Arcadia

by Jim Crace

For Victor's 80th birthday his right-hand man Rook prepares a country feast in the heart of the city. But Victor is making preparations of his to dismiss Rook and to leave an indelible mark on the city before he dies.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, 20th Century, Literature, Contemporary, Modern, Literary Fiction

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

James "Jim" Crace is an award-winning English writer. His novel Quarantine, won the Whitbread Novel award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Harvest won the International Impac Dublin Literary Award, James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Crace grew up in Forty Hill, an area at the far northern point of Greater London, close to Enfield where Crace attended Enfield Grammar School. He studied for a degree at the Birmingham College of Commerce (now part of Birmingham City University), where he was enrolled as an external student of the University of London. After securing a BA (Hons) in English Literature in 1968, he travelled overseas with the UK organization Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), working in Sudan. Two years later he returned to the UK, and worked with the BBC, writing educational programmes. From 1976 to 1987 he worked as a freelance journalist for The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers.

In 1986 Crace published Continent. Continent won the Whitbread First Novel of the Year Award, the David Higham Prize for Fiction and the Guardian Fiction Prize. This work was followed by The Gift of Stones, Arcadia, Signals of Distress, Quarantine, Being Dead and Six. His most recent novel, The Pesthouse, was published in the UK in March 2007.

Despite living in Britain, Crace is more successful in the United States, as evidenced by the award of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1999.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a baroque painting by Guercino: amidst lush vegetation, a young shepherd and a shepherdess are eyeing a skull lying on a tombstone. The painting is called Et in Arcadia ego – Even in Arcadia, there am I. So even in Arcadia – the garden of earthly delights – there is death.
The novel is written in the lucid and picturesque language and it begins with the eightieth birthday of the greengrocer tycoon, Victor…

Victor sat as deadened as his guests, not by the onslaught of the offices – he was used to that – but by the discomfort that he felt in company. He’d never had the conversation or the animated face to make himself or the people round him feel at ease. He had no repartee, no party skills, no social affability. What kind of city man was he that did not relish the light and phatic talk, the spoken oxygen of markets, offices, and streets? He did not care. He did not need to care. A boss can speak as little as he wishes, and stay away from markets, offices, and streets. Truth to tell, he did not even relish the joshing and the drink-emboldened flattery that his guests – between their coughs and flushes – were exchanging at the table.

Victor started from scratch – when he was an infant his mother was a beggar at the market…

‘God Bless the Cheerful Giver,’ she would say. Or, ‘Lady, Lady!’ spoken urgently, as if she’d spotted danger on the street or recognized a family friend. If Em could only stop the first one in a crowd and embarrass her to pause and give, then she could count on gifts in streams. The first fish leads the shoal.
So Victor and his mother lived beneath the parasol by day, and slept at night wherever they could find a place amongst the dozing market baskets or at the back of bars.

Now, being extremely wealthy, Victor wants his personal memorial – instead the old archaic market he decides to build a huge modern emporium named Arcadia: a symbol of progress and the future…

‘We have glass-bottomed elevators rising on a scenic ride through the foliage. We have nine trading corridors in human scale. And then the scale is more divine – four domes, the largest fifty metres high and visible from far away. It is a sculpture made from glass and greenery. It is a living carapace frozen in metal. It is…’ (and with a flourish Signor Busi revealed the project’s title) ‘…Arcadia. But modernized. Climate-controlled. Efficient. Accessible. Contemporary. Defended.’

