Every page I turn to of "In Arcadia" justifies my decision to spare myself a close reading of the last 160 pages. All of my forays into the later parts and books and chapters lead me smack into the exhausting, uninvested, list-making and cranky ranting that this too self-involved novel obsessively churns out.

Okri can't seem to tell a story anymore--his threadbare shrug towards narrative is only a convenient vehicle for his reflections on modern life, on meaning, on art, on film--anything mentioned in the text is then discoursed upon, tiresomely or sometimes with anger that is neither sharp nor important.

What is this staccato rubbish: "Strangest creature I ever saw. Don’t quite know how to describe her. Small, wiry, full of a mad quirrel-like ampheteamine-driven panic-charged vaguely neurotic energy. Nice eyes. I hate to admit it, but nice eyes. I like them. I adore them. Charming, sweet, pretty eyes. Can’t make out how a weirdo gets to have such nice eyes."

What sort of hip, chatty tone is Okri hoping to approximate? Is it supposed to soften us up for passages like:

"They gained in menace, in untrustworthiness, in depth. These were thorough failures, desperate media people, haunted by the marvelous and crushing contempt that the great goddess of fame had heaped on them, haunted by their complete inability to make any sort of mark on the vile fabric of their age. They were, therefore, willing accomplices of the corporation of the devil, desperadoes of fame and urban fortune. I had no reason to think them incapable of anything." Or . . .

"Jim sensed their journey was an arcane voyage, the interviewsw and places forming an inner script, a sacred script even. He felt that they were all unwitting parts of a sublime riddle, a mystican conundrum, a travelling cryptograph."?

The novel changes its narrative perspective and form and still manages not to evolve: "I live in a permanent existential condition: most things conspire to deny me existence and historical validity. Sometimes I wonder if I exist or whether I am not an invention, a nightmare invention, a regrettable invention, in the mind of society . . . Don’t dehumanize me or insult my intelligence by trying to make up for the vile invisible laws that try to fuck up my pleasant existence."

"Death spoke from the design, from the attempt to create Acrcadia according to one’s image and command. Death spoke through the geometry of it. Death spoke through the excess of symbolism. Death spoke through the labyrinths. Death spoke through the mathematics."

It's sad that Okri's fiction has become an overwritten, underproven, conceptual pageantry. There's not a lick of authenticity anywhere. I think it may be time for me to give up on this man. ( )

A novel with a message. Ben Okri takes the reader on a journey, with an odd group of colleagues filming a trip to Arcadia. The characters are nervous and unsettled by various events and the main character Lao observes and makes his own inner journey to discovering the meaning of life. The book ends with a conclusion that life is for living and we get out of it what we choose. The actual journey to Arcadia continues after the end of the book. There are many fantasy and dream passages as he trips in and out of reality. A short novel that should have been uplifting and fulfilling, but somehow wasn't for me at this time. ( )