Selected Book
Arthur & George
- Paperback
- Author: Julian Barnes
- Publisher: Vintage
- Release Date: January 2007
- ISBN-10: 1400097037
- ISBN-13: 9781400097036
- List Price: $14.95
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
SummaryA real tour de force from masterful author Julian Barnes is Arthur & George, which was short-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. Late-Victorian Britain is brought to vivid life in the true story of the intersection of two lives: one an internationally famous author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the other, an obscure country lawyer, George Edalji, son of a Parsi Midlands vicar and a Scottish mother. They start out very differently. Arthur pursues a career in medicine before he discovers that he is really a writer; George, on his way to becoming a lawyer--near-sighted, timid and friendless--is victimized by locals because he is easy to scapegoat--a half-Indian in lily-white Great Wyrley. The victimization of George takes the form of nasty letters, the theft of a school key, and finally, the accusation that he has mutilated animals. Meanwhile, Arthur is becoming more and more famous for creating Sherlock Holmes, whom he tries to kill off once and is forced to resurrect because of his fans' outcry. He marries, fathers two children and then, when his wife is invalided by consumption, falls madly in love for the first time with Jean Leckie. The novel's style is smoothly revelatory. We slowly come to realize that George is half-Indian, that Arthur is the famous Doyle, that the woman he loves, chastely, is not his wife and, sadly, that George will not prevail over the forces ranged against him. When George, desperate to resume his law career after imprisonment, sends Arthur the sad chronicle of his history, Arthur sees immediately that he could not be guilty and sets out to clear his name. This case of George's lifts Arthur from the slough of despond into which he has sunk after his wife, Touie, dies. He is guilt-ridden, constantly wondering if he was attentive enough, if she could possibly have known about Jean. Realizing the immense injustice George has suffered, he is shaken out of lethargy and, in Holmesian fashion, sets out to solve the case. Julian Barnes is a gifted writer of enormous accomplishment. This novel is thoroughly engrossing, filled with Barnes's trademark themes of identity and love, longing and loss, and ultimately, an examination of man's inhumanity to man. --Valerie Ryan |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Guilty until proven innocent?
Rating: 
This fictionalized account of two historical figures is especially intriguing because of the extraordinary criminal case that made their lives interconnect and that, despite being mostly forgotten since, contributed to an important change in English law. With great skill and some empathy, Barnes creates not only believable in-depth portraits of two such diametrically different characters, he also brings out the complexity of English society at the turn of the twentieth century. Arthur takes on the case he believes to be a blatant example of "miscarriage of justice" with George as the innocent victim.
Both protagonists are introduced through their dissimilar family backgrounds and upbringing. Barnes places great emphasis on illustrating how the divergent socio-cultural environments formed the two individuals early on and set them on such different paths: Arthur develops into a popular, wealthy and worldly gent, who copes in private with his secret demons. He has remained famous beyond his own lifetime. Whereas George, despite (or because of) the support of his (over?)caring family, his intellect and diligent study, never really made it in society. He is hardly known outside a small circle of insiders and legal experts.
Following their story chronologically, Barnes presents the two narrative streams in parallel, until they merge when circumstances demand it. Giving anything more away of the personalities, even their last names, or the plotline, as many have done, is a disadvantage and diminishes the pleasure of following the step by step revelation of characters, context and events. Numerous clues are suggested, hints given, but they could also be false leads, just as they must have happened in the actual criminal proceedings. This section of the novel is the most gripping and convincing.
While the author evidently researched the characters, the specific circumstances and the wider background in great depth, one wonders at times about the line between fact and fiction. This applies in particular to the depiction of some of Arthur's character traits, such as, for example, his relationship to the strong women in his life, in contrast to his fervent objection to the women's vote and their active participation in public life. At times in the middle section, Barnes's detailed portrayal of Arthur comes across as a bit too long winded and drawn out, without adding much to our deeper understanding, but letting the attention drift, only to pick up again as the action moves forward. George's portrayal is more succinct and successful in my view. His characterization appears to be more convincing and while he may have had some unusual behaviour patterns they appear to be consistent with his actions in the case and its aftermaths.
What may have been the novel's primary objective for Barnes? Possibly the miscarriage of justice case that contributed to changing the criminal appeal system in England? Was it also to depict a society at the turn of the twentieth century with some of its blatant societal prejudices and how they blinded the course of justice? This wider context in particular, gives the novel depth and importance beyond the sheer entertainment value of a real-life detective drama. Without doubt, George's case, more or less forgotten since that time, deserved to be re-told and re-evaluated; Barnes did it brilliantly. [Friederike Knabe]
Seeing the Truth
Rating:
Arthur and George is a wondrously reimagined tale based on the the skeleton outline of the true case of the 'action hero' - sportsman, doctor, author and campaigner - Arthur Conan Doyle and the careful analyst - George Edalji, a parson's son of half Indian descent. Through the paradigm of this story, Julian Barnes explores the social history of the United Kingdom, and particularly Victorian England, at the turn of the last century.
Humanity at its height of sophistication
Rating:
Each sentence is laden with zesty flavors and sympathetic observations that have universal appeal. I must concede as an earthling, we are all in some way products of Aryan migration, Mongolian invasion and the original African Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eve.