The fight commences… As usual, there are defenders of progress and there are defenders of stagnation… And as usual, the world keeps changing without paying attention to both… And death doesn’t spare neither progressionists nor conservators.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting novel with a great deal going on beneath the surface. Victor is an aging millionaire, a self made man living in the penthouse of the skyscraper he owns in an unnamed city. His origins lie in the countryside; after his father's early death his mother brings him as a baby to the city where she begs for food in the market area of the city using Victor as a draw. His mother dies, but Victor survives, eventually making his fortune through the market, which he now owns.
Victor's right hand man, Rook, is setting up a birthday surprise; he too comes from the market and collects rents for Victor, solves problems and makes life smooth. Victor decides that to commemorate his 80th birthday he will tear down the old market and build something new, spectacular and glassy. At the same time he decides to dispense with Rook's services. Lots of forces come into play; the ancient customs and rituals of the market, hungry and angry young men like Joseph, Victor's entirely selfish vision, Rook's desire for revenge and much more all fuel the inevitable collision and the inevitability of progress.
The narrator is a journalist who also is cut down by progress. The tensions and collisions between ways of life are lain bare. this is not just town versus country, or more accurately city versus rurality. It is modernism opposing tradition, capitalism versus an almost pre-industrial idyll; almost shades of the Norman Yoke ideas that persisted for centuries. It is most tellingly the opposition of individualism to a pre-Thatcher sense of community and belonging. It explains what was lost when the out of town shopping centres like Meadowhall and Blue Water were built or when most city centres were modernised and shopping malls erected. Crace went to Birmingham University in the 60s and there may be shades of what happened when the Bull Ring was built.
However there is no glorification of the old ways; the brutalities and difficulties of life are not glossed over, but there is the sense of a way of life lost and sanitised.
A close reading identifies the seeds of destruction in the new wonderful shiny Arcadia shopping centre and market.
Arcadia has been compared to Ballard's novels and there are similarities. The anonymised setting works well. Crace sets of many current debates going at once, rather like a plate spinning act and he manages to keep them up. The current debates about conservation and development; is growth necessary and inevitable? Who suffers when communities are uprooted? Can those who oppose the big conglomerates ever get justice? Is protest a waste of time? How can small people ever win against the powerful?
Lots of questions and ideas woven into a very effective story; Crace just sets the debate going and does it rather well

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arcadia refers to a new Mall that is to replace an old market in a fictional town. The story describes, in more or less detail, the lives of some of the parties involved. While the story is mildly interesting, the characters are not really. Still, not a bad read.

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s difficult to review a book by Jim Crace because his novels have topics so diverse and little related, one to another. It’s a strange thing reading him when you live in Chile with a Chilean wife because we have read four or five novels by him but what’s available in Spanish isn’t what I’ve read in English and what I find in English she can’t find in Spanish, so we can’t bounce opinions off each other. The only thing we can agree on is that we both like him in spite of everything against it.

If you asked me what this book is about, what is the grand theme, I couldn’t really tell you. Victor, an incredibly rich man decides to celebrate his 80th birthday by destroying the place he grew up in, a somewhat chaotic open-air market, most of which he owns and rents out. His reasons for destroying it aren’t given but he has no family and no heirs, just a past. His life growing up there, and how his mother arrived and survived there, are something that makes Dickens sound like a Disneyland adventure, but he not only survives but acquires (through unexplained means) such wealth that he builds and observes the market from a lofty skyscraper where he lives an isolated existence – not quite Howard Hughes but at times not far from it. He does his business through a right-hand man, Rook, who also grew up in the market and so knows all the ins and outs of how the place runs; he also has a side business, collecting money for “favors” for influencing Victor, unbeknownst to his employer. The third person who becomes key to this story is Victor’s secretary, Anna, who’s loyal to Victor but fancies Rook.

How Victor amassed his fortune is irrelevant to the story but it’s implied that he was an astute young man who gradually acquired possession and control over the market. It’s also never clear why he has no family or interest in humanity; his only interest apart from business is his rooftop garden. However, I found a message in his destruction of the marketplace, apart from the bad memories associated with it. Powerful persons, governments, or any other organization, frequently hate what they consider ugly and can’t control, even if it runs well on its own initiative, especially if they see an opportunity to make some money off it. I began to think of some cases of urban renewal and gentrification, which frequently works to the advantage of investors but not to the people who live in these places. I lived on one floor of a Victorian house in San Francisco when I was basically the only white person there; it was both colorful and dangerous but I loved it and got along fine until investors came along. I also thought of my beloved Times Square which lost its seedy identity and has become a plastic tourist trap (in my opinion.) This is Arcadia, with which Victor wishes to replace the marketplace, and in which he places the love and family he never had, and never received from the market or its people. He’s a misanthrope.

