Arcadia

This book, I should start by saying, is a play by Tom Stoppard and has nothing to do with Guillermo del Toro's ongoing Netflix entanglements.* Much like the other play of his I've posted about before, this seems to be relatively minimal in terms of story, instead weaving another deft web of surmised interconnections and/or freshly-dug-up intellectual treasure in its intricate dialogue, which truly does throw you headfirst into these characters' world.

   To give you a taster without giving away any spoilers... well, first off I mean obviously go and see this live in a theatre if you ever get the chance! But onwards: we fluctuate between two time periods, the early 19th century and late 20th, with the constants between these being a library and concordant desk within which most of the action takes place. The action being, of course, one Bernard turning up at the stately home with the express intent of uncovering a historical long-buried plot involving trauma, shame, Lord Byron, and the quest for a mathematical theory capable of unfurling such meta-complexity within its parameters that the future's events can be ascertained through proper examination of events through this formula; long-dead and scarcely-known poet Chater and academic Hodge are responsible for nurturing this mathematical golem into life with the genius insights of young Thomasina, while in the deep future of the play, garden historian Hannah unpicks enough threads to shed light on the whole damn mix of stuff and ruins Bernard's project by pipping him to the post of truth. We by the curtain-fall are brought to the realisation that Newtonian physics is missing something of immense import to anthropocentric metaphysics: that is, the laws of sexual attraction, the missing piece of the Grand Formula's puzzle.

   If none of that makes sense then you might not get the play. But you'd probably enjoy it - as with Stoppard's other work that I've read, while there is an enormous amount of intellectual subtextual weight being lifted by almost every line uttered herein the speech itself flows with a naturalistic poise that muffles that otherwise-pretentious sheen on everything and brings you face to face with these intrepid bookish characters, for better or worse...

* Seriously, if you haven't seen or read Trollhunters, Wizards or 3 Below - get on that shit right now. It's kid-friendly epic fantasy for the 21st century done far more properly than properly even knows.