I think I’m going to have to file this one away on the “admired but unloved” shelf. It was definitely an interesting read because whether you like Fates And Furies or not, you can’t deny that Groff is a great writer doing some innovative things with structure. She was clearly very influenced by the theatre, especially old school tragedy. I think for this story to truly resonate, you need to have been married. It just didn’t hit me emotionally, but I think it might have […]
Reads like a pipe dream
This may seem like a weird connection to make because of their very different background settings, but I feel like if you liked the movie Boyhood, you would like the novel Arcadia. Both stories have a very loose story structure surrounding the coming of age of a boy, and both prefer to offer seemingly random glimpses of moments, most rather innocuous, rather than focus on the most dramatic possible events in life. As such, depending on your attention span and personal preferences, some might see […]
On monsters, ghosts, and personal demons…
There is a haunted house and ghosts, but this isn’t a ghost story. There is a lake monster, but this isn’t a horror story. And there is an illicit affair, but this isn’t a love story. The Monsters of Templeton is Lauren’s Groff’s freshman novel, a story about cause and effect. It is about actions and reactions, and the constants in our lives we think we have, and others we don’t even realize are there. The Monsters of Templeton begins with Willie, a post-grad who […]
Not All Monsters Are Bad
I’ve been hearing about Lauren Groff’s Arcadia, and my friend S recommended her first novel, The Monsters of Templeton, to me. I thought I’d give it a try. Oh, man. So, so good. In the author’s note, Groff mentions that she was trying to write about Cooperstown, NY, where she grew up. She did–sort of–by weaving in characters from James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales and drawing on his novelistic concepts. While I have not read Cooper’s works, apart from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” I […]