This is not a book for everyone because I don’t think Jim Crace is for everyone. My favorite book of his is “Quarantine” which tells the story of Jesus’s forty days in the desert; it’s both funny and tragic, keeps to the narrative of “before and after” but is neither religious nor blasphemous. It’s short and one of the few books I’m inclined to push on people – hint, hint – but if you’re looking for an author whose books are not necessarily for everyone, then Jim Crace is a good choice.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

At just under 350 pages, Crace's Arcadia still manages to feel epic in scale. I think that while many see Arcadia as an allegory of country versus city, it is more about vibrant life versus deathly artifice. “We flock in to the city," writes Crace,"because we wish to dwell in hope. And hope—not gold—is what they pave the cities with.” In creating Arcadia, Victor has (temporarily) given a death blow to that hope for those in the market. With mordant irony, Crace shows how the lowly sparrows, tempted in by the plenty in Arcadia's aviary, are brutalized by the more exotic birds housed there. But, like grass growing up through pavement, hope and life creep back into the streets. "I used to think that buildings were all that could endure in cities. But people, it would seem, endure as well. They hang on by their nails. They improvise. They kick. They leave a legacy which is not brick or stone."

[Cphe · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual read - a novel of progress and the past.....interesting.

[Kristel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This work of fiction by the contemporary English Author, Jim Crace is definitely different. It is set in an unnamed place and is told by an unnamed journalist who tells the story of an aging millionaire’s quest to build a commercial center that will embrace the pastoral idyll. The beginning introduces us to Victor the millionaire and his able assistant Rook. The middle section is the story of Victor’s youth and the last part is the actual story of Victor’s vision and the building of the commercial center known as Arcadia. Arcadia means pastoral. Victor has a distorted vision of the country. He only knows the stories his mother told him as she forced him to nurse as a means to beg. Victor to wants to destroy the greengrocers outdoor market and create a modern structure that will emulate the country. This book is set in modern times but reading parts felt so old fashion. It is too abstract. With words and pictures created by words, the story felt like it was set in a simpler time but no, it is not, it is set in at least the late eighties. You really feel a little adrift without an anchor when you read this book.

Here are some quotes from the book;
"As he had scaled and silvered with old age so his taste for fish had grown."
“Migrated from the world of plants and seasons to the urban universe of make-and-take-and-sell.”
“Revenge is next to lust.”
“My allegiance is to what you want. The tallest building throw the longest shadows. Thus great men make their mark.”
And remember this book was published in 1992, “It can survive the full impact of an intercontinental airliner.” ….” wow, I really had to pause when I read that line.

This is not Crace’s best work but I suspect it was chosen for 1001 for its peculiarities. The characters are not people you feel attached to, in fact they are all pretty wanting.
Victor is socially inept man who lived on mother’s milk till he was six. Rook is a crook, aptly named after the bird. Some have said that the characters really are the communities. This could be any town, any place. It just feels so ambiguous. Arcadia is defined as poetic fantasy, represents pastoral paradise. Home of Pan. Crace's theme, according to Publisher’s Weekly, is the way cities corrupt men. And this by Library Journal; “More an extended prose poem than a novel, Arcadia reworks traditional pastoral imagery to subvert the dichotomy of town and country. Although countless passages of lush description beg to be read aloud, the overall effect of Crace's aggressive lyricism is somewhat numbing.”

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't own a copy of this, but it is one of those rare books whose memory continues to haunt me and that I should like to hunt down and reread at least partially one day.

[LeastTorque · Rating 5 out of 5]

How many of us have seen organic experiences commodified and ruined? Crace does a masterful job, with his usual excellent writing, of making the transition of a messy public space to a glitzy controlled one feel unbearably sad, while still leaving room for the vitality of cities to have value. And through Victor, he shows that we can’t go home again, especially to a home we never actually had. Over-idealizing is a common human flaw, as is over-sanitizing. And of course the sanitized and gentrified are inaccessible to the poor.

