As England became a more mercantile country, expanding its empire and accelerating towards industrialisation, there emerged among the landed gentry of the 16th and 17th centuries the concept of Arcadia. Arcadia – or Arcady – was an opulent and harmonious pastoral vision that was made real through landscaping and remodelling and was driven by wealth, imagination, folly and indulgence. Arcadia belonged to the winners. It also spawned the Russian name Arkady.
It’s an interesting choice of title for Patrick Langley’s debut novel, which follows two brothers, the paternal and pragmatic Jackson and the more outgoing and creative Frank, as they navigate a rapidly disintegrating world. Their journey is perhaps more correctly described as a dérive, which Guy Debord defined as “rapid passage through varied ambiances”. It takes them from young boys and the sudden disappearance and probable death of their mother while at a European holiday resort, to surviving the modern city as orphans, and then on to a makeshift squat community called The Citadel, built on land belonging to crooked billionaires and exiled oligarchs.
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