Arcadie

The Publisher Says: An English-language debut that reveals and subverts contemporary conceptions of normative sexuality, capitalist culture, and environmental degradation.

Winner, Prix du Livre Inter, 2019

Farah moves into Liberty House–an arcadia, a community in harmony with nature–at the tender age of six, with her family. The commune’s spiritual leader, Arcady, preaches equality, non-violence, anti-speciesism, free love, and uninhibited desire for all, regardless of gender, age, looks, or ability. On her fifteenth birthday, Farah learns she is intersex, and begins to question the confines of gender, and the hypocritical principles those within and outside the confraternity live by. What, Farah asks, is a man or a woman? What is show more it to be part of a community? What is the endgame for a utopia that exists alongside refugees seeking shelter by the millions and in a society moving ever farther away from nature and its protections. As Liberty House devolves into a dystopia amidst charges of sexual abuse, it starts to look a lot like the larger world, confused in its fears and selfish hedonism.

Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam delivers a magisterial novel, a scathing critique of innocence in the contemporary world.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Really, really squicked out by what I see as a borderline-coercive sexual relationship between a fifteen-year-old who's just discovered they're intersex and the much-older leader of the cult that they and their family now belong to. I took a long break from the read because I was not sure I wanted to finish this entire story. It brought up my mother's sexually abusive power-plays against me. That was not comfortable at all.

So I'm unusually alert to sexual undertones in relationships between kids and adults. I felt Arcady, the cult/commune leader, was less grooming Farah than responding to Farah's burgeoning sense of themself as a sexual, intersex person. While that doesn't lessen my personal discomfort with Arcady's power imbalance with Farah, it does show that Author Bayamack-Tam possesses a clear sense of the need to keep the power dynamic in balance. Add to that Farah's rare and possibly genetically-heritable anatomical anomaly resulting in an indeterminate sex and gender presentation.

Prime candidate for a charismatic cult leader's sexual manipulation. Which, it must be said, is present; but the clear and repeated caveat from older Arcady is that they reach maturity before he will sexually engage with them. Farah, quite understandably, is not willing to wait some indeterminate amount of time for someone not her to decide they're capable of offering informed consent and, mirabile dictu, pushes the schedule to meet their burgeoning sexual desires.

Totally understand that. But great-grandfather does not think with a teen's hormones, and holds Arcady to a higher standard. But anyway, this was not anything Farah regrets or has doubts about; and again, the stage was set for this to be as unrevolting as possible because we know what Farah is thinking and feeling.

I've gone on about the subject and left out the nudist free-spirit grandmother, the cypher parents who really are affectless, the communards whose existence is merely suggested not explored in even the slightest depth...in general, this is a decent novel by a hippie-wannabe, a French-lady Brautigan, with an agenda and an axe being ground noisily in the background. Also a fun story to read. show less

Un roman bousculant, parfois dérangeant, qui aborde les notions de liberté, d'amour libre, de quête de soi dans un lieu à part, celui d'une communauté libertaire, le domaine de Liberty House, au sein de laquelle les parents de la jeune adolescente Farah décident se s'installer car elle est dans une zone blanche qui convient parfaitement à sa mère, hyperélectrosensible. Toute technologie de communication y est bannie. Ce lieu est surtout un repaire pour freaks en tous genre. Le père de Farah, surnommé Marqui, et son extravagante grand-mère naturiste Kirsten, sont de la partie. Une fois sur place, les adultes sont comme de grands enfants, totalement détachés de toute responsabilité vis-à-vis de de Farah. Dans ce lieu, show more c'est la liberté totale, le royaume de l'amour libre, de toutes les expériences sexuelles, tout pour que chacun s'épanouisse comme il l'entend. Et c'est une sorte de gourou, Arcady, qui règne sur tout se petit monde, qui va initier Farah aux joies du sexe et de l'amour, pour ensuite s'en désintéresser totalement pour tomber dans le bras d'un homme. La jeune Farah tente deséspérément de trouver sa voie dans tout cet univers foutraque, souffre, s'isole, est rejetée, vit son physique ingras et viril comme un poids et une épreuve de plus pour savoir qui elle est vraiment, à quel genre elle appartient.
Dans cet univers totalement à la marge débarque soudainement un migrant sans papier qui arrive d'Erythrée, qui va bousculer cette communauté somme toute assez paisible et coupée du monde.
Un roman très original, parfois très (trop) cru, qui traite des utopies tout en collant également aux questions contemporaines. show less