Elemental, mi querido George.-
Rating:
Mientras esperamos que llegue a tierras americanas la última novela de Julian Barnes llamada "Nothing to be Frightened of", una excelente manera de comenzar la vigilia es disfrutando de "Arthur & George" (2005) del mismo autor, a quien tuvimos la suerte de tener por nuestras tierras en el verano recién pasado dando claras muestras no sólo de su calidad como escritor, sino sobre todo de su buen humor.
La edición leída es la que nos entrega Anagrama en su Panorama Narrativas con sus habituales aspectos destacados: el clásico y elegante amarillo pálido continente de la obra y la agradable letra y compaginación de los textos y, como contrapartida, su principal y desagradable punto en contra: la excesiva españolización de sus traducciones.
Entrando ya en la historia, nos encontramos a comienzos del siglo veinte en la localidad de Great Wyrley, pueblo rural cercano a la ciudad de Birmingham, Inglaterra. Ahí vive la familia Edalji; Shapurji es el padre y Charlotte, la madre. Él es un parsi que se convirtió al anglicanismo y no sólo se quedó en ello, sino que llegó a ser párroco del pueblo. Ella es escocesa, de Edimburgo. El primogénito es George, un mestizo de color que se siente profundamente inglés y tiene tantos problemas de timidez como de vista. Será abogado. De él trata principalmente la historia. También se hablará de Horace y Maud, hermano y hermana respectivamente.
"Irlandés de ascendencia, escocés de nacimiento, educado en la fe de Roma por jesuitas holandeses, Arthur se convirtió en inglés". Él será médico de la Universidad de Edimburgo; se especializará en oftalmología y se dedicará a escribir. De Arthur (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) también trata principalmente este libro.
"Arthur & George" es una novela que podríamos llamar jurídica; hay cartas anónimas amenazantes y obscenas por un lado y animales mutilados por el otro; el pueblo se conmueve y alguien tiene que pagar por ello. Así, es gracias a la (in)justicia de una acusación, un juicio y una condena que los destinos de personas tan disímiles convergen. Una víctima y un héroe que tratarán de reestablecer el imperio de lo justo, una justicia que no se hace explícita sólo en un juicio: eso sería lo obvio, lo fácil. El trabajo de Barnes es mostrar la justicia de manera más sutil, desde la forma narrativa, contraponiendo los personajes -una bilateralidad de la audiencia ejemplar diríamos quienes estamos familiarizados al Derecho y las leyes- hasta el cuestionamiento sobre preguntas fundamentales tales como raza y racismo e (in)necesidad de la religión y de una vida más allá de la muerte, planteando respuestas antagónicas para cada una de ellas.
La contraposición, tanto en la forma como en lo sustantivo, se transforma en un antecedente estructural y dinámico de una lectura trepidante. En Arthur todo es explícito, desde el deporte hasta su vida afectiva y, en cambio, en George y su entorno se ve claramente la "Teoría del Iceberg" que Vila-Matas nos enseña en "París no se acaba nunca" hablando de su añorado Hemingway: lo importante, la gran masa de hielo, es lo que no se ve, lo que está bajo el agua. Lo no dicho de George es tanto o más que lo dicho de Arthur, y he ahí uno de los mayores atractivos de esta novela: su capacidad de interpelar al lector constantemente. Más de quinientas páginas para dejar más preguntas que respuestas; una delicia.
Cerrando esta reseña, sólo un par de cosas a modo de comentario. En primer lugar, decir que "Arthur & George" no es sólo una novela, sino también un trabajo de investigación sumamente profesional. La ficción se enlaza con los hechos históricos y ello entrega un ambiente de veracidad a la historia que asombra y además entretiene. En segundo lugar y final, cuesta encontrarle puntos bajos a esta novela que merezcan ser mencionados aquí; espero que este hecho -la regularidad en un alto nivel de esta novela- sea un aliciente para quienes se entusiasmen con la lectura; creo firmemente que será una gran inversión.
an eloquent turn of phrase and a gripping story
Rating:
This was my first Julian Barnes book so I didn't know what to expect. What I did not expect was to be continually stopped by a sentence, so well phrased, that I had to go back and read it over and over, to savor the pleasure of how Barnes strings words together. Here's an example, from the beginning, the fourth sentence in, describing a curious child: "He did this with nothing that could be called a purpose, merely the instinctive tourism of infancy". Who but Barnes would ever consider linking "tourism" with "instinctive" and all of it as describes an "infant"? Yet it is an absolutely perfect description of childhood discovery.
And then there is the story, which does not disappoint. It starts out slow and informative, picks up speed and becomes more interesting, lags a little in the middle, as characters are filled out, and then it really takes hold, difficult to put down until all is revealed.
And the brilliant approach. I have read about how creatively Barnes plays with the form of the novel - writing novel novels! I can't compare to his previous books, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one, with one chapter named "George" the next "Arthur" eventually followed by "Arthur and George" or "George and Arthur" and an occasional "Campbell" or "Anson". No chapter numbers, just a book in four parts, also cleverly named: "Beginnings" "Beginning With an Ending" then "Ending With a Beginning" and finally, "Endings". Just wonderful througout.
I love this book, and I am very much looking forward to reading it again one day.
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