Lauren Groff
Where Have All The Hippies
Gone?
I have perceiv’d
that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company
with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by
beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh
is enough,
is enough,
To pass among them
or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so
lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this
then?
lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this
then?
I do not ask any
more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
Walt Whitman, from “I
Sing the Body Electric”
I feel certain that Walt Whitman would have
given his famous line, “I SING the body electric,” to Lauren Groff to use as
the title of this book for absolutely nothing, and would have reveled and
rolled around in the superbly sensuous life of her characters. You could
describe Whitman, with his wandering and wonder, as the archetypal hippie
traveling the roads of America looking for community. This enchanting novel of
the hippie commune of Arcadia would have surely entrapped him. It certainly
entrapped me!
Arcadia is both a mountainous region of ancient
Greece and also a real or imaginary place offering peace and simplicity—a
perfect name for a commune. This is where our main character, Bit, is born. His
parents are, on the surface, archetypal hippies. His mother Hannah, in my mind,
looks and feels like Joni Mitchell; his father Abe, like Abbie Hoffman. A
father of one of this small band of peace-loving and dope-smoking citizens
gifts the group with 600 acres and a rundown mansion in upstate New York. He
only wanted contact with his son and figured that the only way he would get it
would be through giving. This rings so completely true, as many of the dropouts
of the ’60s really did jettison their wealthy parents and stomp on them pretty
hard.
But there is trouble in paradise right from the
very beginning. There is more than one alpha male and you know what that means—escalation
of plot. Handy, the guru of the group, is a musician and spiritual head of the
commune. When he and a few of his groupies have to go on tour for a few months,
Abe, obviously the most intellectual and philosophical, decides that the
mansion must be repaired so that the commune can have a roof over its
collective head. He is a brilliant leader and the hive hums while Handy is
away. The mansion is converted and of course when Handy returns he is
threatened and so the tension begins. Over the years the commune grows from a
mere 60 soy-loving folks to over 2000. You can imagine what kind of struggles
constantly unfold.
Groff tells the story through the eyes of Bit,
who doesn't leave the commune at all until he is in his late teens. Bit is slow
to speak but he has other channels open. His companions are light and trees and
sound and bodies. Groff often bends language like light going through a prism.
Sometimes it doesn't make immediate literal sense but the effect is gorgeous
and memorable:
Time comes to him one morning, steering in. One
moment he is looking at the lion puppet on his hand that he's flapping about to
amuse Eden's russet potato of a baby, and the next he understands something he
never knew to question. He sees it clearly, now, how time is flexible, a rubber
band. It can stretch long and be clumped tight, can be knotted and folded over
itself, and all the while it is endless, a loop.
I actually felt like I was in a loop while
reading Arcadia—a loop of Whitman and Groff, hippies and the earth. Although
the characters endured much sadness and many challenges, I almost felt like I
was in a state of grace while reading. I did not ask any more delight—I swam in
it, as in a sea.
- Barb Minett
