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A review by mkhare
Arcadia by Iain Pears
3.0
3.5 stars? I thoroughly enjoyed the first third of this book and let the flow of the stories (with their hint of mysteries and gentle, dry humour) carry me along.
I hit a snag in the middle third however, and found myself quite disinterested in what was happening in Anterworld, what Jack was doing, and the developing spy investigations. During this portion, I really had to force myself to continue reading. I also struggled with Rosie’s overly-competent characterisation throughout, but that is most likely just a 'me problem'.
Things did pick up and come together in the final third but I found myself generally underwhelmed overall. I think it ties in with the overall ‘circular’ nature of the book where the concepts of past and future, prophets and The Story make everything feel a bit inevitable in the end. The constant jumping between character/time/place also made it hard to feel much worry or tension. (I know there is an app that can be used to read the book a different way but it sadly unavailable to me.)
The writing was also quite sparse in its descriptions in a way that I often lost track of what was happening, most likely made worse by my wavering focus in the middle portion. For example, there is a section where Jay is brought to a tent to see Parmarchon who immediately says 'Leave us'. I was initially confused about who he was talking to as the text doesn't make a point of highlighting the fact that another person/people accompanied Jay, only that he was 'brought'. Yes, obviously someone had to do the bringing and this is quite a basic concept, but there were multiple instances like this were I had to stop reading and re-imagine the situation to try and understand what the text was trying to describe to me. Maybe this is just highlighting how much I struggled to properly sink into the book.
I hit a snag in the middle third however, and found myself quite disinterested in what was happening in Anterworld, what Jack was doing, and the developing spy investigations. During this portion, I really had to force myself to continue reading. I also struggled with Rosie’s overly-competent characterisation throughout, but that is most likely just a 'me problem'.
Things did pick up and come together in the final third but I found myself generally underwhelmed overall. I think it ties in with the overall ‘circular’ nature of the book where the concepts of past and future, prophets and The Story make everything feel a bit inevitable in the end. The constant jumping between character/time/place also made it hard to feel much worry or tension. (I know there is an app that can be used to read the book a different way but it sadly unavailable to me.)
The writing was also quite sparse in its descriptions in a way that I often lost track of what was happening, most likely made worse by my wavering focus in the middle portion. For example, there is a section where Jay is brought to a tent to see Parmarchon who immediately says 'Leave us'. I was initially confused about who he was talking to as the text doesn't make a point of highlighting the fact that another person/people accompanied Jay, only that he was 'brought'. Yes, obviously someone had to do the bringing and this is quite a basic concept, but there were multiple instances like this were I had to stop reading and re-imagine the situation to try and understand what the text was trying to describe to me. Maybe this is just highlighting how much I struggled to properly sink into the book.