic worlds; adventures and love affairs and a supercapitalist combine in surprising ways. It is a bit of a crazy mashup of several genres but somehow Iain Pears makes it work.
That is more than I knew going in. I just knew I have liked every Iain Pears novel I have read and started reading. So I'm not going to say more. Either you'll find your way into and out of Arcadia or you won't. Hint: you should be a fan of complex plots and have read either C S Lewis or JRR Tolkein in your youth, with possibly a tad of Isaac Asimov.
(Arcadia is available in hardcover by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)
Sounds like quite a fun portal world. What a mashup. I have not read Pears before -- does he write spy mysteries mostly?
ReplyDeleteHe writes about many different things. Some of his novels are historical fiction and always also involve some philosophical idea. I have read The Dream of Scipio (http://keepthewisdom.blogspot.com/2006/02/dream-of-scipio.html) and Stone's Fall (http://keepthewisdom.blogspot.com/2009/07/stones-fall.html). His most well known is An Instance of the Fingerpost, which I have not read, but my husband has and he liked it. He also has written a series of art history mysteries but I have not read those.
DeleteI'm glad that you liked reading this pure fun novel :)
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteSounds weird, but fun. :-)
ReplyDeleteLately I have been into books that are not like everything else.
DeleteWhen I saw the title of your post, I thought you were going to tell us about Lauren Groff's book by that name that I read and loved a few years ago. This one sounds like a winner, too.
ReplyDeleteI loved Lauren Groff's book too. This one couldn't be more different but I still found it great.
DeleteI have read two of Iain Pears' books - Stone's Fall, which I loved, and An Instance of the Fingerpost. This one sounds very different and I'm not sure if it would be my sort of book, but I'm still intrigued! I'm glad you found it fun to read.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very different book from his others I've read: Stone's Fall and The Dream of Scipio, both of those being historical. But the way he always weaves in philosophical questions also informs this one. Also different is that he is not quite serious and seemed to me to be having fun himself as an author.
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