[Grada (BoekenTrol) · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that I liked a lot. It wasn't an easy read (whether that was because I hadn't read German for a long time or the style of writing, I don't know).
A book that was unlike any I read before, at least as far as I can remember. It contained an interesting story, that was well told.

[Jo Clemmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a few of his books now. Love his descriptions of place - puts you in his world effortlessly. His use of language is poetic. Lots of sentences which you read and then think, yes that is what it feels / looks / sounds like.

[Javier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro diferente, maravillosamente escrito, con algunos pasajes extraordinarios –el hombre gordo interrumpiendo la pelea con los billetes rasgados, los disturbios del final, o la insidiosa supervivencia de la vida de barrio, del bullente mercado callejero–. Sin embargo, el tono de fábula, la lejanía de los personajes, con los que es difícil identificarse, hace que no haya conectado con la historia.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing I like about Jim Crace is that no two books that he writes are alike so it’s always interesting to see what he’ll come up with. To date I’ve read three of his novels ; Being Dead (which I enjoyed) Quarantine ( I rate this one highly) and The Devil’s Larder ( mixed reactions) and now Arcadia.

At this point I’m finding it difficult to actually explain clearly what Arcadia is actually about. On the surface it’s about an 80-year-old millionaire, Victor , who wants to demolish a Market Place in order to build a mall (called Arcadia), albeit one that relies heavily on nature. As we delve further in the book we find out that Victor was born in the country and had to move to the city due to unfortunate circumstances. To add another plot we have Victor’s ex assistant, Rook, who is against Arcadia as it will create loss of jobs. As you can guess Arcadia does get the go ahead and with some unexpected results.

To confuse matters more this whole story is told through the eyes of a journalist who is sent to cover Victor’s death ten years later AND most of the time he uses a different writing style to document the whole story.

I have a feeling that Arcadia is open to many interpretations. From my point of view I saw it as man’s will to return to his roots, at least that’s what Victor represented. Rook represents man’s unwillingness to change. I also saw it as society’s need to evolve. Even as a small satire on the upper classes and the law.

This is definitely a novel that leaves one to reflect and debate. It also (to date) is THE Jim Crace novel to read if you want an introduction to his work.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read about Victor, an eighty year old millionaire who grew up from being a beggar in an old market place to being a very good businessman. He fortune began when he was left to himself as a boy under ten years old, selling produce in the marketplace. Well written, descriptive passages about the old marketplace versus the newer market places. Other characters include Rook, who was Victor's market manager, Anna, another employee of Victor's, Joseph, a young lout and Con, a marketeer who is dissatisfied with the market management. I particularly enjoyed the section on Victor's formative years.

[Sabine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ein ungewöhnliches Buch ist es auf jeden Fall. Crace war mir komplett unbekannt und ich bin nicht einmal mehr ganz sicher, wie dieses Buch überhaupt bei mir gelandet ist. Gefunden? Geschenkt bekommen? Es wäre auch fast schon einmal in einer Flohmarktkiste gelandet, hätte ich nicht zufällig entdeckt, dass es auf der Liste der 1001 besten Bücher steht und das hat mich dann doch neugierig gemacht, was Cover und Beschreibung auf dem Buchrücken sonst nicht geschafft hätten.

Die komplette Rezension findet ihr hier: http://bingereader.org/2015/03/14/arc...

[Conrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jim Crace never disappoints. In both 'Harvest' and 'Gift of Stones' he explores societal change and it's impact on the populace. In 'Arcadia', likewise, we see a societal change once more. A modern city (presumably somewhere in Europe - it is intentionally left vague) has an old central produce market in the heart of it. On the perimeter of it stands a high rise office tower owned by the man (Victor) who rose from very humble beginnings in the market to become the main power broker over it and over its destiny. As he turns 80 years old, he decides that the time is right for a new and better market in keeping with the growing prosperity of the city. He intends to plough his own fortune back into it, creating an edifice worthy of his memory. Problems arise when the local merchants (egged on by Victor's former right-hand man) get wind of the plan. Matters spiral out of control on the eve of the start of the new project. Ultimately, the story is an allegory about societal change and adaptation. It is brilliantly written with far too many quotable parts to even know where to begin. Crace's work has been favorably compared to William Golding and, like Golding's work, there are layers to this tale that make it such an interesting story.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to rate as the quality of prose is impressive and it was sn unusual story with potentially a great deal of interest. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half, where the stage was set, with an introduction to the ageing affluent self/made owner of the market and tales of his early life in a poor one-parent family. He made his way up through the ranks of the market traders and ultimately achieved great wealth. There is sadness too as he cuts a very solitary figure from the time he lost his mother at an early age. However the latter half failed to keep my interest for long and I found the end lacked impact.

[Liz Chapman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is quite a different book and I'm not sure what to say about it . It's about abject poverty an filthy rich , love and can't love , market v shopping mall youth v old age . There were some words in this book I had to look up in the dictionary! Don't get that often. The story started to draw me in and the Soap Market came alive like a film . Victor sat in his tower like a spider in its web in the corner of the ceiling.. The riot was vivid and by the end of the book I was totally drawn in. Perhaps I should give this book four stars but I didn't get an extra " wow that was good " after reading it .

[Magnus Stanke · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of Crace's weakest books in my opinion. Which isn't to say its expertedly written. His prose is at his most baroque, his stylised and dense. However the reader is kept at such a distance that we never really engage with the characters. The plotting is painfully slow and the story is practically about nothing is particular. Having read most of often Crace's dazzling novels I know he can do so much better.

[Marie (UK) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read and enjoyed several of this author's books. This one is not my favourite. Rook is Victor's right hand man but at Victor's 80th Birthday party his side line dealings with the stall holder's on Victor's markets comes to light. The remainder of the book sees Victor and Rook plotting each other's downfalls. Some of the narrative is strong and Pacy but there is a section on Victor's early life that feels drawn out - if not completely extraneous to requirements.

[Johanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crace is a cracking writer stylistically although he never produces characters I can wholly get to grips with. His pacing can be slow too. As with most of Crace's work, time and place are not obvious, it feels Italian / Mediterranean possibly 1930s or 50s in feel and culture. It is not a cheerful read the crushing of a people under controlling capitalism.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Jim Crace a great deal, and his Gift of Stones remains one of my favorite books. This is a long string of mellifluous prose about bucolic fruitselling. But it's excessive in that way that the Met or a renaissance palace is excessive. I recommend it only if you like Jim Crace and mellifluous descriptions of bucolic fruitselling.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my sort of book, but stunningly well written and crafted, by a skilful and dextrous author. My favourite scene was when the "fat man" ripped a 5,000 lira note in half to stop a fight. This was the best bit of writing I've ever read - it was like the whole world stopped for a moment when I read that page.

[Miss H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love everything by Jim Crace and this was no exception. Whilst not as fantastic as Harvest, Being Dead or The Pesthouse, this was nevertheless engrossing and fantastically written. He creates a word so easily.

[Brian Delaney · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Jim Crace and I love the worlds and the characters he creates, including the ones here. But really, it was just too long. Too many long descriptive paragraphs and I was impatient for action and plot development.

It won't stop me reading more of his work though.

[Susanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/6 points, a lot of fruit & vegetable in this novel, but its meaning…?

[Manicus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true wordsmith... It is a story told by an outsider. So, we watch from a distance. But still, we feel part of it all...

[Jason Galt · Rating 2 out of 5]

The vivid writing style of Crace somehow turns stale in this novels with thoroughly dislikable characters and an uninteresting and predictable storyline.

[Savage · Rating 1 out of 5]

whoever let this book get published needs to be tried for manslaughter

[Agustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just beautiful writing.